Isotopes, in the style of a Python cheese sketch
Although I have no idea how they actually do it, nuclear physicists can calculate the half-life of an isotope. Remember those calculations from Grade 11 physics class? Something like that. But what about the half-life, or even better, the whole-life of a nuclear reactor? We seem to be having issues with that question up here in the great white North.
The Chalk River facility produces huge gobs (a truly scientific measurement) of isotopes that are used in hospitals around the world. Unfortunately, that old half-life thing comes into play, and once you’ve started the isotope meter running, it’s much like certain foods in the refrigerator. Eat ’em or lose ’em. Now, again, I don’t pretend to know the how or the why or the where, but the reactor that we use to produce these precious isotopes is getting a little old and rickety. Pumps that don’t want to run, leaks in hard to gum up places, much like an old car or house. Currently, the reactor is shut down for repairs, and those could take more than three months. An eternity, in that half-life calculation.
Because, you see, people continue to get sick and need tests, even if the pesky isotopes have divided and redivided into “almost nothing at all”. And, wouldn’t you know it, the Chalk River facility has something akin to a monopoly. Until the fix is in, no more stock for sale. A problem.
Here’s the political rub. Last time around, when that nice lady who was (at that time) in charge of things stated that the reactor needed repairs and would need some valuable down time, she was sent packing. Forget her political ties, they weren’t really important to the inspired angels in Ottawa. This time around, a better flavour of adminstrator is shutting things down for the needed repairs, but there’ll be no more packing people off; the angels have faith in their newer friend. Funny how politics can trump physics.
