# data[].attributes.body
Here are some of the cons of nuclear medicine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What is nuclear medicine? An illustrated introduction

# data[].attributes.body
I conclude that nuclear power is the only viable step forward,not only is it almost renewable but also doesn't produce much toxic waste.

Other concerns regarding safety can be discerned when compared with the benefits.

# data[].attributes.body
I would like to conclude by saying that nuclear weapons are both boon and bane ,depending upon user.

In a good person's hand they can fill the world with superb sources of controlled power.

In a bad persons hand they can fill the world with nuclear fallout :-).

# data[].attributes.body
As we have seen in earlier discussions that nuclear chemistry has a widespread use. And use of that in medicine is of zenith importance. Since it had been used for a long period of time and now its use at its peak.
Over 10000 hospital use it worldwide. 90% of of the procedures are for diagnosis.
So here we see that its use is increasing exponentially.
In coming days its use will grow farther fields.

# data[].attributes.body
Here are my proposed uses

1.Nuclear power

2.Suitable alternative to renewable energy

# data[].attributes.body
This is my proposed list of uses

1.Chemotherapy

2.Radiology

3.Tumor detection

# data[].attributes.body
Here are my list of uses of nuclear weapons

1.The classic M.A.D. theory I.e. mutually assured destruction, preventing nuclear powers from going to war against one another.

2.As a substitute for rocket fuel

3.Mining

# data[].attributes.body
1.What is the source of power in nuclear weapons ?

2.When was the first nuclear test carried out?

3.What are the effects of a nuclear explosion?

4.Which is the first city to denounce nuclear weapons?

5.How many times over can the world be destroyed by the current stockpile of nukes ?

# data[].attributes.body
Here are my words

Languid:-Sluggish

Maelstrom:-Generous

Neophyte:-Inexperienced

Palliate:-to reduce severity

Adumbrate:-To make a rough sketch

# data[].attributes.body
Here are my list of words

Demure-Quiet

Fatuous-Silly

Hackneyed-Unoriginal

Ignominious-humiliating

# data[].attributes.body
Here are some of the words i came across while reading for my topic

Abjure: which means to reject

Alacrity: Eagerness

Brusque :Short

Burnish:Shine

Conundrum:Puzzle

# data[].attributes.body
Here are the sources I used

1armscontrol.org

2 Britannica.org

3 NYtimes.com

4 UN.org

5 icanw.org

6 the guardian.com

7 CNN.com

Here is an attached video

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

# data[].attributes.body
Guess I tried the hardest my knowledge was mostly based on our library books and jou

# data[].attributes.body
Well I too didn't try much my sources were journals and YouTube

# data[].attributes.body
Hey guys if you are further interested in knowing how I got the knowledge I used Google :P guess I am not a hardworker

# data[].attributes.body
Well thanks for reading the article guys

Well Shreyash there are always 2 sides to a coin so yeah nuclear power is dangerous but the upsides heavily weigh down the downsides

Navneet I will like to give you the example of France where majority of the power is provided by Nuclear power stations so it does prove its feasibility and return on investment

# data[].attributes.body
Hello there guys

Well Shreyash there is a reason as to why man is a social animal so yeah human experimentation should NEVER be allowed

Jay as every other medical procedure there is no certainty in it's safety but I can say that as medical Science advances so will the success percentage

# data[].attributes.body
Thanks for the feedback guys.

Well Navneet your queries are pretty genuine but my answer remains the same that it depends on the person who has procured it

Well Jay I can assure you that all countries have their best soldiers as defenders of their nuclear arsenal

# data[].attributes.body
JAY superb articles guys.Definitely recommendable

My doubts about Navneets article are whether nuclear medicine is 100% safe or not ?

To Shreyash my doubts are whether nuclear weapons are procurable by terrorist organizations

# data[].attributes.body
Hello guys read articles from both of you and gained immense knowledge

Shreyash I will reiterate the classic question to you, that whether nuclear weapons are boon or bane ?

Jay I would like to question you on the feasibility of nuclear energy and returns on its investments ?

# data[].attributes.body
Hey there Navneet, I read your article and it surprises me to see the vast outreach of nuclear chemistry in medicine.

My question is do you think it should be legal to allow human experimentation to further advance medicine ?

