Most of us were lucky enough and were not even born when Hiroshima and Nagasaki was nuked but it’s impact still goes through our imagination and sounds very fresh and recent. Such is the power of nuclear technology but what a negative way to start such an amazing topic, you would say. On a more positive note ninety percent of France’s electricity needs come out of nuclear reactors. On slightly different note the leading economist and currently the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh almost lost his coalition democratic government in order to pursue this path to fulfill the demand of this growing economy and provide light in far villages which can not afford electricity currently. But often the common people like us are not able to correlate directly to all these big incidents. So how about the smoke detector in your home or even the X-Rays used in medical field?    Industries like food, oil and gas exploration etc. all have been benefited immensely from this technology. Believe it or not the nuclear technology touches our lives more than we think. Before we discuss the contribution of nuclear technology in details let us find out what is this technology all about and  why this technology has such a powerful impact in almost every sphere of our life?

    First of all Nuclear Technology is based upon nuclear reactions called nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. These basically involved reaction between two nuclei. As we will observe these two reactions follow two different approaches to release energy.

     Nuclear fission is a reaction where energy is released when one atom is broken into two smaller nuclei and some neutrons. These released neutrons can be tamed to cause more nuclear reactions (nuclear fission) leading to chain reaction along with vast amount of energy with every reaction in the process. This reaction was discovered just before World War II resulting in development of Atom Bomb. Nuclear fission reaction can also be used to generate electricity via nuclear reactors.

    Under Nuclear fusion reaction two or more nuclei is made to react into one. This releases much more energy compared to nuclear fission and Hydrogen bomb was the first production out of this reaction.  It utilized deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of Hydrogen and that is why it was called Hydrogen bomb. Interestingly though we need a nuclear fission reaction to generate some energy to cause a nuclear fusion.

    As we can observe whether it is nuclear fusion or nuclear fission, the key is the chain reaction and the energy generated during those processes. And both are common to both the types of nuclear reaction which ultimately forms the base for Nuclear Technology.

    Now let us take a look on the constructive use of nuclear energy and Nuclear power tops the list. This is a result of nuclear energy obtained out of fission reaction as mentioned earlier. Once we have the energy we can use them for generating heat and electricity or causing propulsion. The energy released essentially used to produce steam and drive a steam turbine. It could be used for submarines, aircraft carriers and even icebreakers. The power generated this way could be very cost effective with the only requirement is the availability of nuclear material.

    Constructive use of nuclear energy is not just limited to nuclear power but it has also given us several inventions in Medical Sciences. Radiation therapy for cancer treatment is much more beneficial compared to chemo therapy.  Dental imaging and x-rays are some of the gifts our medical field has got from nuclear technology. There are radioactive tracers which are widely used in medical science. There are several industries which are benefited from the commercial use of the nuclear technology. Like food processing industries uses the technology for killing bacteria and viruses which could harm our food. Well logging using nuclear technology helps predict the commercial viability of existing and new oil wells. Nuclear moisture and density gauges are heavily used in road construction industry to determine the density of soil etc. Luminescent exit signs are also based upon nuclear technology. Smoke detector uses radioactive rays which are source of alpha radiation.

    As we all know nothing comes without a price which is true for nuclear technology as well. Besides the nuclear technology research are very costly and slow process it has also created horrors at times in different form. There had been several nuclear accidents both in civilian as well as military arena. You might have heard of leakage in nuclear reactors causing great panic and the by products of these nuclear materials used in these reactors called nuclear waste could have devastating effect not only now but in the future. Find a place to dump them is huge headache for the countries using this technology. Also nuclear arms have created arms race in some of the Asian countries and world affecting the world peace. Not to mention dictators and some of the terrorist organizations often threaten us with the possession of nuclear weapons to pursue their wrong doing.