Practicalities Often Bow To Politics
Two new studies have made a strong case for restarting operation at the Fast Flux Test Facility at Hanford but, as has always been the case, the issue remains more political than technical.
Backers of powering up the experimental reactor, which has been on standby since 1993, have long believed FFTF could become the primary source of medical isotopes in the nation and the studies confirm that potential.
A boom in demand for the isotopes, which are used to diagnose and treat some of the world’s most deadly diseases including breast cancer, leukemia, lymphoma and melanoma, would cover 60 percent of the reactor’s operating costs within 10 years and 100 percent of the $88 million in annual operating costs by 2020.
In many ways, these isotopes represent the miracles of modern medicine and there is currently no major domestic source of supply. Ninety percent of the medical isotopes currently used in this country are imported from Canada, Russia and Europe, sources that are not expected to meet future demand.
Previously, talk of using FFTF to produce medical isotopes has had a pie-in-the-sky feel with not enough hard data to justify restarting the reactor.
But a study done for the Department of Energy by Frost & Sullivan, a company which analyzes health care markets, changes that.
“The FFTF’s operating characteristics make it an ideal reactor for the production of large quantities of radioisotopes to meet the growing demand for both diagnostic and therapeutic applications,” the study said.
Sales of diagnostic isotopes are projected to increase from $530 million in 1996 to $17 billion in 2020. Sales of isotopes used for treatment are expected to grow from $48 million to $6 billion during the same time period.
A handful of isotopes are already widely used. Technetium-99 is used in more than 70 percent of all imaging procedures. Iodine-131 is used to treat thyroid disease. Others are to treat leukemia and arthritis, and to relieve pain associated with advanced cases of metastatic bone cancer.
Dozens more isotopes are being tested, but because supplies are unreliable some of the tests have been interrupted and suspended.
“The FFTF could very well become the nation’s largest supplier of medical isotopes and a major nuclear medicine research center,” the study said.
Sounds great, but the problem is how to justify operating FFTF until the medical isotope market becomes large enough to cover the operating costs. This is where things get difficult politically.
The plan currently calls for using the reactor to produce tritium, a radioactive gas used to boost the power of nuclear weapons. Tritium production at FFTF would likely be only temporary until a permanent source, either a new accelerator or a converted light water nuclear power plant, were ready to come on line.
Tritium production would provide the bridge, the economic justification for running FFTF until the medical isotopes market matured. After years of concentrating on cleaning up the horrendous legacy of 50 years of plutonium production, Hanford could be back in the bomb-making business.
Unanswered questions abound. Would the switch in missions mean less emphasis on cleanup? Would it mean less money for cleanup? Could FFTF become the permanent rather than temporary source of tritium production? What about the waste it would produce? What if the projections for the medical isotope market were wrong? The studies released earlier this month found there were no technical or safety reasons FFTF couldn’t be used to make tritium.
The reactor could be refitted and restarted for tritium production by July 2002 at a cost of $371 million. Another $64 million would be needed to make it capable of producing medical isotopes. The medical isotopes and tritium could be produced simultaneously.
Building a new accelerator would cost between $2.5 billion and $10 billion and could take years. Converting a light water reactor would be cheaper and easier, but when the Department of Energy asked 12 utilities operating such reactors if they would be interested, only two - TVA and Southern Power - expressed any interest and they said Congress would have to approve special legislation first.
Energy Secretary Federico Pena could make a decision on the future of FFTF by the end of 1997 or early next year. He essentially has two options: shut it down for good by draining the sodium coolant or ordering a full-blown environmental impact statement as the next step in deciding whether to restart the reactor. An environmental impact statement could be done in about a year, about the same time the department is expected to make its final decision in tritium production.
On Capitol Hill, talk of medical isotope production gives Washington state lawmakers the cover they need to support restart even if they aren’t enthralled with tritium production. The same can be said about Washington Gov. Gary Locke.
Oregon lawmakers, however, remain cool to the idea, as do Republican Sens. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Pete Domenici of New Mexico. A new accelerator would be built in Thurmond’s home state and the national laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., has done much of the research on the accelerator.
Though Thurmond has said he will step down as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he will retain considerable influence. Domenici chairs the Senate energy and water development subcommittee, which has to approve funding for either FFTF, a commercial reactor or an accelerator.
Two footnotes: An accelerator could also be used to produce medical isotopes. And FFTF could be used to produce such isotopes as cobalt 60 for food irradiation. The FDA recently announced irradiation could be used to kill deadly germs on beef.
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