Economic Scale of Radiation Application in Japan

The economic scale of nuclear application is a good indicator to show how the radiation technology is useful and contribute to improve public welfare and living standard. Recent research in Japan shows that the economic scale of nuclear field was 4,112 B¥ for radiation application(46%) and 4,741 B¥ for nuclear energy (54%) playing a role of "two wheels of one cart" in nuclear field and the total 8,853 B¥ constitutes 1.8% of gross domestic products (GDP). The radiation application consisted of 2,295 B¥ (56%) in industry (semiconductor, sterilization, nondestructive testing, radiation processing of tires, etc.), 1,538 B¥ (37%) in medicine (therapy and diagnosis such as X-ray, nuclear medicine, computed tomography, etc.) and 279 B¥ (7%) in agriculture (mutation breeding, food irradiation, sterile insect technique, etc.). Radiation application by ${\gamma}$-ray, electron beam and ion beam is steadily increasing in Japan.