Enriched uranium once intended for South Africa’s nuclear weapons is now helping medical science, writes Lesley Cowling
THE Atomic Energy Corporation (AEC) is using enriched uranium to fuel a research reactor that now produces medical isotopes for international export and local use. But the uranium was enriched in a process designed by AEC scientists in the Seventies for a very different purpose – as the fuel for South Africa’s nuclear bombs.
“It’s like converting swords into ploughshares,” says AEC’s chief Dr Waldo Stumpf. But critics say the new process may be costing South Africa more money than it is worth and that AEC is motivated by an instinct for survival rather than a desire for peace and harmony.
Stumpf was appointed head of AEC in 1989 by FW de Klerk’s government and given the responsibility of dismantling the nuclear weapons programme so that South Africa could become a signatory to the Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. For at least two decades before that, AEC scientists had been enriching uranium for use in nuclear devices being created by Armscor in the top secret programme.
The AEC nuclear scientists of the time claimed to have invented the enrichment process, but scientific critics said that, in fact, they used a German designed process and simply adapted it. The process was developed for political and strategic reasons, and money was not the issue. It was therefore not at all cost effective.
Stumpf says it took about two years to dismantle the programme and transfer the enriched uranium from Armscor back to AEC, where it was stored in a special vault. South Africa signed the treaty in July 1991, but then the issue of the enriched uranium arose: what to do with it.
The story goes that the Americans offered to take it off our hands and were none too pleased when South Africa decided to keep it. Stumpf does not confirm this anecdote, which is floating about in scientific circles. He would only say the Americans “put out feelers”, but there was no legal obligation for South Africa to hand over the uranium.
The Americans wanted the enriched uranium because of a concern for proliferation, not because they wanted to use it – as one person described it: “They want to sit on the world’s nuclear weapons and they don’t want anyone else to.”
Stumpf says that the South African government of the time felt it was responsible enough to take care of the uranium, a position the present dispensation has also taken. The AEC now stores it according to International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines. The agency inspects the premises frequently and has installed cameras to monitor any movement of the uranium.
But Thomas Auf der Heyde, director of the University of Cape Town’s Science Advice Unit, says AEC needed to hold onto the uranium to secure its position in the new South Africa. “Everybody can see that it’s in AEC’s interests to hold onto the uranium – it raises its political stake considerably. It is also a partial justification of its existence, at least as the managers of the uranium.
AEC began using the stockpiled uranium in the Nineties as fuel for its research reactor – known as Safari – at a time when the corporation was trying to diversify its activities and to become more commercially viable. At this stage, AEC began producing medical isotopes and created a company to market them.
Medical isotopes are used as diagnostic and therapeutic tools – in simple terms, they are substances, usually liquid, that give off a low level of radiation. When swallowed by patients or inserted into the body, they can be seen by doctors using special scanning equipment.
They can also be used to treat cancer, as they can be made to attack tumours from inside the body.
The new exploitation of enriched uranium is one of the projects AEC uses to justify its existence in economic terms. But some take issue with this. Auf der Heyde says that it is possible that AEC’s isotopes are generating significant income for the corporation. But it is also possible that the running costs of the reactor are so high that the process is uneconomic and that AEC is using its government funding to subsidise the reactor.
“There may be other reasons for running the reactor, research and capacity building, for example, but the figures are not available,” he says.
But AEC representative Mojalefa Murphy says that producing medical isotopes is a by- product of running the reactor and its main function is actually to release neutrons for research and not to produce the isotopes. “Medical isotopes are not a profit-making activity anywhere in the world, but they can defray a reactor’s operating costs,” he says.
Murphy argues strongly that there is a need for South Africa to remain involved in the hi-tech world of nuclear research, and not to leave that to the more developed countries. “There’s a need to supply energy for South Africa in the future and that requires research.”
AEC faces tough competition in the medical isotopes market from the states of the former Soviet Union, which are producing very cheap nuclear products. Russian medical isotopes could also become available locally, but AEC’s privileged position in South Africa would make it very difficult for any new competitor to enter the market.
The issue of profitability is likely to be resolved later this year, when a fundamental review of South Africa’s science and technology system, mandated by the recent White Paper, takes place. AEC will be one of the insititutions assessed. According to Rob Adam, deputy director- general of the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, the terms of reference of the review would definitely include the profitability of such institutions.
Murphy says the AEC has diversified into a number of areas in the last five years, developing a whole range of new products, but that there is a need for the corporation to work with government to develop a focus. “We’re in the process of clarifying the mandate of the AEC,” he says.
The process is hampered by a laok of trust, commentators say – government mistrust of AEC’s past and the corporation’s fears about its future. “Once we can be accepted as legitimate role-players in building the new South Africa, we can become more effective,” says Murphy.