Jay you had an interesting read too

My question to you is, do you still see nuclear power as a viable alternative after the huge disaster in Japan

# data[].attributes.headline
LETS DELVE INTO THE AMAZING POWERS OF THE NUCLEUS

# data[].attributes.subject
LETS DELVE INTO THE AMAZING POWERS OF THE NUCLEUS

# data[].attributes.body
Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions that release nuclear energy to generate heat, which most frequently is then used in steam turbines to produce electricity in a nuclear power station. The term includes nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion. Presently, the nuclear fission of elements in the actinide series of the periodic table produce the vast majority of nuclear energy in the direct service of humankind, with nuclear decay processes, primarily in the form of geothermal energy, and radioscopic thermoelectric generators in niche uses making up the rest.

# data[].attributes.body
Nuclear medicine is a medical speciality involving the application of radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Nuclear medicine scans are usually conducted by radiographer. Nuclear medicine, in a sense, is "radiology done inside out" or "endoradiology" because it records radiation emitting from within the body rather than radiation that is generated by external sources like X-Rays.

# data[].attributes.body
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 20,000 tons of TNT. The first thermonuclear bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 10,000,000 tons of TNT.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Still chugging: the operation of existing nuclear plants in the US is being extended far beyond their expected life. James Marvin Phelps/flickr, CC BY-NC

This article is part of The Conversation's worldwide series on the Future of Nuclear. You can read the rest of the series here, and a counterpoint to the views expressed in this article here.
Nuclear power is likely the least well-understood energy source in the United States. Just 99 nuclear power plants spread over 30 states provide one-fifth of America's electricity. These plants have provided reliable, affordable and clean energy for decades. They also carry risk - to the public, to the environment and to the financial solvency of utilities.

Risk is the product of the probability of an occurrence and its consequence. The probability of dying in a car accident is actually quite high compared to other daily events, but such accidents usually claim few individuals at a time, and so the risk is low. The reason nuclear energy attracts so much attention is that while the probability of a catastrophic event is extremely low, the consequence is often perceived to be extremely high.

Nuclear power and public risk

In the US, commercial nuclear plants have been operating since the late 1960s. If you add up the plants' years in operation, they average about 30 years each, totaling about 3,000 reactor years of operating experience. There have been no fatalities to any member of the public due to the operation of a commercial nuclear power plant in the US. Our risk in human terms is vanishingly low.

Nuclear power's safety record is laudable, considering that nuclear plants are running full-tilt. The average capacity factor of these plants exceeds 90%; that means 99 plants are generating full power over 90% of the time.

If you compare that to any other energy form, there's a huge gap. Coal is a mainstay of electricity generation in this country and has a capacity factor of around 65%. Gas is about the same; wind's capacity factor is around is 30%, and solar is at 25%.

While the probability of a nuclear catastrophe is extremely low, it is only part of the risk calculation. The other part of risk is consequence. The world has been host to three major nuclear power generation accidents: Three Mile Island in 1979, Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011. To the best of our knowledge, Three Mile Island, while terribly frightening, resulted in no health consequences to the public.

Chernobyl was an unmitigated disaster in which the reactor vessel - the place where the nuclear fuel produces heat - was ruptured and the graphite moderator in the reactor ignited, causing an open-air fire and large releases of radioactive material. This reactor design would never have been licensed to operate in the Western world because it lacked a containment.

The scientific consensus on the effects of the disaster as developed by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) has identified 66 deaths from trauma, acute radiation poisoning and cases of thyroid cancer. Additional deaths may occur over time, as understanding the causes of death is a statistical rather than a deterministic process. Considering that the authorities didn't alert the neighboring communities for many hours, the long-term health consequences of that reactor accident are surprisingly small.

And then there was Fukushima Daiichi. At least three of the reactors have sustained core damage, and there is potentially damage to the reactor vessel as well. At this time, no deaths have been attributed to radiation release at Fukushima, but an estimated 1,600 people died as a result of evacuation, and land contamination was widespread.

So if you look at these cases together, in Chernobyl, you had a reactor core on fire and open to the air; in Fukushima, three reactors lost all power during full operation and sustained major core damage, resulting in substantial radioactivity release in one of the most densely populated countries in the world.

These accidents had serious, lasting consequences that aren't to be trivialized, but the consequences are nothing like what has been feared and glorified in movies over the past 50 years. What we've learned about public risk during that time is that the forecasted nightmares resulting from nuclear accidents, even in serious accidents, simply haven't come to fruition. At the same time, as a society, we've come to accept - or at least look the other way from - thousands of traffic- or coal-related deaths every year in the US alone.

Waste containment: risk and storage

The production of energy in any form alters the environment. Coal and natural gas generate particulates, greenhouse gases and the like. In 2012, coal plants in the US generated 110 million tons of coal ash. Nuclear waste created by power generation is in solid form, and the volume is minuscule in comparison, but extremely toxic. Even the production of wind and solar energy generates waste.

