COM 0212.068 1996-1998 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Nuclear Sunset: Economic Costs of the Canadian Nuclear Industn httP://am~~.ccm.org/sunsetl.html In the Spring of 1994, Natural Resources Minister Anne McLellan hired Toronto lawyer Stephen Goudge as a "fact-finder" in the dispute between MDS/Nordion and AECL. In October 1994, McLellan ordered AECL to resume discussions with MDS/Nordion, and the two parties suspended arbitration proceedings in favour of "facilitated discussions". On October 11, 1994, Goudge stated that the conflict would be resolved within six to eight weeks. [147] In December 1994, Nordion Vice-President Ian Mumford stated that he expected the dispute to be resolved within two weeks. [148) One year later, in December 1995, Mumford stated that he expected a resolution of the dispute "within a couple of months". [149] In late 1995, MDS/Nordion reportedly made a $140 million proposal to build ttvo reactors and a reprocessing facility- at AECL's Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories. It is not clear how much taxpayers will be expected to pay, and how much MDSlNordion will ultimately pay. An} investment of public funds is highly risky at best, and will leave taxpayers ~F ith a lasting legacy of deadly radioactive waste --particularly from the production of Molybdem,:tn-99 (known as Moly-99). In the production process for Moly-99, hig1~1} enriched uranium is eradiated, then dissolved in acid to extract the Moly-99. This results in an acidic high level liquid waste of the same type created by plutonium extraction in nuclear weapons programs. The waste has the potential to go critical (i.e. undergo fission chain reactions leading to a nuclear explosion). This waste is currently kept in a single 24,000 litre Fissile Solution Storage Tank (FISST), which is estimated to contain about 1 million terabecquerels (TBq) of fission products. Moly-99, with a half-life of about sixty-six hours; decays into technetium-99m, which is considered ideal for medical diagnostic purposes because it has a half-life of only six hours, and thus poses less risk to patients. The technetium-99m is used to 'label' chemical compounds which migrate to ~ arious organs, allowing an image to be detected from the gamma rays emitted. AECL currently produces most of the world's Moly-99, and the $50 million a year sales [150] represent about one half of Nordion's business. If it wishes to stay in the radioisotope business, AECL needs to build at least two new reactors, since the NRU is scheduled to be shut down in the year 2000, and a second reactor is needed for back-up. Yet it is unlikeh~ that AECL and Nordion will be able to compete with low-cost production from existing reactors in the US and Europe. At the same time, if the government decides to cut its losses and get out of the radioisotope business, it must compensate MDS/Nordion. Investment in new radioisotope production reactors is ill-advised because new producers are set to enter the Moly-99 market to compete with AECL and of 64 oa/us/~~ zz:zl.a~