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Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Nuclear issues
This is such a timely book. Combining extraordinary historical insight with the sharpest analysis of where we are now, Walt Patterson carves out the most applied and practical of 'road maps' as to where we need to go if we are to deliver a genuinely sustainable electricity system for the future. As we go into a period of considerable turbulence, primarily because of the impacts of climate change, Keeping The Lights On will undoubtedly be seen as a very well informed Guidebook. JONATHON PORRITT CBE, CHAIR, UK SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION A very important and timely book. Walt Patterson persuasively challenges traditional assumptions about how we think of energy and electricity, and presents an exciting vision of an innovative and sustainable future. NICK MABEY, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, E3G (THIRD GENERATION ENVIRONMENTALISM), FORMER SENIOR ADVISER IN THE UK PRIME MINISTER S STRATEGY UNIT Walt has got this exactly right. It should be compulsive reading, if not compulsory reading, for all politicians and other players that determine or have a role to play in energy policy and, more importantly, in tackling climate change. Knowing what we know now, you would not implement such a wasteful and polluting electricity system as centralized power generation. As Walt has indicated, we do have to overcome the grid mindset of those who should know better. ALLAN JONES MBE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, LONDON CLIMATE CHANGE AGENCY What can I say? Clearly thought out, simply written, and straight to the heart of the major issues in energy today. I can t think of anyone else who could bring together the technology, the economics, and the basic human relationship with energy that Walt has here. This is really great stuff. RONAN PALMER, CHIEF ECONOMIST, UK ENVIRONMENT AGENCY Fashions come and fashions go in the energy world. Security of supply, climate change and market liberalization have all vied for our attention. It s good to have one voice that s stayed constant over thirty years of turbulence and change. Keeping The Lights On distils Walt Patterson s thinking over the last three decades. As ever, he provokes us to re-examine our own thinking about energy policy. Essential reading as we face up to new challenges. PROFESSOR JIM SKEA OBE, RESEARCH DIRECTOR, UK ENERGY RESEARCH CENTRE 'Even more important now than when first released.' Energy News In Keeping The Lights On, Walt Patterson starts from a simple premise: that we are making a mess of energy, and this is endangering the planet. Using accessible, everyday language Patterson describes how we could do much better, outlining a different way to think about energy, what we want from it and how we get it. Drawing on over 35 years of work from one of the leading voices in the field, Keeping The Lights On explains how we could go about improving energy security and services while reducing costs and vulnerability, globally and rapidly. The book discusses the timely and heated debates surrounding energy and power, and emphasizes that electricity is about infrastructure; we have to stop treating it as a commodity. The result is a comprehensive introduction to the most important issues, providing the reader with innovative and expert ideas and solutions. Published with Royal Institute of International Affairs.
This book describes essential and effective management for reliably ensuring public safety from radioactive wastes in Japan. This is the first book to cover many aspects of wastes from the nuclear fuel cycle to research and medical use, allowing readers to understand the characterization, treatment and final disposal of generated wastes, performance assessment, institutional systems, and social issues such as intergenerational ethics. Exercises at the end of each chapter help to understand radioactive waste management in context.
This is such a timely book. Combining extraordinary historical insight with the sharpest analysis of where we are now, Walt Patterson carves out the most applied and practical of 'road maps' as to where we need to go if we are to deliver a genuinely sustainable electricity system for the future. As we go into a period of considerable turbulence, primarily because of the impacts of climate change, Keeping The Lights On will undoubtedly be seen as a very well informed Guidebook. JONATHON PORRITT CBE, CHAIR, UK SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION A very important and timely book. Walt Patterson persuasively challenges traditional assumptions about how we think of energy and electricity, and presents an exciting vision of an innovative and sustainable future. NICK MABEY, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, E3G (THIRD GENERATION ENVIRONMENTALISM), FORMER SENIOR ADVISER IN THE UK PRIME MINISTER S STRATEGY UNIT Walt has got this exactly right. It should be compulsive reading, if not compulsory reading, for all politicians and other players that determine or have a role to play in energy policy and, more importantly, in tackling climate change. Knowing what we know now, you would not implement such a wasteful and polluting electricity system as centralized power generation. As Walt has indicated, we do have to overcome the grid mindset of those who should know better. ALLAN JONES MBE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, LONDON CLIMATE CHANGE AGENCY What can I say? Clearly thought out, simply written, and straight to the heart of the major issues in energy today. I can t think of anyone else who could bring together the technology, the economics, and the basic human relationship with energy that Walt has here. This is really great stuff. RONAN