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CDN Forces Reactor Online Against Safety Regulations
Socguy writes "The Canadian government has passed legislation that will reopen an Ontario nuclear reactor that produces most of the world's supply of critical medical isotopes, even though the site has been shut down for safety maintenance. Witnesses and experts were called in to the House to face questions about safety concerns and all parties eventually voiced support for the bill, which would effectively suspend CNSC's oversight role for 120 days. The Chalk River reactor ceased operating on Nov. 18. Pressure on the government to restart operations began to build after delays in the shutdown of the government-run site, which generates two-thirds of the world's radioisotopes, began to cause a critical shortage of radioisotopes."
...why they couldn't have stockpiled their products before the shutdown, but then realized that the half-lives for the sort of thing they're offering are probably measured in days or hours, right?
... how many people were abso-freaking-lutely SHOCKED to learn that there was no "backup"? There's a WTF if there ever was one.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Even if nothing goes wrong, they've set a dangerous precedent of basically telling their watchdog group "Well, we'll let you do your thing, but even though we know little about the engineering behind a reactor, we are also going to basically feel free to disregard you and tell you to suck it if we don't like what you say."
A spectacular idea. Why aren't we, maybe, wondering how we ended up with only ONE reactor that can produce this stuff in the first place?
If firefighters fight fire, and crimefighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight? - George Carlin
I've done a lot of work out at chalk river with neutron diffraction, and talking to some of the people there apparently a lot of the "issues" are petty little things like signage for hot pipes, etc. The largest issue is back up generators for 2 key pumps, but in reality there are back up pumps with seperate power supplies that could take over in a worst case senario (not likely though). It all appears to be political gesturing as usual but unfortunately this time peoples lives are truly at stake. But then again considering the previous actions of the liberal party i'm truly not that suprised, just saddened that a grab for political power is so negatively affecting peoples lives world wide
drunk chemists
This isn't business taking priority to safety. This is the old demographic overruling the young demographic.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Did you even read the article? The isotopes this reactor produces are for medical purposes.
FTA
Doctors around the world depend on the nuclear material for life-saving diagnostic scans, and imaging for fractures, cancers and heart conditions.
Further, the reactor is owned by Canada, the country. It is not an independent business. Everything you've just said is complete anti-business bullshit.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
This is a small reactor (ie, not a power reactor), way the hell in the middle of nowhere north of Ottawa. It's upstream from Camp Petawawa (large and mostly empty Cdn Forces base), which itself is way out in the boonies.
And no, this isn't capable of "spectacular" failure for most values of spectacular.
-- Alastair
you rush her into the car, strap on the seatbelt, and start heading towards the hospital. on the way there, the "check engine" maintenance light comes on
do you:
1. stop the car, and call for an ambulance
2. drive on, ignoring the light
i think we all know what the obvious answer is
folks: people could die without these radioisotopes. additionally, the safety issue is probably something extremely circumspect
please, no more scolding lectures about safety first, the canadian government did the right thing
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Then someone asked the question : why don't they make a four-month-reserve?
The answer IS 42.
12.12.2007
Green Party demands inquiry into AECL negligence
OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper should save taxpayers money on the Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry and instead perform a useful inquiry, says the Green Party. The party is calling for a full inquiry into the behaviour of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., focusing on safety concerns arising from AECL's severe lack of accountability, its repeated failures to comply with instructions from its regulator, radioactive dumping practices and other environmental transgressions along with the recent incident at Chalk River, where AECL ignored licensing conditions.
"It is apparent that AECL has become a rogue force and pays no heed to safety instructions from its regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). Mr. Harper must look into this serious situation at once to gain control over AECL," said Green Party leader Elizabeth May. "We urgently need answers. Why was AECL operating the NRU reactor in violation of its license and why did the Harper government allow this to happen?"
The CNSC ordered the installation of a backup power supply system at the Chalk River reactor as a crucial safeguard, yet AECL operated the reactor without the backup system until it was caught red handed last month.
"Canadians also deserve to know why the government was unprepared for the shortage of medical radioisotopes when the Chalk River facility was shut down for routine maintenance. The government saw this coming from a mile away, so why did the Harper government fail to source the isotopes from other reactors? Why is he only now scrambling to do something about the situation? How is it that AECL is years behind schedule and at least $160 million over budget on bringing online the two Maple reactors which could have prevented this shortage?"
Ms. May said the inquiry should also investigate AECL's former practice of dumping thousands of litres of radioactive waste into Chalk River daily.
"We know that AECL continued to dump up to 4,000 litres of radioactive waste a day into Chalk River despite repeated commitments to stop. Furthermore, does AECL have a plan for the decontamination of Chalk River? We demand to know how AECL was allowed to get away with dumping radioactive contaminants into the river and what have been taken to clean up this mess."
