The Dutch government has decided to build a new nuclear reactor for medical purposes. Two separate provinces are in the race to build a reactor to replace the one in the coastal town of Petten. The provinces of Zeeland and North Holland have both set aside a budget of 40 million euros for the development costs, licences and research. The government still has to decide on the location of the new reactor.

The reactor in Petten produces isotopes which are used for treating cancer, cardiac problems and bone disease. It is 50 years old and has been having trouble with its cooling water system for a number of years. Repairs to the system have had to be postponed to guarantee a steady supply of isotopes as the Canadian Chalk Rivers reactor had to be shut down for repair after a leak. Now the Dutch reactor is due to close for repairs in March next year.

Petten supplies 30 percent of the world’s isotopes and the Canadian reactor produces about half of the world’s medical isotopes. The Canadian reactor is due to start up again early next year.

Frontrunner
The government believes the production of isotopes is so important that it wants the Netherlands to continue to be a frontrunner in this field. The new reactor will cost 500 million euros. The two provinces are refusing to bid each other out of the race and have agreed whoever wins the deal will compensate the other for the costs it has ensued. The government will fund half of the project and the Nuclear Research and consultancy Group NRG which runs the nuclear reactor will make up the rest.

Greenpeace
In a Radio Netherlands Worldwide programme, Ike Teulings from the environmental organisation Greenpeace said he is pleased that Petten will close down, but added that it is not necessary to build a new reactor. “Medical Isotopes can be just as easily produced in particle accelerators. It is already being done on a large scale to make isotopes with a short ‘life’ which are produced close to the hospital.”

Greenpeace believes that 80 percent of the isotopes can be made in particle accelerators or cyclotrons, making it possible to close the four or five nuclear reactors in the world where they are currently produced.

NRG spokesperson Juliette van der Laan disagrees, “Not in these quantities and certainly not with the same quality as the ones made by a reactor.”