Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Strong Case for Nuclear Power, December 6, 2004
This review is from: A Case for Nuclear-Generated Electricity (Paperback)
This is a wonderful book. It is written to high standards of objectivity and rigor. Yet the book is accessible to any layman who is able to read and understand a newspaper editorial page. Unfortunately, this book is not likely to be read by those most in need of what he has to say. He addresses those who fear out-or-control technology and who yearn to return to nature. The problem is technology is necessary to sustain anything like the world's current population. Returning to nature would require the death of the bulk of the persons now living. The fact that a large part of the world's population is at or below child-bearing age requires that we grow just to avoid falling behind. This growth will require lots of new energy production. Wind and solar can help at the margins, but cannot provide the sort of growth that is needed. We will have to expand fossil fuel production, or nuclear energy, or both. Fossil fuels will not run out. But as they become more scarce the price will rise until our growth is strangled, and we will feel impelled to engage in war to secure our supplies. Heaberlin sees nuclear power as a way out of these dilemmas. Light water nuclear power plants are a mature technology which is provably less hazardous to our health than the fossil fuel alternatives. Heaberlin provides a complete and balanced account of the problem of nuclear waste. He concludes it is completely managable using existing technology. The problem is one of politics, not technology. What really burns Heaberlin is the fact that the Koyoto Treaty did not allow nuclear energy to be counted as environmentally clean, which in fact it is. I have just touched on the issues Heaberlin covers. He provides an overwhelming case for renewing the nuclear option. Nuclear energy provides the only chance we have to avoid multiple catastrophies. Read this book and tremble at the irrationality of our current energy policies.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hard to believe, but it was a fun read!, May 26, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: A Case for Nuclear-Generated Electricity (Paperback)
Any book on nuclear energy can potentially be a snooze, even to another engineer. However Scott holds the jargon to a minimum, and the breadth of his discourse on energy, technology and modern society is impressive. If you stick with him, he takes you on a fascinating journey of energy, ranging from how stars go nova and seed the cosmos to the impact of technology (or the lack thereof) on our quality of life and expectations for the near future. And he does it in layman's terms sprinkled with excellent, often humorous analogies and factoids. My copy is now liberally highlighted. If you've never had a physics or engineering course and want to `Know Nukes', this is a good place to start. For anyone involved professionally in communicating to the lay public about energy and it's role in modern society, this book is a must.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Convinced me that nuclear power has a place in our world, May 21, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: A Case for Nuclear-Generated Electricity (Paperback)
For a long time, I wasn't in favor of nuclear power. I'd grown up during Three Mile Island and the Chornobyl accidents. I was pretty secure in my feelings on the topic until I read this book! Scott Heaberlin gives readers the context they need to really understand the power situation in the U.S. He delves into the need for energy and why can't we just go back to the good ol' days. He also discusses technology and its place in our world. He takes the topic of nuclear safety head-on, giving one of the better accounts of what happened at Three Mile Island and Chornobyl. He also discusses "green technologies" such as solar and wind power. Heaberlin's writing style is conversational, but he backs up his opinions and ideas with scientific and social references. He has obviously done his homework. Who should buy this book? People that live near a nuclear power reactor, folks with family or friends that work at a plant, as well as reporters and other media pros that need additional reference material.
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