President Michel Temer launched the works for the construction of a complex for the Brazilian Multipurpose Reactor (RMB) and began testing the equipment of the Nuclear Power Generation Laboratory (Labgene) of the Navy’s nuclear program.
The reactor, according to the government, will give Brazil self-sufficiency in the production of inputs necessary for the manufacture of drugs used in the treatment of heart, oncological and neurological diseases, among others.
Labgene is a prototype of the plant for the future submarine with nuclear propulsion of Brazil.
The RMB complex will be built on an area of 2.04 million square meters in Iperó. The land was ceded by the Brazilian Navy and the São Paulo government, according to the military institution. The site will gather, in addition to the reactor, all laboratories necessary for its operation.
“It will be the catalyst for a major national research center for radiation application,” the Navy said in a statement.
The production of radioisotopes, inputs that are now imported, will reduce the risk of shortages and the costs of manufacturing medicines in the country, according to the federal government. “In addition to gaining this autonomy, we will be able to expand public health care, bringing the benefits of this project and nuclear medicine to millions of Brazilians,” said Gilberto Kassab, Minister of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communications.
In March this year, the Ministry of Health signed an agreement with Amazul (Amazônia Azul Defense Technologies) to contribute Real $ 750 million, until 2022, in the implementation of part of the project.
Minister Gilberto Occhi (Health) also participated in the ceremony and said that in 2018, Real $ 30 million (of the R $ 750 million expected) will be invested
in the project. “Today, there are around two million medical procedures [among them imaging diagnoses] in more than 900 nuclear and public medicine centers in Brazil. With the RMB operation we are going to lower costs, “he said, not to mention the current spending in this area.
The Labgene was built, according to the Navy, to reproduce on land the propulsion systems that will be installed in the future Nuclear Submarine (SN-BR). The laboratory will also serve as a basis for other Brazilian nuclear projects, including a dynamometric brake, an electric propulsion motor, turbogenerators and a reactor. When it comes into full operation, according to the government, the laboratory will have a 48-megawatt thermal power plant, which is capable of powering the submarine’s propulsion, but is also sufficient to illuminate a city of approximately 20,000 inhabitants.
