[Proculation]

KorbenDeck wrote:

Proculation wrote:

The question is: how come there is only a few reactors making medical isotopes in the world ?

Reactors are not cheap that is why

Well if the supply is that low, it means you can sell the isotopes for a lot. I'm quite sure there is some money to make there.

[leewgrant]

ridenrain wrote:

The failure of the replacement of Chalk river has been going on well before Lisa Raitt even got into politics.

True but the current minister always carries the can and Raitt is not effective, aloof she sounds bored when answering questions in the House of Commons. Fortunately for the Tories there is Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health who makes up for her. A rookie and one of the better ministers in the House. She's got a big load this fall, not just isotopes but H1N1 too.

[EyeBrock]

Raitt has been a dissapointment. Just goes to show that you can't beat experience and she has none.

She's just another bloody lawyer in a House full of them.

[ridenrain]

True but you dismissed everything I said.

The replacement Maple reactors have been a colossal boondoggle for the past Liberal governments but now that someone else is in charge we can blame it all on them.
The media who doesn't like the Conservatives and has a short attention span, will gladly focus entirely on tearing down Raitt instead of telling us the real reason for the problem.

The replacement is long overdue and over budget but you want to blame the person who took the job just 3.5 years ago.

[KorbenDeck]

Reactors have a very high price tag, another problem is that many isotopes lose their radioactivity very quickly so they cannot be stockpiled. Cobalt-60 has a half-life of 5.26 years. However, molybdenum-99 has a half-life of 66 hours, which means it loses half its radioactivity in just less than three days — and half of what's left in another three days. That's critical because molybdenum-99 is used to produce technetium-99, which is used for eight out of every 10 nuclear medicine procedures. The is more money and less hassle if a reactor is used for power. So no private company has wanted to get into the business.

The National Research Universal reactor was supposed to shut down December 31, 2005. It was expected that there would be a new reactor built to replace it by 2005, but the Liberal government did nothing while they held a majority government for over a decade to replace the aging reactor. In 2003 after seeing that was no new reactor being built the NRU extended its operating time. When the Conservatives won minority power in 2006, there was no way they could have pushed threw to build a new reactor to replace the NRU when the opposition (now the Liberals) was against the idea. The Liberals are responsible for crisis we now have, but most Canadians are short sighted and only see that there is a problem and the Conservatives are in charge therefor the Conservatives must be the ones at fault. Rather than jump threw the flaming hoops that Liberals are trying to force the Conservatives to do in order to clean up a Liberal mess, the Conservatives have given the world notice that Canada (gov't) will be getting out the medical isotope trade. Meaning there will be a void of 40% in the worlds supply of isotopes, hopefully giving someone (government or private) the incentive to dish out the huge amounts of cashed needed to build another reactor or accelerator to replace the NRU.

[EyeBrock]

I think your dates are out a bit Korben. Harper got in power 2006, not 2004.

[leewgrant]

ridenrain wrote:

True but you dismissed everything I said.

The replacement Maple reactors have been a colossal boondoggle for the past Liberal governments but now that someone else is in charge we can blame it all on them.
The media who doesn't like the Conservatives and has a short attention span, will gladly focus entirely on tearing down Raitt instead of telling us the real reason for the problem.

The replacement is long overdue and over budget but you want to blame the person who took the job just 3.5 years ago.

I don't blame her alone. As you said it's the media who will be blaming her, along with the opposition of course. And she has a flappy mouth - remember the comment about the how the reactor issue could be used to her personal political advantage? And she has been reluctant to be completely open with the public. If she weren't a Toronto area MP (a region the Tories will be targeting the next election) I think Harper would have dumped her by now.

I think Harper has good people in the cabinet - Baird, Flaherty, Finley, Prentice - but Raitt is not one of them.

[KorbenDeck]

EyeBrock wrote:

I think your dates are out a bit Korben. Harper got in power 2006, not 2004.

Typo, thanks for spotting it.

[EyeBrock]

No probs mate.

[Guy_Fawkes]

tom5515 wrote:

People who are violent, is it obvious or what?

If you're gonna necro you should contribute something...

[Guy_Fawkes]

tom5515 wrote:

I am serious, release all the tokers, they are all nice like me.

Ummm ok, firstly if your going to play in this rant you are going to have to give a name and a reason why a specific person should be put in jail. Second, I cant remember anyone, in Canada at least, being thrown in jail for smoking pot.

[Brenda]

ALL tokers re nice?
Hmmm, i disagree. Even in that group are assholes...

[stratos]

Any one who falsely accuses another of a crime for the sole reason of ruinning that persons reputation or to later claim they will have the charges droped if the wrongly accused does something.