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B&W strikes isotopes deal with health care firm - Jan. 26, 2009
Babcock & Wilcox has tapped a Department of Energy official to lead its medical isotopes initiative, which could lead to a new production facility in the Lynchburg area in several years.
B&W’s Technical Services Group is starting a venture with a medical supply company to make a medical isotope in the U.S. that currently has to be imported.
Daniel E. Glenn will be the company’s head for research and development in that project, the company announced Wednesday.
Glenn most recently was Technical Deputy Manager for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a project run by the De-partment of Energy and its subsidiary, the National Nuclear Security Administration.
“We are very fortunate to have someone of Dan’s experience and technical background joining us,” S. Robert Cochran, president of B&W’s Technical Service Group, said in a news release.
“He is a tested leader, and he also conducted graduate-level research on the type of reactor we’re planning to use for our new medical isotope initiative.”
The medical isotope initiative would use a reactor that B&W patented in 1997. It would use low-enriched uranium to create molybdenum-99, a radioactive isotope that medical facilities could use to make another isotope that is used in many medical procedures.
The program could supply up to half of the molybdenum-99 used in the U.S.
B&W spokesman Jud Simmons said the company plans to build a new production facility to support the program. “We expect that the facility would be producing the molybdenum-99 in approximately five to six years,” he said. “That depends on a number of factors, things like site selection, construction, design (and) regulatory approval.”
He said the Lynchburg area, where three of B&W’s operating units are headquartered, is being considered for the facility, but the company does not have a timeline for a site announcement.
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