March 17, 2014

NNSA TO EXPORT HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM TO CANADA FOR MO-99 PRODUCTION

By ExchangeMonitor

Though the National Nuclear Security Administration is committed to a global transition to producing medical isotopes with low-enriched uranium, it is seeking permission to export highly-enriched uranium to a Canadian company to make the isotopes. In an application filed July 30 and made public this week, NNSA is seeking permission from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to send 7 kilograms of uranium-235 to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. “Consistent with its objectives to support reliable supplies of medical isotopes and to eliminate the use of HEU in their production, the United States supports the export of the minimum necessary quantity of HEU to maintain reliable production of medical isotopes until the global industry transitions away from the use of HEU in its production,” Courtney Greenwald, spokesman for the NNSA, told RW Monitor this week. Greenwald added that the U.S. has historically exported HEU to Canada "on approximately an annual basis" to support the continued production of essential isotopes like Molybdenum-99.

One of the largest hurdles to jump-starting a domestic supply of medical isotopes has been that all the technologies supported by the NNSA face significant pressure from international competition. Currently, the bulk of the world’s Mo-99 is produced in Canadian and Dutch reactors that are subsidized by their governments and utilize HEU. That dependence caused a worldwide shortage in 2009 when the Canadian and Dutch reactors were shut down for repairs, and it triggered NNSA’s efforts to help develop a domestic production capability for non-HEU-based sources. “Requests for exports of HEU for isotopes production are expected to cease after 2016,” Greenwald said, as the Canadian government has said it does not intend to use its main isotope-producing reactor beyond 2016.

But the future of the medical isotopes market in the future is tricky. While the license for Canada’s Chalk River reactor will expire in four years, Russia has signaled that it plans to enter the Mo-99 market, a move that experts say is concerning not only because it could impact the domestic market, but because it could undercut other non-HEU-based production efforts. NNSA’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative has been spearheading government efforts through cost-sharing cooperative agreements with several companies and research groups to develop technology to produce molybdenum-99.

Comments are closed.