OTHER ELECTRONICS & NANOTECHNOLOGY
INDUSTRY UPDATE
May 2015
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Construction of LSST Clean Room at SLAC Completed
New
Facility to supply Molybdenum-99m before 2018
Lab Celebrates Its First Major Piece of Infrastructure for the
Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
Engineers and scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC
National Accelerator Laboratory working on the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
(LSST) gathered on May 8 to celebrate the completion of a new cleanroom, where
they will soon begin to assemble the largest digital camera ever built.
Beginning in 2022, LSST’s 3,200-megapixel camera will take
snapshots of the night sky with unparalleled detail. Over its planned 10 years
of operations, it will create an archive of tens of billions of cosmic objects
and their movements – a treasure trove for researchers studying all kinds of
astronomical phenomena.
“The completion of the cleanroom is a big milestone for the
lab,” said LSST Director Steven Kahn. “It’s the first major piece of LSST
infrastructure here at SLAC.” The achievement comes only weeks after another
project milestone: the beginning of construction for the telescope at its future
site in Chile.
Having a clean environment for the assembly of LSST’s camera
is necessary because any dust settling on the image sensors would degrade the
quality of the precision device. The air inside the new facility is about 1,000
times “cleaner” than ordinary air. The main 1,875 square feet work space has a
ceiling height of 24 feet so that the approximately 10-feet-long camera body can
be mounted vertically for optical alignment and final testing.
“Getting the cleanroom built took a lot of work by many
people,” said Aaron Roodman, SLAC’s system scientist for the LSST camera
integration and testing. “It’s due to their efforts that we got it done in only
eight months.”
The day of the opening ceremony turned out to be the only day
that visitors were allowed to go inside without an escort, special training and
“bunny suits,” the full-body gear worn in clean- rooms.
Among the attendees were researchers of the LUX-ZEPLIN dark
matter project, who are building a test stand for their experiment right next to
LSST’s clean room. Both facilities are located at SLAC’s “Interaction Region 2,”
the former home of the BaBar particle physics experiment at the PEP-II collider.
“It’s very exciting to have our clean room in this location,”
said SLAC’s Nadine Kurita, project manager for LSST’s camera. “Many of us worked
on BaBar and PEP-II before and spent endless nights here, and now we’re coming
back to put the camera together.”
Researchers can now begin to fill the new facility with life.
Over the next few months, they will install work benches and bring in some of
their equipment. The camera assembly will be spread out over the next four
years.
SLAC is a multi-program laboratory exploring frontier
questions in photon science, astrophysics, particle physics and accelerator
research. Located in Menlo Park, Calif., SLAC is operated by Stanford University
for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.
The effort to build the LSST is a partnership between public
and private organizations. Financial support for LSST Design and Development
comes from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and
private funding raised by the LSST Corporation, a non-profit 501(c)3 corporation
formed in 2003, with headquarters in Tucson, AZ. Contributions from private
foundation gifts, grants to universities, and in-kind support from laboratories
and other LSST Member Institutions were key to early construction and critical
developments. The LSST Project Office for central management was established as
an operating center under management of the Association of Universities for
Research in Astronomy (AURA). The Department of Energy funded effort is managed
by the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC). Learn more at lsst.org.
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is supported by the
Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the
single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the
United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of
our time.
A new facility coming to Florida is one part of a national
push to supply enough of a critical medical isotope by the time the primary
supplier in Canada shuts down in 2018.
“Our goal was to incorporate the most innovative design while
sustaining the environment, and Gresham, Smith and Partners have created a
remarkable vision for Coquí Pharma," says Carmen I. Bigles, president and CEO of
Coquí Pharma.
What if the nearly sole supplier of a critical ingredient was
about to cease operations? And what if that ingredient was critical to 20
million US medical testing procedures a year?
Such is the case with the radioisotope Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99),
the basis for the most widely used medical isotope in the world, Technetium-99m
(Tc-99m), which is used in approximately 40,000 medical diagnostic procedures
per day in the United States. With its short half-life, the isotope needs to be
used in patients very quickly after it is created.
