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Books > Business & Economics > Industry & industrial studies > Energy industries & utilities > Nuclear power industries
Australia's Uranium Trade explores why the export of uranium remains a highly controversial issue in Australia and how this affects Australia's engagement with the strategic, regime and market realms of international nuclear affairs. The book focuses on the key challenges facing Australian policy makers in a twenty-first century context where civilian nuclear energy consumption is expanding significantly while at the same time the international nuclear nonproliferation regime is subject to increasing, and unprecedented, pressures. By focusing on Australia as a prominent case study, the book is concerned with how a traditionally strong supporter of the international nuclear nonproliferation regime is attempting to recalibrate its interest in maximizing the economic and diplomatic benefits of increased uranium exports during a period of flux in the strategic, regime and market realms of nuclear affairs. Australia's Uranium Trade provides broader lessons for how - indeed whether - nuclear suppliers worldwide are adapting to the changing nuclear environment internationally.
This book provides a concise but rigorous appraisal about the future of nuclear power and the presumed nuclear renaissance. It does so by assessing the technical, economic, environmental, political, and social risks related to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium mills and mines to nuclear reactors and spent fuel storage facilities. In each case, the book argues that the costs of nuclear power significantly outweigh its benefits. It concludes by calling for investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency as a better path towards an affordable, secure, and socially acceptable future.The prospect of a global nuclear renaissance could change the way that energy is produced and used the world over. Sovacool takes a hard look at who would benefit - mostly energy companies and manufacturers - and who would suffer - mostly taxpayers, those living near nuclear facilities, and electricity customers. This book is a must-read for anyone even remotely concerned about a sustainable energy future, and also for those with a specific interest in modern nuclear power plants.
This book provides a concise but rigorous appraisal about the future of nuclear power and the presumed nuclear renaissance. It does so by assessing the technical, economic, environmental, political, and social risks related to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium mills and mines to nuclear reactors and spent fuel storage facilities. In each case, the book argues that the costs of nuclear power significantly outweigh its benefits. It concludes by calling for investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency as a better path towards an affordable, secure, and socially acceptable future.The prospect of a global nuclear renaissance could change the way that energy is produced and used the world over. Sovacool takes a hard look at who would benefit - mostly energy companies and manufacturers - and who would suffer - mostly taxpayers, those living near nuclear facilities, and electricity customers. This book is a must-read for anyone even remotely concerned about a sustainable energy future, and also for those with a specific interest in modern nuclear power plants.
In Rationality and Ritual, internationally renowned expert Brian Wynne offers a profound analysis of science and technology policymaking. By focusing on an episode of major importance in Britain's nuclear history - the Windscale Inquiry, a public hearing about the future of fuel reprocessing - he offers a powerful critique of such judicial procedures and the underlying assumptions of the rationalist approach. This second edition makes available again this classic and still very relevant work. Debates about nuclear power have come to the fore once again. Yet we still do not have adequate ways to make decisions or frame policy deliberation on these big issues, involving true public debate, rather than ritualistic processes in which the rules and scope of the debate are presumed and imposed by those in authority. The perspectives in this book are as significant and original as they were when it was written. The new edition contains a substantial introduction by the author reflecting on changes (and lack of) in the intervening years and introducing new themes, relevant to today's world of big science and technology, that can be drawn out of the original text. A new foreword by Gordon MacKerron, an expert on energy and nuclear policy, sets this seminal work in the context of contemporary nuclear and related big technology debates.
A timely contribution and incisive analysis, this is the story of the British experiment in privatizing the nuclear power industry and its subsequent financial collapse. It tells how the UK's pioneering role in nuclear power led to bad technology choices, a badly flawed restructuring of the electricity industry and the end of government support for nuclear power. In this volume Simon Taylor has combined interviews with former executives, regulators and analysts with his own unique insight into the nuclear industry to provide an analysis of the origins of the crisis and the financial and corporate strategies used by British Energy plc. Arguing that the stock market was a major factor in the company's collapse by misunderstanding its finances, over-valuing the shares and giving wrong signals to management and that the government policy of trying to put all responsibility for nuclear liabilities in the hands of the private sector was neither credible nor realistic. The book concludes that failure was not inevitable but resulted from a mixture of internal and external causes that casts doubt on the policy of combining a wholly nuclear generator with liberalized power markets. This book will be of great interest to students engaged with the history of nuclear power in the UK, privatization, regulation and financial and corporate strategy, as well as experts, policy makers and strategists in the field.