In 2003, AECL told the CNSC that the cost of a clean up would be at least $2 billion.
"For too long, the AECL has been permitted to operate as it pleases - defying orders from its regulator, keeping its practices secret and avoiding accountability. Mr. Harper must rein in this rogue force for the safety of all Canadians."
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
...especially when the reactor is not near me.
Personally, I have to agree with the forced reopening of the reactor. It sounds terrifying, and it's a disgrace that we're in this situation, but the risk is very minimal. The story has been playing in the media here in Canada for a few days now.
This is not a large-scale power generating reactor. It's a relatively small "research" reactor and it is more or less middle of nowhere.
From what I recall from the news stories, the current hold up is the backup power to the second pump is offline. The backup power to the first pump is online, and only one pump needs to be operating at any one time. The truly disgraceful thing is that the plant has been improperly operating without any proper backup power lines for months and months. The current unexpectedly long shut-down occurred because the improper backup systems were discovered by the regulators during a shorter planned down time.
On the flip side, critical medical scans are being canceled by the thousands across North and South America. You can't point at any specific case, but given the large number of procedures being delayed, I'd bet that someone out there is going to die on a daily basis because a scan is postponed.
Observe the current quote at the bottom of the page:
"Real Men don't make backups. They upload it via ftp and let the world mirror it. -- Linus Torvalds"
Unfortunately, this doesn't work for generators, nor does it for reactors.
"There are four boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order." - Ed Howdershelt
Maybe the plan is to deal with the isotope shortage by putting isotopes EVERYWHERE ...
About 16 yrs ago I was a younger physicist looking for work. I found a job conducting/directing neutron activations at a reactor making medical materials, testing samples at a major facility. Measured 92 of the elements, even down to ppb. (Needed x-ray facilities for more, across town...) We generated the second-highest amount of low-level waste in my state. My job was to bag-and-tag all the isotopic waste, too.
My boss tried to get me to dump it all into the dumpster, so he could pocket the ~$75000US instead. One day, walking through the adjacent building, a safety guy from the NRC cornered me and asked who's side I'd be on when called to testify: "Put me on the top of the list"! I said. Meaning, in no unslashdotted terms, I'd serve up the sob. Funny but I had to stand in for him to teach the nu-cu-lar safety class he was supposed to have instructed.
Gotta love it, behind door number 1:
Leave the reactor closed, definitely kill people.
Behind door number 2: Violate safety regs on a reactor, possibly kill people.
Politics is definitely a game more fun to play from the bleachers. For what it's worth, I live in the country and I agree this is the best of a bad situation.
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
Completely missing the point.
If you were to consider total medical isotopes by the kilo then true, chalk river is a small player, which is sort of like considering the total amount of fossil fuels used in the world when half the worlds oil production has stopped for 4 months.
If you look at Tc99 production worldwide (in terms of the commericalized amounts) chalk river is somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3rds of production. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less depending on who you ask.
Any sort of functional imaging probably involves Tc99, blood pool organ imaging etc... There are lots of reasons why Tc99 is the choice, but in short, that's what we use, so that's what detectors are designed for so changing to something else is impractical.
The isopotes produced in 'hot labs' at cancer centers etc... are for different kinds of imaging (e.g. PET scans). These can still be done of course, but they aren't the same kind of imaging as Tc99 tends to provide.
In short, yes, they load it on planes and fly it all over north america and Asia, from chalk river.
folks: people could die without these radioisotopes
And people could die in a nuclear accident.
i think we all know what the obvious answer is
That's because you're no worse off calling the ambulance from your broken down car on the highway as you would be from home.
please, no more scolding lectures about safety first, the canadian government did the right thing
No, they did not, because this action will make it even harder to convince communities to permit nuclear facilities to be located near them.
Well, first the TWO working pumps have to fail, and then the backup has to fail, and by that time I would think they'd shut down the reactor.
As it is, it's working fine, and a pump is not a thin red line separating "life goes on" and "catastrophe"--this isn't even a big power reactor.
If both of the main pumps were to go offline, it would be a bad call not to shut down the reactor at that point, but even if they waited for the backup to fail (three pump failures in a row? What are the odds?), it's still possible for them to shut down the reactor and do a controlled release within safety limits if necessary. Hardly the end of the world, or even a town.
