Government vs Nuclear Safety
The Ottawa Citizen has a short article that gives a good summary of what’s going on with this current issue of the government voting to re-open a nuclear reactor that the folks responsible for nuclear safety in Canada shut down (for safety reasons).
The gist of it is that this is a small reactor whose purpose is to produce isotopes used in medical scanning equipment. This is one of the few places in the world this stuff is produced, so the shutdown created a world shortage.
The reason the reactor was shut down was because the rods that are designed to drop into the reactor to stop the reaction in the case of an emergency get jammed and can’t drop into the reactor, thanks to a manufacturing error.
This seems like a pretty serious problem, and in my opinion, the AECL was doing its job when it shut down the reactor.
The current government has fired nuclear regulator Linda Keen, the woman responsible for the shutdown.
Is the production of medical isotopes worth the risk of a nuclear accident?
Here’s the article: Why Chalk River’s ‘1957 Chevy’ still has no backup reactor
January 21st, 2008 at 10:20 am
Here’s another article I found interesting about this topic: http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=fdd7173a-f116-464f-8cbe-ac6f06879554&k=27950&p=1.
Basically, though, reading your article makes me feel pretty worried about the state of nuclear energy in Canada. I mean, I totally, completely support nuclear power, and I think we should build more nuclear power plants, but come on: get some frickin’ contractors who can make parts properly. Inspect the darn things. Give me a break. It’s like the legion of civil engineers in Quebec on the provincial government’s dime that “oversee” bridge construction: they can’t be doing their jobs when there’s another overpass collapse every few years. They should be doing the job we pay them for. I think that some civil servants over at AECL should have lost their jobs over the bad parts fiasco. I mean, obviously they aren’t doing their jobs, they wasted lots of tax-payer money and they endangered the public. If those aren’t firing offenses, I don’t know what would be…
February 4th, 2008 at 1:55 am
“Is the production of medical isotopes worth the risk of a nuclear accident?”
Greed, money, opportunity. The right people took over, fired the one(s) were in the way, now they want to generate their cash. Evil 1, Good -1 (Evil fired somebody, therefore they lose a point).