Mo-99 is essential to 80 percent of 50 million nuclear
medicine procedures worldwide. Between 40 percent and 80 percent of Mo-99 used
in the US is sourced from one place: the National Research Universal reactor
(NRU) at Chalk River, Ontario, Canada, opened in 1957 and operated by Canadian
Nuclear Laboratories (CNL).
In 2010 the Government of Canada announced its decision to
cease the routine production of Mo-99 from the NRU in 2016, as the facility
essentially reaches the end of its useful life. Since then the government has
announced it will support the extension of the NRU operations until March 31,
2018, as Mo-99 consumers worldwide scramble to find a reliable supply. In 2012,
the US Congress passed legislation making it a national priority to produce
Mo-99, an isotope necessary to detect a wide range of diseases, including
cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Coquí Pharma was way ahead of Congress. In 2010, the same year
as the original Canadian announcement, the Puerto Rican medical isotope company,
based in Coral Gables, Fla., started a site selection process for a facility to
make Mo-99 and house its corporate and R&D functions. Working with design and
consulting firm Gresham, Smith and Partners, the team evaluated the entire
Southeastern US from Texas to North Carolina and all points south, says Kevin
Tilbury, a planner with Gresham, Smith and Partners who has worked with the
company from the beginning.
The team also includes DC-based law firm Hogan Lovells, which
advises on Nuclear Regulatory Commission matters; Argentina's INVAP, which
designed a similar Open Pool Reactor facility for OPAL in Australia and will do
the same for Coquí; and MPR Associates, which serves as owner's rep and performs
project management. Tilbury says around 100 people at his firm alone have
touched the project over the past five years.
Family Ties
After issuing an RFI, the team narrowed its choices in 2011 to
sites in Alachua, Fla.; Fort Pierce, Fla.; and Baton Rouge, La., and ultimately,
in August 2014, announced Alachua's Progress Corporate Park as its final choice.
The University of Florida Foundation finalized its donation of the land in
January. The company said last August the project will create 164 jobs (average
wage $75,500) and generate a capital investment of approximately $230 million.
The projected cost is now $339 million, and the projected job creation total has
likewise risen to 200.
In August 2014, Carmen Bigles announced that Coquí Pharma had
selected Alachua County as the site for new medical isotope production facility.
"They were all great locations," says Tilbury, but Alachua
County's offering was set apart by a number of things, including Florida's
generous incentive package and the presence of a nuclear engineering program and
a research reactor right across the street from where the Gators play football
at the University of Florida in nearby Gainesville. “Coquí Radiopharmaceuticals
provides the University of Florida with a valued regional partner in the areas
of medical science and nuclear technology, said Dr. David Norton, vice president
of research at the University of Florida. “We are very excited about their
decision to locate here in Alachua County as it brings high-tech jobs and
economic development to the area, in addition to supplying much needed medical
isotopes to hospitals across the country.”
Also cinching the deal was an integrated community approach,
with the city, county, university and the Gainesville Chamber's Council for
Economic Outreach presenting a unified and collaborative message. "That was a
big positive for Coquí," says Tilbury, noting in particular the proactive
involvement of the mayor and assistant city manager for the City of Alachua.
"They treat us like family."
Family also played a role as the area courted Coquí. When the
team first visited the park, their meetings were hosted (and continue to be
hosted) by InterMed, a seller and supporter of X-ray, ultrasound and nuclear
medicine equipment. InterMed founder Rick Staab's son Tyler suffers from
dystonia, a neurological movement disorder characterized by involuntary and
sometimes painful muscle spasms and contractions. Staab and his wife Michelle
launched the Tyler's Hope Foundation to raise money for a cure for the disease,
which also affects their daughter Samantha.
As it happens, the medical isotope Coquí is producing is
intended to research, diagnose and help treat dystonia, among other maladies. A
company, a community and a cause were already aligned.
