The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in January established a uranium lease and take-back (ULTB) program for the commercial production of medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) using low-enriched uranium (LEU). The goal, the NNSA said this week, is to give commercial producers of the isotope access to Department of Energy (DOE) LEU from its excess uranium inventory for Mo-99 production in the U.S., while avoiding the use of highly enriched uranium that is vulnerable to proliferation. Supply agreements negotiated through the program would make the LEU available to Mo-99 producers, who would then arrange for the transport of the LEU to their facilities.
The DOE will also be responsible for the spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste created from LEU irradiation, processing, or purification through take-back contracts, the agency said. It noted that the NNSA is supporting four Mo-99 production projects with up to $25 million given for each, and that the ULTB program is managed by both the NNSA’s Material Management and Minimization and the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management programs.
Mo-99’s radioactive decay product is used in the majority of medical nuclear diagnostic imaging procedures, around 50,000 procedures in the U.S. every day, the NNSA said. Anne Harrington, the agency’s deputy administration for defense nuclear nonproliferation, said in a statement that the ULTB program “will provide services needed to make new, commercial sources of Mo-99 in the United States available for patients in a way that is consistent with the goals outlined through the Nuclear Security Summit process and strengthens the global nuclear nonproliferation regime.”
“We’re in fact incrementally revolutionizing a whole industry,” Harrington said Thursday at the ExchangeMonitor Nuclear Deterrence Summit. “We are moving the entire industry off an HEU base to an LEU base and that can only happen over time, but we are being successful and the result will be a permanent reduction in risk related to having highly enriched uranium in civilian facilities.”
