Yesterday the government announced yet another delay to the restart of the National Research Universal reactor at Chalk River, stretching out its shut-down to a full year.
As Canada’s main source of medical isotopes, Canadian heart and cancer patients continue to endure life-threatening delays while hospitals work around the clock to manage the isotope shortage.
To date, the government has yet to reveal its long-term medical isotope supply plan.
For those who have lost track of the government’s stalling tactics when it comes to Chalk River, here’s the chronology of the delays since the reactor went offline last May:
• May 22, 2009: “AECL anticipates that the NRU reactor will remain out of service for more than one month.” (NRU Status Update #4)
• May 27, 2009: “Based on our preliminary findings to date, we now believe that the NRU reactor will be out of service for at least three months.” (NRU Status Update #5)
• July 8, 2009: “Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) today announced that as a result of the most recent data from the ongoing assessment of the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor condition and the development of a critical path for the various repair options, it is now clear that the NRU will not return to service before late 2009.” (NRU Status Update #11)
• August 12, 2009: “At this time, the application of the band weld build-up technique, and the increased number of sites, indicates the NRU will return to service during Q1 2010.” (NRU Status Update #16)
• December 16, 2009: “At this time, the application of the band weld build-up technique, and the number of identified repair sites indicates the NRU will return to service by the end of March (first calendar quarter) of 2010.” (NRU Status Update #34)
• January 13, 2010: “The repairs are scheduled to be completed in February.” (NRU Status Update #38)
• January 27, 2010: “In light of the continuing technical challenges, the project team has reviewed the return-to-service work plan. As a result of the review, NRU’s targeted return-to-service has been updated to April.” (NRU Status Update #40)
• March 10, 2010: “This additional preparation and repair work has added to the time required to return NRU to service. As a result, the current return-to-service is projected to be during the second half of May 2010.” (NRU Status Update #46)
