NNSA backs General Atomics selective gas extraction project

摘要

With two construction permit applications for new molybde-num-99 production facilities already under review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff, a joint venture of Sterigenics International subsidiary Nor-dion, the University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR), and General Atomics (GA) hopes to start producing Mo-99 with less licensing effort-and perhaps sooner-than the other contenders. GA is receiving financial backing from the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, even though the final production of Mo-99/technetium-99m generators for medical diagnostic purposes would be done by Nordion in Canada-perhaps not the ideal outcome for the campaign to restore the production of Mo-99/Tc-99m in the United States. Ever since an April 27 meeting with NRC staffers in which representatives of the Nordion group argued that the GA-developed process should require no more than an amendment to MURR's existing license, the staff has tried to pin down what the extra equipment would be, from a licensing standpoint. At one point, a staffer asked, "If it isn't an experiment, what is it?"