This book explores how Japanese views of nuclear power were influenced not only by Hiroshima and Nagasaki but by government, business and media efforts to actively promote how it was a safe and integral part of Japan's future. The idea of "atoms for peace" and the importance of US-Japan relations were emphasized in exhibitions and in films. Despite the emergence of an anti-nuclear movement, the dream of civilian nuclear power and the "good atom" nevertheless prevailed and became more accepted. By the late 1950s, a school trip to see a reactor was becoming a reality for young Japanese, and major events such as the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and 1970 Osaka Expo seemed to reinforce the narrative that the Japanese people were destined for a future led by science and technology that was powered by the atom, a dream that was left in disarray after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
For the first time, readers can discover the numerous pioneers of the Soviet nuclear industry, including the role of scientific supervisors of Russia's nuclear project and the statesmen who coordinated the function of the atomic industry in the former USSR. This is a detailed account, translated to English for the first time, of the development of the atomic industry in the former Soviet Union. It deals with the activities of production facilities, research institutes and design bureaus that designed and manufactured equipment and materials. That material was applied in various fields of atomic science and engineering, but primarily in the construction of atomic weapons. History of Soviet Atomic Industry will be of interest to scientists and engineers in the nuclear industry, as well as historians of science and the post-war Soviet Union.
The uranium market is a particularly volatile and unpredictable international commodity market. This book, originally published in 1981, analyses the factors responsible for the price rise and falls of uranium in the 1970s. It includes a comprehensive analysis of the international uranium market from its inception and the conditions of price developments in mineral markets in general. The analysis of the uranium market contained in this book provides valuable insights to all those involved int eh different facets of the nuclear industry, as well as illustrating how policitical decisions with little concern for the ensuing economic implications can create havoc in international commodity markets.
Heavy water (deuterium oxide) played a sinister role in the race for nuclear energy during the World War II. It was a key factor in Germany's bid to harness atomic energy primarily as a source of electric power; its acute shortage was a factor in Japan's decision not to pursue seriously nuclear weaponry; its very existence was a nagging thorn in the side of the Allied powers. Books and films have dwelt on the Allies' efforts to deny the Germans heavy water by military means; however, a history of heavy water has yet to be written. Filling this gap, Heavy Water and the Wartime Race for Nuclear Energy concentrates on the circumstances whereby Norway became the preeminent producer of heavy water and on the scientific role the rare isotope of hydrogen played in the wartime efforts by the Axis and Allied powers alike. Instead of a purely technical treatise on heavy water, the book describes the social history of the subject. The book covers the discovery and early uses of deuterium before World War II and its large-scale production by Norsk Hydro in Norway, especially under German control. It also discusses the French-German race for the Norwegian heavy-water stocks in 1940 and heavy water's importance for the subsequent German uranium project, including the Allied sabotage and bombing of the Norwegian plants, as well as its lesser role in Allied projects, especially in the United States and Canada. The book concludes with an overall assessment of the importance and the perceived importance of heavy water for the German program, which alone staked everything on heavy water in its quest for a nuclear chain reaction.
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.
Heavy water (deuterium oxide) played a sinister role in the race for nuclear energy during the World War II. It was a key factor in Germany's bid to harness atomic energy primarily as a source of electric power; its acute shortage was a factor in Japan's decision not to pursue seriously nuclear weaponry; its very existence was a nagging thorn in the side of the Allied powers. Books and films have dwelt on the Allies' efforts to deny the Germans heavy water by military means; however, a history of heavy water has yet to be written. Filling this gap, Heavy Water and the Wartime Race for Nuclear Energy concentrates on the circumstances whereby Norway became the preeminent producer of heavy water and on the scientific role the rare isotope of hydrogen played in the wartime efforts by the Axis and Allied powers alike. Instead of a purely technical treatise on heavy water, the book describes the social history of the subject. The book covers the discovery and early uses of deuterium before World War II and its large-scale production by Norsk Hydro in Norway, especially under German control. It also discusses the French-German race for the Norwegian heavy-water stocks in 1940 and heavy water's importance for the subsequent German uranium project, including the Allied sabotage and bombing of the Norwegian plants, as well as its lesser role in Allied projects, especially in the United States and Canada. The book concludes with an overall assessment of the importance and the perceived importance of heavy water for the German program, which alone staked everything on heavy water in its quest for a nuclear chain reaction.
