Nuclear medicine in Northern Ontario: another spinoff benefit from the CANDU program

Another great read by Steve Aplin: Nuclear medicine in Northern Ontario: another spinoff benefit from the CANDU program: http://canadianenergyissues.com/2013/01/20/nuclear-medicine-in-northern-ontario-another-spinoff-benefit-from-the-candu-program/ ..."Bruce Power, by far Canada’s single largest electricity generating plant, is also the biggest clean energy centre in the western hemisphere. The plant’s eight CANDU nuclear generating units are capable of cranking out 50 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. If generators running on allegedly clean natural gas were to provide 50 billion kWh, they would dump more than 27 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the air in a single year. As I mentioned last week, a big portion of those 27 million tons of CO2 would wind up in the world’s already-stressed oceans, making their water more acidic. We cannot afford to let this happen. Thank heavens for Bruce, and all other nuclear plants—they produce power without CO2.
The Bruce plant is also a major world producer of cobalt-60, arguably the most widespread and important medical isotope. Co-60 is made in CANDUs and other reactors (primarily the NRU at Chalk River) by bombarding cobalt-59, the naturally occurring isotope of the element cobalt, with neutrons. It is an extremely useful material, because of its strong gamma radiation. In some circumstances, gamma rays kill cancer. In fact Co-60 gammas have treated millions of cancer patients world wide."