News

From 21 to 28 June 2022, a team of seven international experts visited NRG's High Flux Reactor (HFR) in Petten on behalf of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The aim of this mission was to examine the way in which NRG manages the ageing of its installations. NRG celebrated the reactor's sixtieth anniversary last year, and of course ageing management is an important issue for a reactor of this age.

Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport Ernst Kuipers visited the Energy & Health Campus in Petten on 30 March. The minister spoke with medical experts and the management of NRG | PALLAS about the importance of medical isotope production, research and about the PALLAS-project. Special attention was paid to the development of new therapeutic isotopes and the collaboration with university medical centers.

Over 1.1 million patient doses will be produced over the next month, which will be used to diagnose and treat life-threatening diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases.

The HFR did not start up on 20 January 2022 due to a leak in a water system. This is a system that supplies water to test facilities, which are located on the outside of the reactor core. The leak was located in the reactor hall, within the so-called containment. There was no risk to nuclear safety, man or the environment.

Environmental Service Noord-Holland Noord has granted a permit for the construction of the PALLAS-reactor and for the realization of the Nuclear Health Centre (NHC) under the Nature Conservation Act. The granting of the permit means that PALLAS can continue with the realization of the building plans on the Energy & Health Campus in Petten. Marco Visser, licensing manager PALLAS: ‘This is a wonderful step forward. Our approach, project specific ecological research, has shown that nitrogen deposition does not stand in the way of the realisation of the PALLAS-reactor and our production facility at the NHC.’

Sietsche Eppinga will take up the position of Construction Director PALLAS-reactor as of March 1, 2022. Sietsche will lead the construction work for the PALLAS-reactor on the Energy and Health Campus in Petten.

VVD Member of Parliament Silvio Erkens and CU Member of Parliament Pieter Grinwis, both spokespersons for Climate and Energy for their parties, visited the Energy & Health Campus in Petten on 11 February. This afternoon Erkens and Grinwis discussed the development of new nuclear knowledge infrastructure for energy and health applications with board members and program managers of NRG|PALLAS.

Eric Cervi received the award of best 2021 Ph.D. thesis in the field of fluid-dynamics by the Italian Union of Thermo-Fluid Dynamics (UIT).

Hans Meeussen (NRG) has been appointed as part-time associate professor at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences of the TU Delft.

Effective 1 February 2022, Peter Dijk has accepted the position of programme director PALLAS

PETTEN - Soon there will be new treatments for metastatic prostate cancer available, based on the drug PSMA linked to the radioisotope Lu-177. As prostate is a common disease, the use of this isotope will increase spectacularly.