Nuclear power plants produce a vital resource in the global fight against COVID-19: Cobalt-60. This powerful isotope has sterilized billions of pieces of medical equipment in hospitals on the front lines of the pandemic.
While nuclear power plants are hard at work producing reliable, carbon-free electricity, medical isotopes are naturally being formed. Companies like Bruce Power and Ontario Power Generation (OPG) harvest these isotopes during plant outages to be processed and shipped around the world.
“For more than 35 years, Bruce Power has played a critical role in supporting the international health care community with this indispensable medical resource,” said Chad MacLean, department manager of Bruce Power Operations. “Bruce Power and our employees are proud of the role we play in Canada’s robust isotope supply chain, providing a stable supply of Cobalt-60 to the world’s medical community.”
Cobalt-60 sterilizes 40 percent of the world’s single-use medical equipment, and it can do it faster and in larger volumes than other forms of sterilization, ensuring supplies are efficiently prepared for health care workers. It is also safer, more effective and cheaper than alternatives because it can be done after devices have been packaged.
According to the World Nuclear Association, almost all of the world's supply of Cobalt-60 for medical and sterilization use is produced in CANDU reactors, a Canadian pressurized heavy-water reactor design.
“We are proud of our long history of supplying medical isotopes to the entire world from the Pickering plant—and this latest harvest of Cobalt-60 is especially needed amid the current global pandemic, for crucial uses including sterilization of gloves and testing swabs,” said Dominique Minière, OPG’s executive vice president of new nuclear domestic and international strategy.
Demand is high for this critical isotope, and Bruce Power is continuing to innovate in the medical isotope space and expand access to lifesaving medical applications through a partnership with Saugeen Ojibway Nation and Isogen, a joint venture between Framatome and Kinectrics. OPG is also expanding their production of Cobalt-60, continuing to provide medical isotopes for crucial uses.
Medical isotopes have other lifesaving powers, such as diagnosis and treatments for cancers and tumors. Cobalt-60 can allow the delivery of higher doses of radiation needed to treat some of these conditions and can also be utilized in innovative medical technologies.
Cobalt-60 has helped keep our hospitals clean and our health care workers and families safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is just one of many medical isotopes we need to support medical care. Last year, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) awarded $37 million to Wisconsin company NorthStar to support the commercial production of Mo-99, another medical isotope, which is used in more than 40,000 medical procedures in the United States each day.
In the United States, the University of Missouri’s research reactor currently produces a wide range of lifesaving medical radioisotopes and operates nearly 365 days a year.
Over 40 million nuclear medicine procedures are performed globally each year, and demand for radioisotopes is increasing at up to 5 percent annually, demonstrating that nuclear is working hard to save our planet and our people.