According to yesterday's interview on CBC's As It Happens, its not the world's supply, but rather the North American supply. In the past when the reactor has been down, the company that supplies the isotopes (Atomic Energy Canada Ltd runs the place, but another company produces the isotopes) buys isotopes from reactors in australia, south africa or Europe (holand I think). Its just this time they decide to make it a big issue. (so they don't have to pay for the isotopes). The interview in question is, I think, in part two of the broadcast... see: http://www.cbc.ca/radioshows/AS_IT_HAPPENS/20071212.shtml The segment is: "ISOTOPES: KUPERMAN"
we do (the Petten reactor in the Netherlands and the OPAL in Australia), but these things are relatively expensive to build and run, as they don't produce power. beyond isotopes and some heavy water, these things are for nuclear physics experiments, so these things have very low return on investment and thus most aren't real interested in building/running them.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Let's take a look at the advertising from the company that actually sells the medical isotopes made at Chalk River:
MDS Nordion is the global leader in the supply and distribution of short-lived medical isotopes. It's what sets us apart.
There's a "Molybdenum-99 Shortage Resource Center" page which has more useful background on the subject. There are about five places in the world that make this stuff, and not much excess capacity.
The U.S. Department of Energy started a project in 1995 to convert a research reactor at Sandia to medical isotope production. This was done after the last US commercial producer, in Tuxedo, NY, shut down. The Sandia effort was canceled, after it was working and able to produce isotopes, on July 30, 1999, by the Office of Isotope Programs at DOE.
There's a startup that claims they will start making this stuff with a linear accelerator in early 2008, but they sound flakey.
And you only say that because you've been brainwashed into thinking that nuclear power is more dangerous than fossil fuel power.
Stupid Russians aside (and trust me, Chernobyl wasn't an accident--it was the direct, foreseeable result of extreme stupidity. Quick analogy: Its crappy design made it the Pinto of nuclear reactors, and then the operators in charge basically went around slamming on their brakes randomly until they got rear-ended and the fucking thing blew up), pollution from fossil fuels (including--*gasp!*--radioactive pollution) outweighs pollution from nuclear power by many orders of magnitudes. People die every day due to the direct effects of using fossil fuels (and this isn't a snide criticism of Iraq, though that argument could certainly be made as well.) They explode. And cause cancer and respiratory illness. And then there's the whole greenhouse gas thing. Three mile island, on the other hand, dumped enough radiation into the area that they calculated there is a 50% chance that one extra person died from cancer. Eventually. Years later.
You see, what people fail to grasp is how utterly surrounded they are by radiation. Have you ever watched television on anything other than a flat screen? If so, you've been staring directly into a cathode ray tube. Wanna know what a CRT really is? A particle accelerator. It's beaming beta radiation (and some side-effect X-Rays as well) directly into your eyes. They actually have to add lead to the glass in TV sets to prevent the radiation from reaching harmful levels. I am not making this shit up; every day, millions (if not billions) of knee-jerk anti-nuclear hippies sit around for hours and stare directly into a particle accelerator. (Yes, you can argue that the power levels and leaded glass makes it a pretty safe activity, but that's PRECISELY my point. Just because radiation is involved doesn't mean something is inherently dangerous. Radiation is a danger like high current electricity or poisonous chemicals are a danger. We're surrounded by all three, all of the time, yet sane design renders these things fairly safe.)
And, of course, almost everyone will (at least a couple times in their lives) suffer a radiation burn--more commonly known as a "sunburn". Many people suffer these radiation burns repeatedly, even though they (like all radiation exposures) cause cancer, and even though they're fairly trivial to avoid.
I'm not arguing that we should have a cavalier attitude towards nuclear power--just a little sanity and appropriateness. I don't know the specifics in this case, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the safety requirements were minor and/or highly redundant. Personally, I'd rather we get decent air filters put on our coal-burning plants first. They're far more of a threat to our well-being.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
The Chalk River reactor does supply energy to the power grid. It also makes money from the sale of isotopes; government or not, money matters. The reactor is also 50 years old.
During a routine 5-day maintenance shut-down, it was decided that the reactor needed some new safety features installed designed to protect during natural disasters. It doesn't sound as though there was a fundamental problem of immediate concern. Here is a better article on the subject.
-FL
the movie is actually used as one by certain companies...
Youtube is blocked at work here, but yep, I've had it shown as a safety video.
Of course, we also distributed pictures of the hand of an electrician who had his finger blown off when he was working with flourescent ballasts and some wires hit his wedding ring...
As well as some rather nasty pictures of DUI accidents...
I don't read AC A human right
Former US President Jimmy Carter has been to the reactor site in question in the 1950s...Canada had their "3 Mile Island" in 1952 when the NRX Reactor at Chalk River had a partial core meltdown. At the time, Carter was a nuclear engineer with the US Navy, and had been training at Chalk River. After the explosion caused either by hydrogen gas, or steam, he was one of the 150 US servicemen who helped clean up the reactor.
ttyl
Farrell
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