Canada's Chalk River nuclear crisis: "market planning" produces a fiasco

The CNSC stipulated that Crown-owned AECL could reopen its Chalk River nuclear facility only after adding an automatic emergency power system to its reactor cooling system. This was so as to ensure that the Chalk River reactor would remain at a stable temperature in event of a power failure.

The closure of the Chalk River nuclear research centre caused a furor in Canada and internationally, because it threatened to drastically curtail the production of radioactive isotopes used in medical examinations in North America and around the world. In spite of its age, the Chalk River facility supplies more than 50 percent of the global market for medical isotopes.