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by arciini
2638 days ago
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This is pretty cool! I worked for a summer at Chalk River in Canada, and it was crazy that a few suppliers could produce so much of the world's medical isotopes. I remember reading about fears of a Technetium-99 shortage when it does shut down [1]. People are very hesitant about nuclear power, but medical isotope manufacturing requires little enough nuclear fuel that it should be very safe. You sound like the right person to tackle this, and the market is definitely there. Good luck! 1. https://www.nature.com/news/reactor-shutdown-threatens-world... |
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Chalk River shutting down was a huge blow to production capacity, as it alone supplied about 20% of the world's demand for radioisotopes. In fact, Chalk River shut down in 2016, but the license was extended for two years to keep it on hot standby solely because of its importance to nuclear medicine supply. When they finally permanently shut it down in March of 2018, I believe the reactor was over 61 years old!
You can find articles like this at least once a year, warning of the next shortage: https://www.cardiovascularbusiness.com/topics/cardiovascular...