PALMER, CHIEF ECONOMIST, UK ENVIRONMENT AGENCY Fashions come and fashions go in the energy world. Security of supply, climate change and market liberalization have all vied for our attention. It s good to have one voice that s stayed constant over thirty years of turbulence and change. Keeping The Lights On distils Walt Patterson s thinking over the last three decades. As ever, he provokes us to re-examine our own thinking about energy policy. Essential reading as we face up to new challenges. PROFESSOR JIM SKEA OBE, RESEARCH DIRECTOR, UK ENERGY RESEARCH CENTRE 'Even more important now than when first released.' Energy News In Keeping The Lights On, Walt Patterson starts from a simple premise: that we are making a mess of energy, and this is endangering the planet. Using accessible, everyday language Patterson describes how we could do much better, outlining a different way to think about energy, what we want from it and how we get it. Drawing on over 35 years of work from one of the leading voices in the field, Keeping The Lights On explains how we could go about improving energy security and services while reducing costs and vulnerability, globally and rapidly. The book discusses the timely and heated debates surrounding energy and power, and emphasizes that electricity is about infrastructure; we have to stop treating it as a commodity. The result is a comprehensive introduction to the most important issues, providing the reader with innovative and expert ideas and solutions. Published with Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Many lament the difficulty of siting hazardous waste facilities that are intended to benefit the public at large but are locally unwanted. Many label local opposition as purely self-interested; as simply a function of the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) syndrome. Drawing upon the experience of states trying to site new low-level radioactive waste disposal facilities, Mary English argues that we need to think harder and look deeper, to understand--and, possibly, solve--the siting dilemma. The 1980 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act ushered in a new era in low-level radioactive waste disposal; one of vastly increased state responsibility. By a 1985 amendment, states were given until January 1993 to develop a new system of disposal facilities. English reviews the progress they have made, focusing on one difficulty: that of finding technically and socially acceptable sites. She then turns to issues concerning authority, trust, risk, and justice that help to shape the siting dilemma. This book is made highly readable by vivid examples drawn from recent efforts to site low-level waste disposal facilities. The volume will be a helpful resource to those in the public and private sectors who are immediately concerned with the siting of radioactive waste disposal facilities, hazardous waste facilities, solid waste landfills, incinerators, etc., as well as social scientists who are studying this problem.
Presents an overview of recent research on the original of solar phenomena that affect Earth s technological systems. This topical issue is based on the presentations given at the 26th National Solar Observatory (NSO) Summer Workshop held at the National Solar Observatory/Sacramento Peak, New Mexico, USA from 30 April to 4 May 2012. This unique forum brought together experts in different areas of solar and space physics to help in developing a full picture of the origin of solar phenomena that affect Earth s technological systems. The articles include theory, model and observation research on the origin of the solar activity and its cycle, as well as a discussion on how to incorporate the research into space-weather forecasting tools. This volumeis aimed at graduate students and researchers active in solar physics and space science. Previously published in "Solar Physics," Vol. 289/2, 2014."
***Winner of the L.H.M. Ling Outstanding First Book Prize 2020*** ***Shortlisted for the Bread and Roses Award 2020*** Since the first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, the history of nuclear warfare has been tangled with the spaces and places of scientific research and weapons testing, armament and disarmament, pacifism and proliferation. Nuclear geography gives us the tools to understand these events, and the extraordinary human cost of nuclear weapons. Disarming Doomsday explores the secret history of nuclear weapons by studying the places they build and tear apart, from Los Alamos to Hiroshima. It looks at the legacy of nuclear imperialism from weapons testing on Christmas Island and across the South Pacific, as well as the lasting harm this has caused to indigenous communities and the soldiers that conducted the tests. For the first time, these complex geographies are tied together. Disarming Doomsday takes us forward, describing how geographers and geotechnology continue to shape nuclear war, and, perhaps, help to prevent it.
During the nuclear heyday of the post-war years, advocates of
atomic power promised cheap electricity and a prosperous future.
From the present, however, this promise seems tarnished by
accidents, leaks and a lack of public confidence. "Mobilising
Modernity" traces this journey from confidence in technology to the
anxieties of the Risk Society questioning a number of conventional
wisdoms en route.
A study of the legacy of nuclear contamination in the Soviet Union. It gives the location and characteristics of the accumulated radioactive material and wastes by each sector, from ore and mining to use and disposal. It describes types of storage, capacity and utilization, age and location. It gives information on the territories and locations contaminated, by normal operations and by accidents, from which strategic plans for remediation can be formulated.