The uranium market is a particularly volatile and unpredictable international commodity market. This book, originally published in 1981, analyses the factors responsible for the price rise and falls of uranium in the 1970s. It includes a comprehensive analysis of the international uranium market from its inception and the conditions of price developments in mineral markets in general. The analysis of the uranium market contained in this book provides valuable insights to all those involved int eh different facets of the nuclear industry, as well as illustrating how policitical decisions with little concern for the ensuing economic implications can create havoc in international commodity markets.
Introduces Novel Applications for Solving Neutron Transport Equations While deemed nonessential in the past, fractional calculus is now gaining momentum in the science and engineering community. Various disciplines have discovered that realistic models of physical phenomenon can be achieved with fractional calculus and are using them in numerous ways. Since fractional calculus represents a reactor more closely than classical integer order calculus, Fractional Calculus with Applications for Nuclear Reactor Dynamics focuses on the application of fractional calculus to describe the physical behavior of nuclear reactors. It applies fractional calculus to incorporate the mathematical methods used to analyze the diffusion theory model of neutron transport and explains the role of neutron transport in reactor theory. The author discusses fractional calculus and the numerical solution for fractional neutron point kinetic equation (FNPKE), introduces the technique for efficient and accurate numerical computation for FNPKE with different values of reactivity, and analyzes the fractional neutron point kinetic (FNPK) model for the dynamic behavior of neutron motion. The book begins with an overview of nuclear reactors, explains how nuclear energy is extracted from reactors, and explores the behavior of neutron density using reactivity functions. It also demonstrates the applicability of the Haar wavelet method and introduces the neutron diffusion concept to aid readers in understanding the complex behavior of average neutron motion. This text: Applies the effective analytical and numerical methods to obtain the solution for the NDE Determines the numerical solution for one-group delayed neutron FNPKE by the explicit finite difference method Provides the numerical solution for classical as well as fractional neutron point kinetic equations Proposes the Haar wavelet operational method (HWOM) to obtain the numerical approximate solution of the neutron point kinetic equation, and more Fractional Calculus with Applications for Nuclear Reactor Dynamics thoroughly and systematically presents the concepts of fractional calculus and emphasizes the relevance of its application to the nuclear reactor.
This book presents a comprehensive, systematic analysis of Russia- Iran relations in the period following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It discusses the key areas - such as trade, arms sales, nuclear developments, and potential areas of friction in the Caspian Sea - where co-operation is possible; charts different phases of increasing and declining co-operation; and relates these changes to security considerations and domestic factors in both countries. Throughout, the book argues that the potential for co-operation between the two countries is much greater than people realize, and it concludes by assessing how Russia-Iran relations are likely to develop in future.
Five years after the one of the worst nuclear accidents in history, Fukushima now only occasionally headlines national and international media. However, the disaster is far from over, as evidenced by a hundred thousand people from Fukushima still in the state of evacuation, rising levels of radiation in streams and rivers, and failing attempts to control the leakage of radioactive materials at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Despite these dismal conditions, efforts to recover and rebuild livelihoods in the afflicted regions of Fukushima did start immediately after the outset of the accident. Rebuilding Fukushima gives an account of how citizens, local governments, and businesses responded to and coped with the crisis of Fukushima. It addresses principles to guide reconstruction and international policy environments in which the current disaster is situated. It explores how reconstruction is articulated and experienced at different spatial scales, ranging from individuals to communities and municipalities, and details recovery efforts, achievements, and challenges in the realms of public transportation, agriculture and food production, manufacturing industries, retail sectors, and renewable-energy industries. This book also critically investigates the nature of the current reconstruction policy schemes, and seeks to articulate what may be required in order to achieve more sustainable and equitable (re)development in afflicted regions and other nuclear host regions. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and local surveys, this volume is one of the first books in English that captures the knowledge and insights of native Japanese social scientists who dealt with the complexities of nuclear disaster on a day-to-day basis. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of disaster-management studies and nuclear policy.
At a moment when a new generation of power stations and weapons are being developed, Fallout is a measured and fascinating exploration of our most misunderstood energy source and asks: what can we learn from our past mistakes, and what role should nuclear play in our future? Hiroshima. Bikini Atoll. Windscale. Chernobyl. Fukushima. These names no longer denote a place, but a disaster. In a few syllables, they evoke the heights of human ingenuity clashing with the worst of human error. Individually, each place has its own sobering story to tell; together, they form a timeline of the nuclear age. In this compelling and deeply researched book, Fred Pearce investigates the greatest nuclear incidents and accidents of the past 80 years by visiting their now iconic landscapes. He tours former power stations and abandoned testing sites in the company of scientists and engineers, and in previously toxic wastelands, where radioactive wolves now stalk the streets and genetically-malformed flora blooms, he witnesses the surprising resilience of nature. As well as the physical legacy, Pearce also considers the psychological impact of these disasters. Amid rumours of state cover-ups, corporate deception, and hushed-up medical epidemics, Pearce weighs the evidence on either side of the argument to disentangle the facts from the fear.
