May 29, 2014

WHITEHOUSE RE-AFFIRMS COMMITMENT TO LEU EFFORTS

By ExchangeMonitor

The United States reaffirmed its commitment to continue developing efforts to use low-enriched uranium as a replacement fuel for research reactors and in the production of medical isotopes, according to a National Progress Report from the Whitehouse for the Nuclear Security Summit this week. The U.S. along with other international partners has been supporting an effort to convert European medical isotope production from highly enriched uranium to safer LEU to ease proliferation concerns. “The United States, in cooperation with multiple international partners, intends to continue to lead efforts to develop new research reactor fuels to allow for the conversion of the remaining high performance research reactors both in the United States and abroad to the use of LEU fuel,” the report said. The report also added, “The United States intends to establish an international research effort on the feasibility of replacing high activity radiological sources with non-isotopic replacement technologies, with the goal of producing a global alternative by 2016.The United States intends to demonstrate commercial capability to produce the medical isotope molybdenum-99 in the United States using non-HEU technologies by 2016,” it said.

The National Nuclear Security Administration has been helping to jump start domestic production of medical isotopes through a cost-sharing cooperative agreement with four companies to develop technology to produce Moly-99, the medical isotope used in 16 million medical procedures annually in the United States. The isotope has typically been produced outside the U.S. by government-subsidized efforts utilizing proliferation-sensitive HEU. Two of the companies, GE Hitachi and B&W, involved in the NNSA’s cost-sharing agreement have halted its development due to concerns of market viability.0

Comments are closed.