“On behalf of my company InterMed Nuclear Medicine and our
foundation, Tyler's Hope for a Dystonia Cure, we welcome Coquí to our community
and consider this announcement a huge and exciting success,” said Staab last
August. “The decision to build the new facility here is great for our community,
the United States and for all of healthcare. I have personal connections to many
of the benefits of Coqui's services, ranging from my father's lifetime in
nuclear medicine to family battles with dystonia and Alzheimer's. Absolutely a
great addition to our communities' image as a world leader in medical research.”
Unique Challenge
This month, Gresham, Smith and Partners and Coquí announced
the schematic design for the new 250,000-sq.-ft. (23,225-sq.-m.) facility was
complete, with detailed design to follow. It encompasses a production side,
including a research reactor that is required to be a secure facility, as well
as corporate offices and campus-style landscaping, all on a 25-acre (10-hectare)
parcel that up to now has been sprouting cotton.
"Our designers had to segregate the two and yet integrate the
design," says Tilbury.
“Because of the many unique aspects of this facility, we have
brought together a multi-disciplined team of architects, engineers,
environmental scientists, interior designers and planners from GS&P’s
Industrial, Environmental, Corporate + Urban Design and Land Planning markets,”
said John Wharton, P.E., a senior vice president at Gresham, Smith and Partners
whose portfolio includes work on at least comparable facilities in places such
as Oak Ridge, Tenn., as well as past industrial projects for Alcoa in multiple
states and abroad. “The design features a beautiful landscape, a stunning
corporate headquarters, and a state-of-the-art production facility. We believe
the project will be an inspiring, modern and sustainable landmark in Alachua
that supports the company’s unique production needs with highly tailored
process-driven design. Our team is proud to be part of such a worthwhile
project.”
The design will ensure Coquí Pharma operates on a minimum
energy consumption rate with limited carbon dioxide emissions by mitigating
solar exposure and enhancing the control of daylight throughout the building.
Water efficiency also played a pivotal role in the design process. The
positioning of the structure also took into consideration two Heritage Oak trees
that will essentially bookend the facility.
Next comes the technical investigation phase to meet the NRC's
requirements, a process that will culminate in an application to the NRC by the
end of this year. The company hopes to complete the licensing and begin
construction by 2017. And Coquí has conservatively estimated a 2020 time frame
for commercial operation, says Tilbury.
That's two years after the already-extended closure date of
the Chalk River facility in Canada.
"We'd like to be operating sooner than that," says Tilbury,
"but that's the conservative estimate."
Desperate Race
There are other contenders to meet the expected need. Some are
in more dependable locations than others.
INVAP has worked on more than 15 nuclear reactors and related
facilities across the world, including several reactors used to produce medical
isotopes. Among these is the OPAL reactor in Australia, the ETRR-2 reactor in
Egypt, and the NUR reactor in Algeria. "There are some producers in Europe and
Russia," says Tilbury. "But for obvious reasons we don't want to have to rely on
Russian supply."
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security
Administration (DOE/NNSA) is working to develop a reliable and sustainable means
of producing Mo-99 without using highly enriched uranium (HEU), including
assistance to help convert Mo-99 producers to low enriched uranium (LEU). Its
partners have included NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, which is developing both
neutron capture and accelerator-based technologies; and SHINE Medical
Technologies, based in Wisconsin, which is developing accelerator technology
with LEU fission.
NorthStar, based until now in Madison, Wis., last July broke
ground in Beloit, Wis., for a new 50,000-sq.-ft. (4,645-sq.-m.) complex that
will house its relocated corporate HQ and Mo-99 production facilities. The new
facility is phase one in the planned development of a 32-acre (13-hectare)
corporate campus for NorthStar. It will support the company’s work at the
University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR) in Columbia, Mo., where NorthStar
is developing a neutron capture process to generate Mo-99.
Phase two of the campus development project would see the
building expanded; the site could accommodate a building more than twice as
large as the initial structure. Phase three would include construction of a
linear accelerator facility for use in the second Mo-99-generation process that
NorthStar is developing. A third building also could be constructed on the site
in the future as the company continues to expand.
McIlvaine Company
Northfield, IL 60093-2743
Tel:
847-784-0012; Fax:
847-784-0061
E-mail:
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