Throughout the molybdenum-99 shortage that began with the unexpected and now lengthy shutdown of the NRU reactor in Chalk River, Ontario, now combined with the planned shutdown of the High Flux Reactor in the Netherlands, we have had two primary goals.

One option is to use a higher-flux reactor.

The financing required in order to decommission Kozloduy 1-4, including waste disposal and temporary storage of fuel elements, is said to amount to EUR 1800 m. This estimated cost is comparable, for example, to the cost of two dual-unit facilities with the same type of reactor at Greifswald in the Federal Republic of Germany.

In order to improve safety at the plant and prevent the potential restarting of these two units, the fuel elements should be transferred as soon as possible to the external temporary storage facility and dismantling should begin at once.

Following a minor release of radioactivity into the reactor hall of the High Flux Reactor of the Commission of the European Communities Petten Establishment which took place at midday on Tuesday 19th May, the reactor shut down automatically and the reactor hall was evacuated.

Their implementation will have the effect of reinforcing, inter alia by applying the customer/contractor principle, links between the JRC and industry, other research centres and the European scientific community as a whole, and will require the JRC to be managed more flexibly and more independently; - a joint position on the new supplementary programme for the operation of the High Flux Reactor at the Petten Establishment, to be carried out by the JRC mainly on the basis of joint financing by the Federal Republic of Germany and the Netherlands.