One of the biggest uses of radioactive materials outside power generation and nuclear weapons is for the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Production of isotopes such as molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) fell and left a world-wide shortage for the past few years. Fortunately, production has ramped recently.
     US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Xavier Becerra have jointly certified that there is now enough of a global supply of Mo-99 that the U.S. can ban the export of highly enriched uranium to other countries to allow them to make their own Mo-99.
     Granholm said, “Doctors and patients across the globe can be confident that the critical medical isotope Mo-99 will be there when they need it, and we can provide that assurance without making any further exports of highly enriched uranium.”
     Mo-99 is used for more than forty thousand medical procedures in the U.S. each day. These uses include the diagnosis of heart disease and cancer. Most of the world supply is produced by fission of uranium-235 targets in nuclear research reactors. However, the highly enriched uranium targets used for much of that production is a proliferation-sensitive material that, if diverted or stolen, could be used to construct a nuclear weapon.
     For decades, the U.S. had no ability to produce Mo-99 domestically. In order to ensure a steady supply, the U.S. exported highly enriched uranium to foreign medical isotope producers who used the material to produce Mo-99 for the U.S. and global markets. In 2012, the U.S. Congress directed the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to establish a program to support the development of commercial domestic production of Mo-99 without the use of highly enriched uranium.
     The U.S. Department of Energy said, “Achieving a sufficient supply of Mo-99 produced without the use of HEU is a result of significant accomplishments by DOE, HHS and the commercial Mo-99 industry.”  The NNSA has supplied financial and technical assistance to assist global Mo-99 producers convert their production of Mo-99 from highly enriched uranium to low enriched uranium. In addition, the NNSA supported the development of a domestic production capacity for Mo-99 without the use of highly enriched uranium. Over two hundred million dollars in cost-shared cooperative agreements was provided by the DoE, as well as technical support from U.S. national laboratories being provided. A Uranium Lease and Take-Back program was established for the nuclear industry.
     HHS has facilitated this by approving the use of Mo-99 produced by global suppliers using low enriched uranium. They also approved a Mo-99 production system developed by NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes which uses Mo-98 instead of uranium targets.
     Globally, Mo-99 is produced by a small number of research reactors. Australia’s OPAL and South Africa’s SAFARI reactors are examples of research reactors that now produce Mo-99 from low enriched uranium targets. Earlier this year the Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group stopped using highly enriched uranium targets to produce radioisotopes at the High Flux Reactor in Petten, the Netherlands.
     The NNSA and HHS have said that they will continue to work together to further increase the U.S. supply of non-highly-enriched-uranium Mo-99.