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Isotopes and non power atomic energy

Atomic energy in India does more than make electricity. Reactors run by the Department of Atomic Energy make the radioisotopes that most of nuclear medicine depends on, radiation has been used to breed new crop varieties, gamma plants preserve food, and monazite, the beach sand mineral carrying thorium and rare earths, is kept with government companies. An August 2026 account gathered the whole of it.

UPSC has asked

  • Prelims 2022: monazite, thorium and who may process or export it

What the non power uses rest on

  • Mutation breeding exposes seeds to radiation to create changes within the crop's own genome and selects the useful plants; nothing is brought in from another organism.
  • Monazite is the beach sand mineral that carries thorium and rare earths, and its exports go only through IREL (India) Limited.
  • The monazite threshold has been 0.00 per cent of total heavy minerals since 2019, so every beach sand mineral deposit sits with government companies.

What has happened

  1. 28 Aug 2026

    A government account gathered the non power uses of atomic energy, from medical isotopes to a rare earth standard.

    • Molybdenum-99, iodine-131 and lutetium-177 are about 90 per cent of nuclear medicine use, made in the Dhruva reactor; an Isotope Production Reactor is expected around 2035.
    • Radiation has released 72 crop varieties, 17 in groundnut and 10 in rice, and 40 gamma irradiation facilities preserve food.
    • India issued its first Certified Reference Material for rare earth elements, Ferrocarbonatite BARC B1401, the fourth such standard in the world.

    PIB, 28 Aug 2026