Fuel for nuclear plants is in the form of fuel assemblies or bundles, each containing tubes of a zirconium alloy that hold hundreds of ceramic pellets of uranium oxide.

Each fuel assembly provides power for four to five years before it is removed. After removal, the fuel is considered to be waste and must be safely stored, as its radiotoxicity level is extremely high. Unprocessed, it takes about 300,000 years for the radiation level of the waste inside an assembly to return to background levels, at which point it is benign.

US Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Due to the cancellation of the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, there is no place designated for long-term nuclear waste storage in the US, and utilities have resorted to constructing on-site storage at their plants. These storage containers were not designed to be permanent, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is now licensing these temporary facilities for up to 100 years.

Many cheered when the Yucca Mountain project was shuttered, but waste still must be stored, and clearly it is safer to store the waste in a single, permanent depository than in 99 separate and temporary structures.

Monitored, retrievable storage is the safest approach to nuclear waste storage. Waste sites could be centralized and continuously monitored, and built in such a way that waste canisters could be retrieved if, for example, storage technology improves, or if it becomes economical to reprocess the waste to recover the remaining uranium and plutonium created during operation.

If we are to keep using nuclear power even at the present rate, our risks related to waste will increase every year until storage is addressed thoughtfully and thoroughly.

Infrastructure: same plant, different century

At the dawn of commercial nuclear power, the prospect of cheap, plentiful energy produced forecasts that nuclear energy would be too cheap to meter - we'd all be ripping the meters off our houses. But as plant designs evolved, it became clear that ensuring safety would increase the cost of the energy produced.

Every accident taught us something, and with every accident the NRC unveiled a new set of regulations, resulting in a system of plants that are, from the perspective of a few decades ago, much safer. Such tight regulatory oversight, while needed, drives up cost and means that utilities undertake significant financial risk with each nuclear plant they build.

Decades ago, the idea that the NRC would be granting 20-year license extensions to power plants was unheard of. Today, 75% of plants have received them. Now there's talk about a second round of license extensions, and the NRC, the US Department of Energy and the industry are engaged in talking about what it would take to get a third. We're talking about 80 or even 100 years of operation, in which case a plant would outlive the Earth's population at the time it was built.

Tony Fischer/flickr, CC BY

In the shorter term, life extension makes sense. Most of the plants in the United States are Generation 2 plants, but Generation 3 is being built all over the world. Gen 2 plants are proving very robust, and existing plants are quite economical to operate. Gen 3 plants, like Vogtle now being built in Georgia, boast better safety systems, better structural components and better design.

Would I rather have one of those than the one I have now? Absolutely. The risk of operating such a facility is simply lower. At US$4.5 billion to $10 billion, Gen 3 plants are very expensive to build, but we must either accept that capital outlay or find another source of electricity that has all the benefits of nuclear energy.

How much risk do we accept?

As a society, we accepted over 32,000 traffic accident deaths in 2013, and no one stopped driving as a result.

I think most people would be surprised to know that in 2012, seven million people globally died from health complications due to air pollution and that an estimated 13,000 US deaths were directly attributable to fossil-fired plants.

US deaths from coal represent an annual catastrophe that exceeds that of all nuclear accidents over all time. In fact, nuclear power has prevented an estimated 1.84 million air-pollution related deaths worldwide. Natural gas plants, increasingly being constructed around the country, are highly subject to price volatility and, while cleaner than coal, they still account for 22% of carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation in the US. This is not to mention the illogical use of this precious resource for electricity generation versus uses for which it is more uniquely suited, such as heating homes or powering vehicles.

And until the capacity factor for renewables increases dramatically, the cost drops and large-scale storage is developed, they are simply not equipped to handle the bulk of US energy needs nor to provide electricity on demand.

Through the NRC's oversight and the work of researchers all over the world, we have applied lessons from every global nuclear event to every American nuclear plant. The risk inherent in nuclear plant operation will always be present, but it is one of the world's most rigorously monitored activities, and its proven performance in delivering zero-carbon electricity is one that shouldn't be dismissed out of fear.
This article is part of The Conversation's worldwide series on the Future of Nuclear. You can read the rest of the series here, and a counterpoint to the views expressed in this article here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The case for nuclear power - despite the risks

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This article is part of The Conversation's worldwide series on the Future of Nuclear. You can read the rest of the series here, and a counterpoint to the views expressed in this article here. Nuclear power is likely the least well-understood energy source in the United States.