OPAL is the for Open Pool Australian Light-water reactor. It has an open pool design and uses light-water (normal water), for both cooling and moderation, these characteristics having influenced its name.
- The Australian opal symbolises premium quality and ‘Australianess’. OPAL will help Australia produce high quality internationally recognised scientific research and attract top-class scientists.
- Students from St John Bosco College in the Sutherland Shire and Parndarna Area School on Kangaroo Island, South Australia came up with creative suggestions which also influenced the reactor name.
- In technical terms, OPAL will be a 20 megawatt pool reactor using low enriched uranium fuel, and cooled by water. It will be a multipurpose facility for radioisotope production, irradiation services and neutron beam research – it is a neutron factory. Its compact core is designed to achieve high performance in the production of neutrons.
- OPAL’s neutron beams will be many times more effective than ANSTO’s current reactor, HIFAR (High Flux Australian Reactor), as they will be more intense and substantially free of gamma radiation.
- Unlike HIFAR, OPAL will also produce cold neutron beams which will allow scientists to conduct research into the structure of biological matter, which was not previously possible in Australia. This opens up more scientific research avenues for Australian researchers.
- OPAL has the potential to produce around four times as many life-saving medical isotopes used in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as cancer than HIFAR, as well as generate medical isotopes not previously available.
- ANSTO signed a contract with the Argentine company INVAP S.E. and its Australian
- alliance partners, John Holland Construction and Engineering Pty Ltd and Evans
- Deakin Industries Limited, for the design, construction and commissioning of OPAL on
- 13 July 2000.
- The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) issued a licence to construct OPAL on 5 April 2002. At this time, it is expected that OPAL will be commissioned in 2006.
- OPAL, which will cost $330 million, is due to be fully operational in 2006.