This book offers a comprehensive assessment of the dynamics driving, and constraining, nuclear power development in Asia, Europe and North America, providing detailed comparative analysis. The book formulates a theory of nuclear socio-political economy which highlights six factors necessary for embarking on nuclear power programs: (1) national security and secrecy, (2) technocratic ideology, (3) economic interventionism, (4) a centrally coordinated energy stakeholder network, (5) subordination of opposition to political authority, and (6) social peripheralization. The book validates this theory by confirming the presence of these six drivers during the initial nuclear power developmental periods in eight countries: the United States, France, Japan, Russia (the former Soviet Union), South Korea, Canada, China, and India. The authors then apply this framework as a predictive tool to evaluate contemporary nuclear power trends. They discuss what this theory means for developed and developing countries which exhibit the potential for nuclear development on a major scale, and examine how the new "renaissance" of nuclear power may affect the promotion of renewable energy, global energy security, and development policy as a whole. The volume also assesses the influence of climate change and the recent nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, on the nuclear power industry's trajectory. This book will be of interest to students of energy policy and security, nuclear proliferation, international security, global governance and IR in general.
This book is about how energy, risk and governance are intertwined in the development of the nuclear industry in India and its relationship with the Indian public. It provides a rare insider-view of how the nuclear establishment thinks about risk, contrasted with public understandings of nuclear risk. Energy, Risk and Governance presents a nuanced picture of why nuclear energy is still considered by some as a rational choice. This is in spite of its risks, the ambiguities in both expert and public risk perceptions, and the internal reflexivities that have emerged within the nuclear establishment as a result of the Fukushima-Daiichi disaster that is absent from public discourse. The insights in this book are not unique to India and similar observations can likely be made across the global nuclear industry. Reflecting on what this means for risk governance in practice, this book proposes practical suggestions and some tools that practitioners in the nuclear industry can use in public engagement, risk communication and deliberation at various stages of decision-making.
Developments at the nanoscale are leading to new possibilities and challenges for nuclear applications in areas ranging from medicine to international commerce to atomic power production/waste treatment. Progress in nanotech is helping the nuclear industry slash the cost of energy production. It also continues to improve application reliability and safety measures, which remain a critical concern, especially since the reactor disasters in Japan. Exploring the new wide-ranging landscape of nuclear function, Atomic Nanoscale Technology in the Nuclear Industry details the breakthroughs in nanoscale applications and methodologies that are revolutionizing power production, biotechnology, and material science. Developments in atomic nanoscale technology have given us the ability to: Use ion beams to Investigate and optimize radiation energy losses at the nanoscopic level Assess nanoscopic safety circumstances involved in a reactor failure Analyze characteristics of nuclear spacecraft operating in the nanogravity of deep space Evaluate light collection enhancement for digital X-ray detection Apply brachytherapy using radioisotopes for cancer therapy Treat nuclear waste at the nanoscopic level Use systems-thinking decision making to analyze financial progress of nanotech in the energy industry Assess safety (and safety management methods) for nuclear nanomaterials used in plant operations Representing a first step in multi-combinatorial research, this text incorporates advanced studies that use Monte Carlo and solid-state measurement (including radiation detection) methods. Researchers used these to demonstrate the potential to upgrade methods of radiation protection and nuclear reactor operation (safety, waste disposal, etc.). The author also addresses how we can use nanotechnology to address industrial concerns and enhance nuclear medicine techniques. He highlights several nanomaterial systems and devices to illustrate developments in this area. About the Author: Taeho Woo launched the specialized field of atomic multinology (interdisciplinary research of nuclear technology), which combines the application of information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology in the nuclear industry.
Dynamics and Control of Nuclear Reactors presents the latest knowledge and research in reactor dynamics, control and instrumentation; important factors in ensuring the safe and economic operation of nuclear power plants. This book provides current and future engineers with a single resource containing all relevant information, including detailed treatments on the modeling, simulation, operational features and dynamic characteristics of pressurized light-water reactors, boiling light-water reactors, pressurized heavy-water reactors and molten-salt reactors. It also provides pertinent, but less detailed information on small modular reactors, sodium fast reactors, and gas-cooled reactors.