We need energy to warm and light our homes, to power our transport and communications, and to support our manufacturing industries. Can we obtain enough energy to satisfy the needs of a rapidly increasing world population without, at the same time, devastating the earth? Is nuclear power the way to do this?This book surveys available energy sources and their effects on the environment in the context of moral imperatives and political realities.
We need energy to warm and light our homes, to power our transport and communications, and to support our manufacturing industries. Can we obtain enough energy to satisfy the needs of a rapidly increasing world population without, at the same time, devastating the earth? Is nuclear power the way to do this? This book surveys available energy sources and their effects on the environment in the context of moral imperatives and political realities.
Decades of U.S. nuclear weapons production have exacted a heavy environmental toll. The Department of Energy estimates that cleaning up waste and contamination resulting from production activity will cost over $150 billion. Yet even once that money is spent, these sites will need long-term attention to assure protection of human health and the environment. In the authors' words, stewardship refers to "institutions, information, and strategies needed to ensure protection of people and the environment, both in the short and the long term," after the DOE finishes its "cleanup" of the weapons complex. Probst and McGovern make a compelling case for establishing a formal program of long-term stewardship for contaminated sites. The legacy of environmental damage is considerable: hazardous waste disposal, radioactive waste, and contaminated facilities are among the problems that will remain after DOE cleanup efforts are complete. Stewardship planning, they say, must start now. This report details the requirements of a successful stewardship program and discusses the daunting technical and political challenges facing such efforts. It articulates important issues to be tackled, such as the institutional home for key stewardship functions. The authors conclude with suggested next steps.
Korean security was the focus of worldwide attention and concern in 1993-95 with North Korea's "suspected" nuclear weapons program. Dubbed by some as the first post-Cold War nuclear crisis, it was triggered by the United Nations Security Council's move to impose economic sanctions on North Korea. Although the immediate crisis was defused diplomatically, the nuclear time bomb continues to tick on the Korean peninsula and the issues remain under close international surveillance. This important book examines North Korea's nuclear controversy from a variety of perspectives, including nuclear reactor technology and technology transfer, economic sanctions and incentives, strategic calculus and confidence-building measures, the major powers, and environmental challenges that a nuclear-free zone in Korea will present.
Korean security was the focus of world-wide attention and concern in 1993-95 with North Korea's "suspected" nuclear weapons program. Dubbed by some as the first post-Cold War nuclear crisis, it was triggered by the United Nations Security Council's move to impose economic sanctions on North Korea. Although the immediate crisis was defused diplomatically, the nuclear time bomb continues to tick on the Korean peninsula, and the issues remain under close international surveillance. This important book examines North Korea's nuclear controversy from a variety of perspectives, including nuclear reactor technology and technology transfer, economic sanctions and incentives, strategic calculus and confidence-building measures, the major powers, and environmental challenges that a nuclear-free zone in Korea will present.
First Published in 1996. This ambitious ten-volume series develops a comprehensive analysis of the evolving world rile of the post-Soviet successor states. Each volume considers a different factor influencing the relationship between internal politics and international relations in Russia and the western and southern tiers of newly independent states. The contributors were chosen not only for their recognised expertise but also to ensure a stimulating diversity of perspectives and a dynamic mix of approaches.
As the Soviet Union was collapsing in late 1991, reports began to reach the West about agents "shopping" for weapons systems - and weapons scientists - in the beleaguered Soviet military-industrial complex. In response, the United States, the European Community, and Japan, in cooperation with the Russian government, created a program to reemploy Soviet scientific personnel in civilian projects dealing with the legacy of the Soviet system - a polluted environment, unsafe nuclear power facilities, and economic underdevelopment. In this fascinating first-person account, the American environmental scientist who led the effort to establish the International Science and Technology Center in Moscow tells the diplomatic, scientific, and human story behind a remarkable post-Cold War conversion initiative.
First Published in 1996. This ambitious ten-volume series develops a comprehensive analysis of the evolving world rile of the post-Soviet successor states. Each volume considers a different factor influencing the relationship between internal politics and international relations in Russia and the western and southern tiers of newly independent states. The contributors were chosen not only for their recognised expertise but also to ensure a stimulating diversity of perspectives and a dynamic mix of approaches.
