The Power Makers - the producers of our electricity - must meet the demands of their customers while also addressing the threat of climate change. There are widely differing views about solutions to electricity generation in an emission constrained world. Some see the problem as relatively straight forward, requiring deep cuts in emissions now by improving energy efficiency, energy conservation and using only renewable resources. Many electricity industry engineers and scientists see the problem as being much more involved.

"The Power Makers Challenge: and the need for Fission Energy "looks at why using only conventional renewable energy sources is not quite as simple as it seems. Following a general introduction to electricity and its distribution, the author quantifies the reductions needed in greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector in the face of ever increasing world demands for electricity. It provides some much needed background on the many energy sources available for producing electricity and discusses their advantages and limitations to meet both the emission reduction challenge and electricity demand.

By analyzing the three main groups of energy sources: renewable energy, fossil fuels and fission energy (nuclear power), readers can assess the ability of each group to meet the challenge of both reducing emissions and maintaining reliable supply at least cost. It is written for both non-technical and technical readers."

Russia's state system has changed significantly since 1991, but the question of how the country should be governed has not been answered. Russia's constitutional framework is weak and inherently flawed, and the balance of political and economic power between the centre and the regions is ill-defined. In the absence of a firm constitutional settlement, regional élites have consolidated power, restricting the growth of local democracy and frustrating attempts at grass-roots economic reform. This book argues that establishing an effective and regulated relationship between the centre and the regions requires greater decentralisation, but devolution need not threaten Russia's integrity if it is transparent and based on a greater respect for the rule of law.

Russia's state system has changed significantly since 1991, but the question of how the country should be governed has not been answered. Russia's constitutional framework is weak and inherently flawed, and the balance of political and economic power between the centre and the regions is ill-defined. In the absence of a firm constitutional settlement, regional elites have consolidated power, restricting the growth of local democracy and frustrating attempts at graass-roots economic reform. This book argues that establishing an effective and regulated relationship between the centre and the regions requires greater decentralisation, but devolution need not threaten Russia's integrity if it is transparent and based on a greater respect for the rule of law.

The Power Makers - the producers of our electricity - must meet the demands of their customers while also addressing the threat of climate change. There are widely differing views about solutions to electricity generation in an emission constrained world. Some see the problem as relatively straight forward, requiring deep cuts in emissions now by improving energy efficiency, energy conservation and using only renewable resources. Many electricity industry engineers and scientists see the problem as being much more involved.

"The Power Makers Challenge: and the need for Fission Energy "looks at why using only conventional renewable energy sources is not quite as simple as it seems. Following a general introduction to electricity and its distribution, the author quantifies the reductions needed in greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector in the face of ever increasing world demands for electricity. It provides some much needed background on the many energy sources available for producing electricity and discusses their advantages and limitations to meet both the emission reduction challenge and electricity demand.

By analyzing the three main groups of energy sources: renewable energy, fossil fuels and fission energy (nuclear power), readers can assess the ability of each group to meet the challenge of both reducing emissions and maintaining reliable supply at least cost. It is written for both non-technical and technical readers."

Twitching the Iron Curtain is the fourth volume of Martin Nicholson's memoirs. It takes the author's career and family life from 1972 to 1984, following the abrupt end of his posting in Moscow in a flurry of expulsions and counter-expulsions of diplomats, described in the previous volume, Activities Incompatible. The present volume covers the author's postings in family-friendly, though still thoroughly Communist Prague (1972-1975) and Vienna (1978-1981), the forum for MBFR, the long-running East/West arms control negotiations, as well as London postings, where Martin followed the slow demise of the Soviet Union and witnessed at first hand Mikhail Gorbachev's dramatic visit to the UK in 1984. By the end of this period Martin's children were teenagers; their story also weaves its way through the narrative.

Activities Incompatible, the third volume of Martin Nicholson's memoirs, covers the years 1963 to 1971, when the author started his career as an analyst of Soviet political affairs in the Research Department of the Foreign Office in London and continued in the Russian Secretariat of the British Embassy, Moscow. In 1971 he took his wife and two children to Moscow for his second tour of duty, as Head of the Russian Secretariat. By this time he had also been appointed one of two official Russian interpreters for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. But the Cold War was still at its height, and the knives were out between London and Moscow over the Soviet Union's espionage activities in the UK. Martin was engulfed in the gathering storm of expulsions and counter-expulsions of diplomats and its dramatic climax. Here he tells the story from the inside.

Martin Nicholson was born in 1937 in Rio de Janeiro, where his father was working for Shell. He had sailed across the Atlantic twice before he was three years old, the second time just days after the start of the Second World War when the family returned to South America to live near Buenos Aires in Argentina. They returned to England in 1946 to experience the realities of 'austerity Britain' of the 1950s. They faced the bitter winter of 1946-1947 in Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham, then moved to Twickenham, south west London, where they made their first real home. Like many middle class English boys of that era he went through the discipline of boarding school, in Swanage on the south coast, and at Oundle School, Peterborough. This book - the first of a projected series of four volumes that will take his memoirs up to retirement from the Diplomatic Service in 1997 - tells the story of a childhood constantly on the move, but always in the bosom of a secure and loving family - his parents and three siblings.

This second volume of Martin Nicholson's projected four volume autobiography takes the author through his student years between 1956 and 1963, during the Cold War. Martin did his National Service in the Royal Navy learning Russian. He took his degree in Russian and Spanish at Cambridge University and spent a year at Moscow State University under the auspices of the British Council. It was 1961, when the Russians were celebrating their success in the space race, while also trying to come to terms with the legacy of Stalin's dictatorship. Martin observed all this at first hand, a unique preparation for his later career as an analyst of the Soviet Union in the British Diplomatic Service.