Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America's Energy Odyssey

by William Tucker

Overview

This is quite possibly the most important book about energy in a generation. For over thirty years Americans have been fed a steady diet of half-truths, misinformation, urban legends and outright fabrications about energy. The small amount of accurate information that does reach us is often obscured by scientific terminology or one-sided political posturing.When faced with a dramatic increase in energy demand, uncertain supplies and the potentially harmful effects of carbon emissions how are we to make informed choices?Veteran journalist William Tucker has relied on years of research and investigation to help us make sense of America's energy predicament without the burdens of political pressures or predetermined outcomes.It seems odd that nuclear energy has to be reintroduced to America. After all, today, thirty years after we began construction of our last new nuclear reactor, it still supplies nearly 20 percent of our electrical energy needs. And surprisingly, all this output is from plants that were once considered relics, but are now being run with an efficiency and safety record that was hard to envision a decade ago.Perhaps the misgivings have always been with us. Since dawn of the Atomic era, nuclear power has been inextricably associated with nuclear weapons—each reactor a bomb waiting to go off. The accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and its amazing convergence of timing with the film, The China Syndrome reinforced the idea that a nuclear meltdown is a real, terrifying possibility that could kill thousands of people. The later, catastrophic disaster at Chernobyl in the Ukraine heightened these fears.And so the use of atomic energy became controversial. Yet as Tucker makes absolutely clear, nuclear is the same process that heats the center of the earth to 7,000oF, hotter than the surface of the sun.The concentration of power in the nucleus of the atom is incredible. The disintegration of a single uranium atom produces 2 million times more energy than the breaking of a carbon-hydrogen atom in coal, oil, or natural gas, all with zero carbon emissions and zero greenhouse gases.In Terrestrial Energy, Tucker is not content to merely give an argument about why nuclear is the best choice for our energy future. Instead he meticulously surveys entire the energy scene that has frustrated Americans for the past 30 years. Is there such a thing as “clean coal?” Can we expect that conservation will ever reduce our energy consumption?And what about the “renewable” energy sources—wind, solar energy, hydropower, and biofuels—and their promise of clean, plentiful power? Each has its place in America's energy mix but each of these sources also has serious problems. The limiting factor of all these technologies will not be the amount of energy radiating from the sun but the amount of land that will be required to capture and store it.And what are the real dangers of an increase in the use of nuclear power? We have learned to become fearful of radiation at any dose, when in reality, we are regularly exposed to its effects, it is naturally occurring, often benign and in some cases even beneficial. Then there is the waste that supposedly makes nuclear technology unmanageable. It is much less alarming when you consider that the reason America has a nuclear waste problem is because we fail to recycle our spent fuel rods.At the same time that world energy demand steadily increases, Americans are also being asked to be better stewards of the environment. Now is the perfect moment to renew our commitment to use the greatest scientific discovery of the 20th century—the fulfillment of Einstein's formula, E=mc2—as the forward-thinking solution. Terrestrial energy is a friend to humanity and, without doubt, the only realistic, practical answer to our nation's energy dilemma.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780910155885
Publisher:	Bartleby Press
Publication date:	12/19/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	1,065,055
File size:	689 KB

About the Author

William Tucker was an award winning journalist and author. He died in 2016

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Acknowledgments xv

Prologue 1

Part 1 The Crisis

Chapter 1 Global Warming-Hype or Crisis? 9

Chapter 2 Terrestrial Energy 28

Chapter 3 Three Mile Island and Chernobyl 40

Part 2 The Fossil Fuels

Interlude: Zimmer Plant, Moscow, Ohio 55

Chapter 4 Coal: The Industrial Revolution 61

Chapter 5 Coal: The Environmental Era 72

Chapter 6 Oil: Reaching Hubbert's Peak 82

Chapter 7 The Energy Crisis and the World Peak 91

Chapter 8 Natural Gas 105

Part 3 Solar and Renewables

Interlude: Snowmass, Colorado 121

Chapter 9 Energy Conservation 128

Chapter 10 Hydro 139

Chapter 11 Wind 150

Chapter 12 Solar 163

Chapter 13 Geothermal, Waves, and Biofuels 179

Chapter 14 Hydrogen and Electric Cars 198

Chapter 15 The California Electrical Crisis 214

Chapter 16 The Solar Utopia 229

Part 4 Terrestrial Energy

Interlude: Brownville, Nebraska 241

Chapter 17 The Pioneers 245

Chapter 18 The Road to Los Alamos 248

Chapter 19 Atoms for Peace 269

Chapter 20 Three Mile Island and Its Aftermath 287

Chapter 21 The Revival 301

Interlude: Brattleboro, Vermont 312

Chapter 22 Radiation 315

Interlude: Boulder, Montana 338

Chapter 23 Waste and Proliferation 341

Interlude: Yucca Mountain, Nevada 360

Chapter 24 France and the Future 366

Epilogue 385

Notes 389

Bibliography 407

Index 417