Critically flawed: Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard inspects the OPAL reactor during the official opening of the site in April 2007.
Credit: ANSTO
The shutdown has not only been expensive, but has also delayed important research.
Like its predecessor, OPAL irradiates materials to produce isotopes used in medical imaging. These have been imported through the period of OPAL's shutdown, costing ANSTO A$500,000 per month in lost radiopharmaceuticals orders. Income was also lost as OPAL was unable to carry out irradiation (or 'doping') of silicon to produce semiconductors, the sale of which was slated to bring ANSTO an estimated A$4-5 million a year.
Nuclear medicine specialist Kevin Allman, from the Nuclear Medicine Department at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, said that although ANSTO maintained the regular supply of medical radioisotopes for medical diagnosis and therapy during the reactor shutdown, OPAL coming back online now offers the potential for expansion into new radionuclide products.
In addition to irradiating materials, OPAL possesses a suite of instruments used in medical and materials research to investigate how things behave at sub-atomic levels, including how proteins interact in the human body and how superconductors work.
The loss of time on the neutron beam instruments was a major disappointment to scientists, but Cameron doesn't think it will alter their expectations of the facility's performance. "In the period [OPAL was] operating, the instruments performed really well, so I don't think people are concerned," he said.
Disappointed by delays
While the delay was disappointing, it's not unusual for a large, complex engineering project, said University of Sydney biophysicist Jill Trewhella. The shutdown delayed her ability to do important research with students and meant she had to travel to the U.S. to make progress on biological neutron scattering studies.
"The logistics are difficult; transporting fragile biological samples across oceans and continents, making everything work perfectly in a short window of time that we are allocated," she said. "On the positive side, we have been successful and my students have had the unique experience of international 'big' science facilities."
Greg Warr, a physical chemist, also from the University of Sydney, said the delay had kept neutron scattering research in the same position they have been for the past 20 years – where researchers were expected to travel far and tended to be conservative with experiments because they had to pack everything on a plane.
He said that while the delay had negatively affected his research, he was delighted that the reactor was now up and running. Both Warr and Trewhella hoped to get beam time on OPAL's small angle neutron scattering instrument 'QUOKKA' within the year.
Rescheduling of the research timetable should have happened by the time the reactor reaches full power in June 2008, said Cameron. Local scientists who are able to travel quickly to the site will be first in line to use the instruments.
