Nuclear Energy: Boom, Bust, and Emerging RenaissanceQuestions of energy policy are among the most central and consequential of any confronting society today. While the role of nuclear energy is key, there is little understanding and much misinformation regarding its nature and its potential. Impeding the emergence of informed discourse on this topic is the lack of clear, objective information. Nuclear Energy: Boom, Bust and Emerging Renaissance helps answer the question of "What role can nuclear energy play in meeting the global warming challenge?" Currently, the public has little access to developments that have been made in nuclear energy technology since the accidents of Chernobyl and Fukushima. These new designs promise to come to fruition around 2030, as the 28th United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP28) witnessed a call for a tripling of the use of nuclear power by 2050. Edward A. Friedman places the troubling issues of nuclear power into both historical and forward-looking contexts, first by exploring the consequences since the first reactor was connected to a public electrical grid, and then by envisioning radically new designs that promise a safe path toward achieving net-zero carbon emissions. With non-technical explanations, this book provides insight of how nuclear reactor technology holds the promise of making significant contributions to the struggle against global warming, and why dozens of nations are engaged in innovation and expansion of nuclear technology. Timely and insightful, Nuclear Energy will appeal to the lay reader while also serving as a college-level text for both non-science students studying energy policy or sustainability and students of science and technology. |
Contents
| 1 | |
19401945 | 17 |
3 US Developments 19451960 | 29 |
4 US Developments 19602000 | 41 |
5 Nuclear Resistance | 49 |
6 Reactor Development in Britain | 67 |
7 Reactor Development in France | 75 |
8 Reactor Development in Russia | 81 |
15 GenerationIII Reactors | 151 |
16 Fuel Waste and Radioactivity | 163 |
17 GenerationIV Reactors | 179 |
18 Moltensalt Reactors | 187 |
19 Liquidsodium Reactors LSRs | 193 |
20 Liquid Leadcooled Fast Reactors | 201 |
21 Hightemperature Gascooled Reactors | 207 |
22 Floating Nuclear Reactors | 211 |
9 Reactor Development in China | 87 |
10 Reactor Development in Other Countries | 93 |
11 The Three Mile Island Accident | 99 |
12 The Chernobyl Accident | 111 |
13 The Fukushima Accident | 131 |
14 Solar Wind and Battery Power | 143 |
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accident anti-nuclear Atomic Energy began bomb building built Canada carbon chain reaction Chernobyl Chernobyl disaster China civilian collaboration construction containment coolant cooling countries elements emissions Energy Agency event explosion export facility fallout Fast Reactor Fermi fission France Friedman Fukushima Generation-IV Germany global graphite heat high-temperature HTGRs hydrogen IAEA impact implementation industry initiative isotope Japan levels Manhattan Project MW electric National Laboratory neutrons nuclear energy nuclear fuel nuclear plant nuclear power plant nuclear reactors nuclear technology nuclear waste nuclear weapons NuScale Oak Ridge output plans plutonium potential pressure produced protons pursued radiation radioactive RBMK reac reactor design reactor development release result Rosatom Russia safety scientists sector small modular reactors solar South Korea Soviet Union steam Superphénix temperature thorium Three Mile Island tion TRISO tritium tsunami United Kingdom VVER Westinghouse wind