Nuclear Technology

Kendra Kepner

Human senses can detect radioactivity?• Humans can detect radioactivity like light and

heat• Humans cannot detect UV light, X- rays,

gamma rays, and cosmic rays• But if humans wanted to see radioactivity they

can’t see, there are instruments like Geiger Counter

All radiation causes cancer?

• Most forms of radiation UV, and X-Rays are very harmful, depending upon the power levels and the duration of exposure.

• Some of the cells in our body are more sensitive to radiation then others causing them to multiply.

Medical X-rays are dangerous?

• Not really because they help doctors see what is wrong with your body so it is easier to treat you

• But there is an exception, if someone is exposed to the beams for long periods, they would develop radiation sickening.

Home smoke detectors contain radioactive materials?

• Most detectors make use of about two microcuries of americium-241, which is used to make the air in the detector's "ionization chamber" electrically conductive.

• When a smoke detector goes off you receive a radiation dosage of about a half-microrem per hour.

Can a improperly operated nuclear power plant explode like a nuclear weapon?

• Nuclear reactors can explode like a nuclear bomb

• Explosions can occur anywhere but usually take place at power plants.

• It is odd to have a steam powered explosions at a power plant because these power plants usually convert heat to mechanical energy

Are all nuclear medical techniques highly dangerous?

• You could say medical techniques are and aren’t dangerous

• Nuclear medical techniques are good, because of X-rays and MRI’s.

Do small amounts of matter change to immense quantities of energy released by nuclear weapons?

• Nuclear fusion changes small amounts of matter into large quantities of energy in nuclear weapons

Do people vary widely concerned about how they are affected by exposure to radiation?

• Yes most people are in today’s technology advancements

• Radioactivity can be a good/ bad thing • Being affected by radiation exposure is

probably the worst thing to have happen to a human being

Are radioactive materials and radiation unnatural?

• No, radioactivity has been around before any scientists

• Radiation is in almost everything that a human uses. Like the air we breathe, food we eat, and even the Earth’s crust.

Can physicians tell a difference from cancer by radiation exposure and cancer by other causes?

• There really isn’t a difference between cancer by radiation and cancer by other causes

• Cancer by other causes usually start with a cell growing out of control

• Cancer by radiation causes the cells to merge together, multiply, or divide

Does nuclear powerplants create hazards to public health and environment?

• Of course powerplants do• Powerplants produce all of these toxins/ fumes

that aren’t needed for some procedures• So they usually just pump them into the

atmosphere• Pumping it into the atmosphere causes global

warming and other air pollution• Also humans breathing these fumes in causes

hazards for them

Must nuclear wastes be stored for centuries to prevent dangerous radioactivity from escaping?

• Yes because radioactive wastes remains highly radioactive for thousands of years

Are new and dangerous elements are being invented everyday?

• No the last element to be discovered was element 118, in 2006. The last elements discovered before that were elements 113 and 115, in 2004. So, discovering a new element isn't an everyday event. Also, although they're extremely radioactive these new elements aren't very dangerous as extremely small quantities are produced

Do nuclear power plants produce material that could be converted into nuclear weapons?

• Not really. The fuel from a nuclear power plant won't explode under any circumstances, so no bombs are possible. If you had some way of turning it into a fine powder a dirty bomb could be made, but even that would require some very sophisticated facilities, it's not something you could do in a cave or a garage. It theoretically is possible to make a nuclear power plant have a meltdown, or even to "simply" make a pile of nuclear fuel large enough to meltdown, and create a Chernobyl type event. Either would require a whole lot of things to go right though, IE they wouldn't be easy to accomplish at all without some pretty sophisticated resources. It's also technically possible to use some types of nuclear fuel to make a so called breeder reactor, which could be used to create more danger types of nuclear material, but that would require the resources of a large government and would take years.