Tc99 can be produced in cyclotrons but a higher cost and lower quality, per the note in the first section here
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/non-power-nuclear-applications/radioisotopes-research/radioisotopes-in-medicine.aspx
We know people who tread on a crack in the pavement will suffer eternal damnation. That's why we must all make the extra effort to avoid it. It's worth it.

The sooner we're finished with these atoms the better we'll all be.

No doubt that person who invented the electron has a lot to be answerable for........

Well, energy dependant cyclotrons may well produce medical isotopes, And turn millionaire medicine into it's billionaire comparative?

These things cost squillions to build and the energy of a small town to light up! And they are not fail safe! Lose one bank of magnets and the speeding at just below light speed, (oops) particles can go straight on, rather than round the curve.

Moreover, medical isotopes, with short half lifes of just hours, produce life saving alpha radiation, not lethal gamma radiation!

Walk away safe, molten salt thorium reactors produce medical isotopes that can be extracted from an operational reactor!

Molten salt boils somewhere north of 1200C, whereas the useful target range of a thorium fueled molten salt based reactor operates at less than 950C. Meaning, no special containment vessel need be built!

In the event of a power failure, a solid salt plug melts, allowing the salt to drain to a purpose created containment vessel, where no reaction is possible, given no critical mass is available, where the molten salt quickly crystallizes!

End of story! Fuel it up, kick start it, weld it shut and walk away. Come back after 100 years to shut it down/remove the remaining 5% waste.

Yes they do need shielding and robotics, because a nuclear reaction, any nuclear reaction produces gamma radiation!

Just not one that can go critical! Simply put, thorium is fertile not fissile and anyone with a scaric of nuclear knowledge knows that fertile material cannot be compressed to make a bomb!

Thorium in its natural state as a white silvery metal is less radioactive than a banana! And needs no enrichment before being able to fuel a nuclear reactor!

And as such, uses as much as 95% of its, common as lead, fuel type. And the far less toxic waste is eminently suitable as long life space batteries that burn up on reentry.
Alan B.

Methinks the Author is an avowed green acolyte, with a green acolyte agenda? An anti dam, anti development, depopulate or perish agenda?

And a yearning to return to a wilderness lifestyle and an agrarian horse and cart economic model; that in truth, can only support around one billion people worldwide!

They're against even peaceful use, safe clean nuclear energy, given if wisely used, it could enable us to turn arid desert wasteland into veritable gardens, resettle all the displaced people, end poverty and want, and all the conflicts that spring from that!

There was a very good reason why cyclotrons, were abandoned as makers of medical isotopes! Any which way you play with the numbers, they cost a fortune to run or make stuff with!

And have long been used for pure science, by academia!

The loop/hydrocyclone under switzerland cost around a trillion and billions to operate, meaning no one nation on its own has the money to build or run one?

It'd be very different, if like thorium, there'd be guaranteed, sizable return! And all but free energy!

It's not nuclear science threatening and end of life event! Just carbon!

Recalcitrant intransigents with an agenda are not helping, but recidivist fear mongering, hindering every viable solution, except so called economy destroying renewables!

Moreover, a molten salt, walk away safe, thorium reactor, can be tasked with burning and reburning both nuclear waste and weapons grade plutonium as well as producing a veritable smorgasbord of medical isotopes.

And all that is in prospect to completely remove the scourge of weapons grade plutonium from the planet! Even if that takes a million years!

The 3 billion being proposed to build a pump storage in the snowys, would likely pay for three factory produced, 350 MW FUJI, molten salt reactors. That 1,000 MW's for around the same government commitment. And the money queensland is proposing to commit to a new coal fired power plant, would pay for at least two and doubled output?
Alan B.