Canadian reactor to reopen

Written byBob Grant

| 1 min read

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A linkurl:shuttered;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54006/ Canadian nuclear reactor that normally produces radioisotopes crucial to a variety of medical diagnoses will reopen soon. Emergency legislation linkurl:passed;http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/285209 by the Canadian government late Tuesday (Dec 11) will allow the reactor to open for 120 days and resume production of the isotopes. Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, was apparently none too happy with the parties involved in the reactor's closing. "I can certainly assure the House that when this is all behind us," Harper told the __Toronto Star__, "the government will carefully examine the role of all actors in this incident and make sure that accountability is appropriately restored." The reactor's prolonged closure has caused a shortage of the isotope technetium-99 in hospitals, where it is used to diagnose cancers, heart and kidney problems among other ailments. Scientists I've contacted who use technetium-99 in their research have not yet experienced interruptions to their work. The company that operates the reactor originally linkurl:estimated;http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13025-nuclear-plant-shutdown-brings-hospital-delays.html that the reactor would not reopen until January, 2008.

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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