Companies that have ideas for producing medical isotopes without a nuclear reactor will be asked to submit their proposals to the federal government under a $35-million initiative to be announced Wednesday by the Natural Resources Minister
"We are launching a request for proposals from stakeholders, from organizations here in Canada, to submit us some projects about cyclotrons or about linear accelerators that could produce technetium-99," Christian Paradis said in a telephone interview with The Globe and Mail.
The aging NRU nuclear reactor at Chalk River, Ont., that produces a third of the world's medical isotopes has been out of service for the past year because of a leak and is not expected to be operational again until late July, at the earliest.
The government has also said it wants to get out of the isotope business by 2016 and is looking for alternatives.
Cyclotron technology and linear accelerators allow small-scale, on-site isotope production without the nuclear waste associated with a reactor. There are several companies across Canada that are working on these types of options.
"Of course our priority is to have the NRU back running as soon as possible," said Mr. Paradis. "These technologies already exist so now the challenge is to have them commercially viable."
The problem with the alternative technologies is that the technetium they produce does not last as long as the isotopes produced in a reactor. That means it cannot be viable exported - or even transported across significant distances within Canada. "That being said," said Mr. Paradis, "there are tremendous opportunities for urban centres."