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Molybdenum-99, HFR Petten
Petten, Netherlands52.76°N 4.68°E
computed criticality18/100
reading
HFR Petten ≈30% of global Mo-99; a handful of ageing research reactors
2025Fault line
Technetium-99m, the radiotracer for about 80% of nuclear-medicine scans, comes from molybdenum-99 produced by a handful of ageing research reactors, HFR Petten (~30% globally), BR2 in Belgium, SAFARI-1 in South Africa. Its 66-hour half-life forbids any storage: each overlap of maintenance shutdowns causes scan cancellations, as during the 2025 shortages (up to −50% of supply).
Actors
NRG (Petten)
SCK CEN, BR2 (Mol)
IRE (Fleurus)
Curium (Paris)
Feeds 1
Drug shortages, FDA / EMA / WHOPharma & APIs↗Sources