How Canada Screwed Over North American Cancer Patients

[saskganesh]

It is true that the supply chain of medical isotopes is fragile. There are, IIRC, 5 facilities in the whole world who produce medical isotopes: one in Canada, one in the Netherlands, one in Belgium, one in France and one in South-Africa.

Last year, the one in the Netherlands and the one in Belgium went down for emergency maintenance and as a result there was a severe shortage of isotopes in parts of Europe.

The sensible solution would be to build a few extra reactors and replace the ageing ones.
The Timmay solution: invade Canada and force them to uphold their isotope deliveries.

apparently every single one of those facilities is over 40 years old. if nuclear medicine is useful (and profitable), why can't someone build a new one?

I think you have your answer.  It is enormously useful, but not profitable.

raise prices. insist Tim pay market value.

[Neil]

The right too.

Yep.  The crazies are up in arms over a nuke plant being built near my wife's hometown.

[Sheilbh]

That appears to be cheap for the US. There's probably more pork spending in many typical dysfunctional Congressional bills.   

But that's still a huge up-front cost for a business to take on (and it probably doesn't include the legal costs of planning applications required to build the thing), which is why I doubt that it could work as a purely private sector project.

[katmai]

I doubt it.  There's no way this could be profitable enough to justify the sheer monumental expense of building and maintaining a nuclear site.

Brain can correct me if he decides to quit sulking in the corner, but medical/research reactors are not the same magnitude and cost as big power plants I believe.

You are correct. I am in no position to estimate the cost of building a completely new reactor for isotope production

Then what the fuck good are you!

[The Brain]

I doubt it.  There's no way this could be profitable enough to justify the sheer monumental expense of building and maintaining a nuclear site.

Brain can correct me if he decides to quit sulking in the corner, but medical/research reactors are not the same magnitude and cost as big power plants I believe.

You are correct. I am in no position to estimate the cost of building a completely new reactor for isotope production

Then what the fuck good are you!

I have hidden qualities.

[BVN]

The sensible solution would be to build a few extra reactors and replace the ageing ones.

indeed, but then idiots go all "omfg, nucular reactoers are teh evol!!"

Well, maybe it's best then that those people are oblivious to the fact that several universities in our country have experimental reactors and that those facilities are located in urban centers...