The issue of nuclear power has become a polarizing one, especially in light of the increasing need for sustainable energy sources, and events like the 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan. The public has been largely wary and even fearful of a reliance on nuclear power, pointing to the reactor meltdown in Chernobyl or the Three-Mile Island accident as evidence that nuclear power is an unfeasible and dangerous source of energy. However, with these fears come misconceptions about the science behind nuclear power, and many arguments made against it lack the scientific grounding needed to contribute to the debate. At the same time, clean-energy sources like wind and solar have failed to prove that they can be used on a large enough scale to be relied upon. In Why We Need Nuclear Power: The Environmental Case, experienced radiation biologist Michael H. Fox replaces the misconceptions about nuclear power with real science, and argues that it may be the best source of energy both for large-scale use and slowing the effects of global warming. Fox relies on thirty-five years of experience studying the biological effects of radiation to explore the issues surrounding nuclear power, addressing which of the public's concerns on the issue are valid, and which are unsupported by science. He shows that nuclear power has crucial strategic importance in reducing the large amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. This is the first book to lay out clearly what we know about the biological effects of radiation, and what science we use to know it. Why We Need Nuclear Power is a critical resource for anyone looking to understand the facts of the nuclear power issue, and what role nuclear power could play in reducing the environmental impact of the world's energy consumption.
The first book to look at how energy companies can develop brands as they move to more sustainable energy solutions. The world is facing climate crisis, and never before has the world been looking at the energy industry to solve the delivery of power in ways that do not damage the planet. Includes insights from energy business leaders and is therefore more than an academic thesis, but a practical guide to resolving these branding and sustainability challenges.
This book follows a small public agency in Washington State that undertook one of the most ambitious construction projects in the nation in the 1970s: the building of five large nuclear power plants. By 1983, delays and cost overruns, along with slowed growth of electricity demand, led to cancellation of two plants and a construction halt on two others. Moreover, the agency defaulted on $2.25 billion of municipal bonds, leading to a monumental court case that took nearly a decade to resolve fully. Daniel Pope sets this in the context of the postwar boom's ending, the energy shocks of the 1970s, a new restraint in forecasting demand, and shifting patterns of municipal finance. Nuclear Implosions also traces the entangling alliance between civilian nuclear energy and nuclear weapons and recounts a telling example of how the law has become a primary method of resolving disputes in a litigious society.
An investigation into our complicated 7-decade-long relationship with nuclear technology, from the bomb to nuclear accidents to nuclear waste. From Hiroshima to Chernobyl, Fukushima to the growing legacy of lethal radioactive waste, humanity's struggle to conquer atomic energy is rife with secrecy, deceit, human error, blatant disregard for life, short-sighted politics, and fear. Fallout is an eye-opening odyssey through the first eight decades of this struggle and the radioactive landscapes it has left behind. We are, he finds, forever torn between technological hubris and all-too-human terror about what we have created. At first, Pearce reminds us, America loved the bomb. Las Vegas, only seventy miles from the Nevada site of some hundred atmospheric tests, crowned four Miss Atomic Bombs in 1950s. Later, communities downwind of these tests suffered high cancer rates. The fate of a group of Japanese fishermen, who suffered high radiation doses from the first hydrogen bomb test in Bikini atoll, was worse. The United States Atomic Energy Commission accused them of being Red spies and ignored requests from the doctors desperately trying to treat them. Pearce moves on to explore the closed cities of the Soviet Union, where plutonium was refined and nuclear bombs tested throughout the '50s and '60s, and where the full extent of environmental and human damage is only now coming to light. Exploring the radioactive badlands created by nuclear accidents--not only the well-known examples of Chernobyl and Fukushima, but also the little known area around Satlykovo in the Russian Ural Mountains and the Windscale fire in the UK--Pearce describes the compulsive secrecy, deviousness, and lack of accountability that have persisted even as the technology has morphed from military to civilian uses. Finally, Pearce turns to the toxic legacies of nuclear technology: the emerging dilemmas over handling its waste and decommissioning of the great radioactive structures of the nuclear age, and the fearful doublethink over the world's growing stockpiles of plutonium, the most lethal and ubiquitous product of nuclear technologies. For any reader who craves a clear-headed examination of the tangled relationship between a powerful technology and human politics, foibles, fears, and arrogance, Fallout is the definitive look at humanity's nuclear adventure. |
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