I agree, Narcisist : a cyclotron is useless for producing technetium or molybdenum : cyclotrons create an entirely different class of radioactive materials, called positron-emmitters, without generating the large amounts of waste associated with a nuclear reactor. There is still a lot of data gathering to do, but so far the experts seem to believe that P.E.T. analogues (ie. positron emitters, like those produced in cyclotrons) can be just as effective, or even more so, in diagnosis.

It's really more in the less common realm of radio-therapy that we find ourselves still tied, in some circumstances, to certain specific radio-isotopes which are commonly generated in reactors.

I do recognise, as I clearly stated, that there are some important medical applications of materials produced in reactors, that none of us would like to turn our backs on. I think every one these days has been touched in some way by cancer, either through friends or family. So no-one is prepared to say we should just live without any treatment option, no matter how rare its application and efficacy. That said, experts such as the aforementioned MAPW (whose association includes radio-therapy specialists - did you check out the reference I gave?) assure us that we don't need a nuclear reactor - or further uranium mining - to ensure access to world class medicine.

Indeed, Professor Barry Allen, a former Chief Scientist at ANSTO and Director of the Centre for Experimental Oncology, told a NSW inquiry that ‘Medically, I do not believe the new reactor is essential. … it was inappropriate to claim that it was required to save lives.’

Your dreams of harnessing the strong nuclear force are interesting, but certainly beyond the scope of realising that we should end uranium mining now.

The medical use of radioactivity has been used for years as a justification for a nuclear industry in Australia. But realistically, what scale of reactor and how many of them would you need for such purposes?

On the other hand certain Liberal Prime Ministers and I suspect John Howard is one of them, would like Australia to have nuclear weapons. This is the crazy reason Australia allowed nuclear testing in Australia.

John Howard and his front bench were entirely opposed to nuclear power plants and waste recycling in Australia until very recently. They said their opposition was based, among other things on economic grounds and we had alternatives.

However Howard's view changed overnight after he was feted by Bush and shortly after Howard was delivering something akin to an eulogy about the virtues of nuclear power to a gob-smacked Canadian audience, who were doubtless wondering why they had been chosen for Howard to proselytise on the subject of nuclear power. Interestingly, a key issue of Howard's was to be the reprocessing of fuel in Australia.

Now I reckon that Bush has lined Howard up to take the ever growing pile of nuclear waste generated by the US and others. While on this subject, for those with long memories or Google, the nuclear industry has, according to them, been on the verge of a breakthrough in waste storage for years; however it has never come to fruition. Wonder why?

Just forgetting the waste from plants for a moment, the US defence industry has nuclear warships mothballed everywhere, including in Japan because they are too poisonous to break up. Countries where there are no safeguards already use expendable labour to break up ships with toxic waste (but not nuclear). Maybe Mr Downer's South Australia could handle the poisons that others cannot and will not handle.

The fantasy about a nuclear power industry in the distant future is the Trojan horse to use Australia as a dumping ground now. Howard's corporate mates get rich and some mad neo-conservatives get their nuclear bomb with "Made in Oz" stamped on it as a reward.