Medical isotope production using weapons-grade uranium is about to cease in Canada, ending decades of world dominance supplying life-saving nuclear medicine, but leaving a toxic legacy and heated environmental controversy.
In recent days, a coalition of more than two dozen Canadian and American environmental, nuclear safety and other organizations has formally called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Barack Obama to halt — or at least postpone — the shipment by road of 23,000 litres of highly radioactive liquid waste, the byproduct of medical isotope production, from Eastern Ontario to South Carolina for reprocessing.
Nothing like it has been attempted before. The operation is expected to take a few years, with 100 to 150 armed convoys of trucks hauling the material 1,700 kilometres through some of the continent’s most populous areas in specially designed steel casks to a U.S. Department of Energy plant in Aiken, S.C.
Ian MacLeod – National Post – October 13, 2016.
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