§2142 — Title 42 The Public Health and Welfare | U.S. Code

Summary

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission can only allow a reactor to use highly enriched uranium (HEU) as a target for making medical isotopes if two things are true. First, the NRC decides there is no workable non-HEU target for that reactor, and the person getting the license promises they will switch to a non-HEU target as soon as one can be used. Second, the Secretary of Energy must certify that the U.S. government is actively helping to develop such an alternative target for that reactor. An “alternative medical isotope production target” is one with less than 20 percent U–235. A target “can be used” if the Department of Energy’s Reduced Enrichment Research and Test Reactor Program has qualified it and using it would let the large majority of current and planned experiments and isotope production continue without a large percentage increase in the reactor’s total operating cost. “Highly enriched uranium” means 20 percent or more U–235. “Medical isotope” includes molybdenum-99, iodine-131, xenon-133, and other radioactive materials used to make radiopharmaceuticals for diagnosis, treatment, or research.

Title 42, §2142

The Public Health and Welfare — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The Commission may issue a license, or grant an amendment to an existing license, for the use in the United States of highly enriched uranium as a target for medical isotope production in a nuclear reactor, only if, in addition to any other requirement of this chapter—

(1)the Commission determines that—

(A)there is no alternative medical isotope production target that can be used in that reactor; and

(B)the proposed recipient of the medical isotope production target has provided assurances that, whenever an alternative medical isotope production target can be used in that reactor, it will use that alternative in lieu of highly enriched uranium; and

(2)the Secretary of Energy has certified that the United States Government is actively supporting the development of an alternative medical isotope production target that can be used in that reactor.

(b)As used in this section—

(1)the term “alternative medical isotope production target” means a nuclear reactor target which is enriched to less than 20 percent of the isotope U–235;

(2)a target “can be used” in a nuclear research or test reactor if—

(A)the target has been qualified by the Reduced Enrichment Research and Test Reactor Program of the Department of Energy; and

(B)use of the target will permit the large majority of ongoing and planned experiments and medical isotope production to be conducted in the reactor without a large percentage increase in the total cost of operating the reactor;

(3)the term “highly enriched uranium” means uranium enriched to 20 percent or more in the isotope U–235; and

(4)the term “medical isotope” includes molybdenum-99, iodine-131, xenon-133, and other radioactive materials used to produce a radiopharmaceutical for diagnostic or therapeutic procedures or for research and development.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

References in Text

This chapter, referred to in subsec. (a), was in the original “this Act”, meaning act Aug. 1, 1946, ch. 724, as added by act Aug. 30, 1954, ch. 1073, § 1, 68 Stat. 919, known as the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which is classified principally to this chapter. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see

Short Title

note set out under section 2011 of this title and Tables.

Amendments

2013—Pub. L. 113–66 inserted section designation and catchline.

§2142 Domestic medical isotope production