CDN Forces Reactor Online Against Safety Regulations

Socguy writes "The Canadian government has passed legislation that will reopen an Ontario nuclear reactor that produces most of the world's supply of critical medical isotopes, even though the site has been shut down for safety maintenance. Witnesses and experts were called in to the House to face questions about safety concerns and all parties eventually voiced support for the bill, which would effectively suspend CNSC's oversight role for 120 days. The Chalk River reactor ceased operating on Nov. 18. Pressure on the government to restart operations began to build after delays in the shutdown of the government-run site, which generates two-thirds of the world's radioisotopes, began to cause a critical shortage of radioisotopes."

Radio 1 report.

[plsavaria]

On the radio channel of Radio-Canada (french CBC), there was a report on the subject. Said the reactor woulf be closed for four months. Also said the half-life of the isotope, technétium-99, is 6 hours.

Then someone asked the question : why don't they make a four-month-reserve?

Re:What a sound idea..

[freetolio]

Actually, Chernobyl set this precedent already.
Scientists: "No, we can't run the reactor safely at that capacity."
Government: "Mother Russia needs those Megawatts beotch."
Reactor: "Poof! Now your faces will melt and your kids won't have arms."

Re:Got to love it...

[Harmonious Botch]

...especially when the reactor is not near me.

This is all the fault of Linux

[GwaihirBW]

Observe the current quote at the bottom of the page:
"Real Men don't make backups. They upload it via ftp and let the world mirror it. -- Linus Torvalds"

Unfortunately, this doesn't work for generators, nor does it for reactors.

Running short of isotopes, eh?

[aeschenkarnos]

Maybe the plan is to deal with the isotope shortage by putting isotopes EVERYWHERE ...

Re:Ironic.

[tm2b]

(Hey, with all these Canadian stories we've been getting lately, when will we get a Canada icon to display with stories?)

I vote for an icon showing a can of beer chasing a beaver [youtube.com].

Re:I was going to ask...

[tsa]

It's not that after 6 hours you can throw half of the bottles away and the other half is magically still fresh.

Re:I was going to ask...

[martin-boundary]

Just accelerate the isotopes close to the speed of light, and you can make those six hours last years!

Re:I was going to ask...

[sholden]

Thank you mighty moderator manager.