Analyzing the impact and benefits of nuclear energy on environment, this book examines nuclear treaties in relation to environmental protection, highlights legal framework on non-proliferation and denuclearization, explores treaties on nuclear safety and nuclear security, discusses legal regimes on management of nuclear wastes, assesses the third-party liability regime and discusses the role of IAEA, EURATOM and NEA in regulating nuclear energy. It explores nuclear energy in the context of climate change and sustainable development. This book also examines the international legal framework on notification, assistance and emergency preparedness in the event of nuclear accidents, considers legal aspects of decommissioning of nuclear power plants and main legislative trends on nuclear energy use in selected countries. It also addresses regulatory responses to nuclear energy in the wake of the Fukushima power plant nuclear accident in Japan.
This book covers essential aspects of transmutation technologies, highlighting especially the advances in Japan. The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) has caused us to focus attention on a large amount of spent nuclear fuels stored in NPPs. In addition, public anxiety regarding the treatment and disposal of high-level radioactive wastes that require long-term control is growing. The Japanese policy on the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle is still unpredictable in the aftermath of the accident. Therefore, research and development for enhancing the safety of various processes involved in nuclear energy production are being actively pursued worldwide. In particular, nuclear transmutation technology has been drawing significant attention after the accident. This publication is timely with the following highlights: 1) Development of accelerator-driven systems (ADSs), which is a brand-new reactor concept for transmutation of highly radioactive wastes; 2) Nuclear reactor systems from the point of view of the nuclear fuel cycle. How to reduce nuclear wastes or how to treat them including the debris from TEPCO s Fukushima nuclear power stations is discussed; and 3) Environmental radioactivity, radioactive waste treatment and geological disposal policy. State-of-the-art technologies for overall back-end issues of the nuclear fuel cycle as well as the technologies of transmutation are presented here. The chapter authors are actively involved in the development of ADSs and transmutation-related technologies. The future of the back-end issues in Japan is very uncertain after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi NPP and this book provides an opportunity for readers to consider the future direction of those issues."
This book features information regarding the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the production of elementary particles, radiation exposure, the geopolitical effects of the end of the nuclear arms race between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, and the future of nuclear power.
This study provides a detailed historical account of the policy and practice of radioactive waste management in Britain, Sweden and the Federal Republic of Germany. In their differing approaches, these three countries define the parameters of civil nuclear strategy in Europe. The comparative analysis of the evolution of policy clarifies the context of political and technical decision-making. Assessing the varying degrees of influence which the public, the industry and the government exercise over these actions, Frans Berkhout applies the concept of boundaries of "control", questioning the extent to which such control can be relinquished. This analysis of nuclear strategy, the politics of nuclear power and the shifting emphasis of government regulations redefines the issue of radioactive waste management and sets it at the centre of the current debate about power, the environment and society.
Long before the tragedy of the 2011 nuclear disasters in Japan, the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl experienced an explosion, meltdown, fire, and massive release of radioactivity. Twenty-five years later, we still know very little about the event and its aftermath. Few of the professional papers describing the aftereffects of the disaster have been translated from Russian into English or distributed in the West. This is now remedied, with the publication of this definitive volume, based on original sources, and originally published in Russian. Alla A. Yaroshinskaya describes the human side of the disaster, with firsthand accounts by those who lived through the world's worst public health crisis. Chernobyl: Crime without Punishment is a unique account of events by a reporter who defied the Soviet bureaucracy. The author presents an accurate historical record, with quotations from all the major players in the Chernobyl drama. It also provides unique insight into the final stages of Soviet communism. Yaroshinskaya describes actions after the disaster: how authorities built a new city for Chernobyl residents but placed it in a highly polluted area. She also details the actions of the nuclear lobby inside and outside the former Soviet Union. Bringing the book into the twenty-first century, the author reviews the latest medical data on Chernobyl people's health from the affected countries and from independent investigations; and states why there has been no trial of top officials who covered up Chernobyl and its disastrous consequences.
This collection of factual reports, short stories, poems and drawings expresses in a deeply personal voice the devastating effects of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
This book analyses the 1980s as a nuclear decade, focusing on British and United States fiction. Ranging across genres including literary fiction, science fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction, graphic novels, children's and young adult literature, thrillers and horror, it shows how pressing nuclear issues were, particularly the possibility of nuclear war, and how deeply they penetrated the culture. It is innovative for its discussion of a "nuclear transatlantic," placing British and American texts in dialogue with one another, for its identification of a vibrant young adult fiction that resonates with more conventionally studied literatures of the period and for its analysis of a "politics of vulnerability" animating nuclear debates. Placing nuclear literature in social and historical contexts, it shows how novels and short stories responded not only to nuclear fears, but also crystallised contemporary debates about issues of gender, the environment, society and the economy. |
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