Multipurpose Applied Physics Lattice Experiment may in fact, WORK.

OK, so from the title, Multipurpose Applied Physics Lattice Experiment, in short MAPLE. Research nuclear reactors which, at this time anyway, are considered backups to the NRU reactor at Chalk River.

We have been told many things about MAPLE1 and MAPLE2. This much we know:

1. On 19 February, 2000, MAPLE1 began a self-sustaining reaction, known as criticality; something necessary to be a real-live nuclear reactor;

2. On 9 October, 2003, MAPLE2 went critical. This was a good thing, at least inasmuch as making a tub on the ground a nuclear reactor is a good thing;

3. During the commissioning process of both MAPLE reactors the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission felt that several one-off problems were enough not to grant a license to start those reactors for isotope production;

4. One of the big issues was a concern over the power coefficient of the MAPLE reactors.

I wish I could discuss that. I am an oceanographer, not a nuclear physicist. I am lost beyond that I understand what a power coefficient is in many different things. But not a nuclear reactor.

Item 4 above, despite a few other irregularities which could likely have been fixed, was enough for the CNSC to deny licensing to both reactors until everything could be rectified.

OK... good.

Then we run into a problem with the NRU reactor and CNSC orders a shut-down until the problems are fixed. As we all now know, that erupts into a parliamentary brouhaha wherein Steve Harper, also not a nuclear physicist and with a degree in something not-science-in-any-way tells all of us that he deems the NRU reactor safe.

Given the shortage of medical isotopes because of the NRU Chalk River shutdown, somebody, (I forget who) suggests that maybe MAPLE1 and MAPLE2, operating at well below 80 percent, might well be able to do the job.

No way, says Harper. They're just not up to the job. By the way, Linda Keen, you're fired!

So, after Harper has installed his "chosen men" at Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and the CNSC, it is declared that MAPLE1 and MAPLE2 just aren't sustainable anymore. On 16 May, 2008, the development and commissioning process of both reactors is terminated. The MAPLE project is effectively dead.

Then, Lisa Raitt, minister of natural resources and the minister responsible for the reactor that produces medical isotopes fall off her fork. Sideshow.

Harper then announces that he anticipates Canada will be out of the medical isotope business in the future. He caps it off by saying that after hundreds of millions of dollars the MAPLE reactors have not produced one isotope.

The one thing we've learned about Harper is that he doesn't have much on the ball. He may be a good immediate event political tactician but he fails miserably in the long fight. For him to make a statement it means he was either told to say that or he made it up. He doesn't really know.

The truth.

A brand-new backup nuclear reactor at Chalk River, Ont. produced enough medical isotopes during some test runs to supply the needs of every Canadian hospital and clinic, a parliamentary committee was told Thursday, putting a dent in one argument the Conservatives have been using to defend their decision last spring to mothball that backup plan.

The revelation that the MAPLE reactors at Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.'s Chalk River Laboratory did indeed produce the isotope Moly-99, the key ingredient used in pharmaceutical radioisotopes, came on the same day doctors in Quebec said as many as 12,000 patients there have had their cancer and cardiac tests put off because of a shortage of those isotopes.

[...]

Jill Chitra, a vice-president and professional engineer at MDS Nordion told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources that is incorrect.

"From 2000 to 2008, the MAPLE reactors ran numerous times at various power levels, up to 80 per cent power," Chitra said. "(Isotope) targets were inserted in the reactor for a number of those tests. When targets are inserted in the reactor and it operates at power, isotopes — Moly-99 — is created."

Chitra said that the targets were simply not processed or harvested.

"Those targets could have been removed and processed and you'd have had medical isotopes for sale," Chitra said. "It's one of the reasons we think MAPLE has potential."

Oh... oops!

In fact, Harper is lying. He wants to sell AECL, following in the footsteps of Brian Mulroney, and he knows if Canadians believed that the MAPLE reactors were viable he would face a grassroots outrage.

And if you really want to know the Conservative position when they hear that MAPLE may actually work, the best place to go is to our intrepid parliamentary committee junkie, Kady O'Malley and scroll down to minute 4:21:16.

h/t Frank Frink