Why we need nuclear power: the environmental case

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Part 1 Global Warming and Energy Production

1 Global climate change: Real or myth?

What is the debate about?

The IPCC and International Conventions

The greenhouse effect

Skeptical politicians and pundits

Skeptical scientists

Historical temperature and greenhouse gas record

Last 10,000 years of climate

the Holocene

Recent changes in temperature and CO2

Melting glaciers and rising seas

Models

Response to Singer and Avery

Predictions of future global warming and consequences

Sea level and acidification

Global weirding

2 Where our Energy Comes From

A brief history of energy

Coal

Oil and natural gas

Uranium

How much energy do we use and where does it come from?

World energy usage

What can be done to reduce our carbon-intensive energy economy?

3 The Good, Bad and Ugly of Coal and Gas

Coal

Anatomy of a coal-fired plant

Carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants

Mining and health hazards

How much is there? 50

Carbon Capture and Storage

Natural Gas

How much is there?

Greenhouse gas emissions

Fracking

4 The Siren song of renewable energy

Solar

Photovoltaic (PV) solar power

Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)

Solar heating

Limitations of solar power

Wind

Limitations of Wind Power

Summary

5 Back to the Future: Nuclear Power

Anatomy of a reactor

Advantages of nuclear power

Baseload power 82

Greenhouse gas emission

Location and footprint

Cost

Subsidies for nuclear and renewables

Advanced Reactor Technology

Can nuclear replace coal?

Arguments against nuclear power

Part 2 Radiation and its Biological Effects

6 The world of the atom

What is radiation?

Black body radiation

the quantum

The nuclear atom

The quantum atom

The nucleus

Radioactivity: decay processes

Fission

Summary

7 How dangerous is radiation?

Interactions of Radiation with Matter

Electromagnetic radiation (photon) interactions

Charged particle interactions

Neutron interactions

What is a dose of radiation?

Effects of radiation on DNA and cells

How does radiation cause cancer?

What are the risks?

Death from radiation

Cancer from radiation

Hereditary effects of radiation

How bad is plutonium?

Summing up

8 What comes naturally and not so naturally

Natural Background Radiation

Cosmic radiation

Primordial terrestrial radiation

Medical exposure

Part 3 Risks of Nuclear Power

9 Nuclear Waste

What is nuclear waste?

The long and the short of waste storage

Yucca Mountain

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)

Recycling spent nuclear fuel

Making new fuel from recycled "waste"

Summing up

10 About those accidents

The Scare, March 16, 1979

Three Mile Island, March 28, 1979

How the accident happened

Consequences of TMI

Chernobyl, April 26, 1986

How the accident happened

The hazardous radioisotopes

Health consequences

Environmental consequences

A trip to Chernobyl

Consequences for nuclear power

Fukushima, March 11, 2011

How the accident happened

Health and environmental consequences

Consequences for nuclear power

Public perception of risks from nuclear power

11 The Quest for Uranium

Mining for uranium

Shinkolobwe

Shiprock

Milling

In Situ Recovery

Enrichment

Fuel fabrication

World resources of uranium

Megatons to Megawatts

Is there enough uranium for a nuclear renaissance?

Breeder reactors

Thorium

Summary

12 Now What?

Myth 1: Radiation is extremely dangerous and we don't understand it

Myth 2: There is no solution to the nuclear waste produced by nuclear power

Myth 3: Nuclear power is unsafe and nuclear accidents have killed hundreds of thousands of people

Myth 4: Uranium will run out too soon and mining it generates so much carbon dioxide that it loses

its carbon-free advantage

Myth 5: Nuclear power is so expensive it can't survive in the marketplace

Afterword

Appendix A: Global warming

Earth's energy balance:

Radiative forcing

The emission scenarios of the IPCC special report on emissions scenarios (SRES)

Appendix B Glossary of terms, definitions and units

Appendix C Glossary of acronyms and abbreviations

Appendix D Selected Nobel prizes

Index.