Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy
Gwyneth Cravens on Why Going Green Means Going Nuclear
“Most of us were taught that the goal of science is power over nature, as if science and power were one thing and nature quite another. Niels Bohr observed to the contrary that the more modest but relentless goal of science is, in his words, ‘the gradual removal of prejudice.’ By ‘prejudice,’ Bohr meant belief unsupported by evidence.”
–Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Rhodes, author of the introduction to Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy
by Gwyneth Cravens
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
–Marie Curie My book is fundamentally about prejudice based on wrong information.
I used to oppose nuclear power, even though the Sierra Club supported it. By the mid-1970s the Sierra Club turned against nuclear power too. However, as we witness the catastrophic consequences of accelerated global temperature increase, prominent environmentalists as well as skeptics like me have started taking a fresh look at nuclear energy. A large percentage of the heat-trapping greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, that thaw Arctic ice and glaciers comes from making electricity, and we rely upon it every second of our lives.
There are three ways to provide large-scale electricity—the kind that reliably meets the demands of our civilization around the clock. In the United States:
- 75% of that baseload electricity comes from power plants that burn fossil fuels, mainly coal, and emit carbon dioxide. Toxic waste from coal-fired plants kills 24,000 Americans annually.
- 5% comes from hydroelectric plants.
- Less than 1% comes from wind and solar power.
- 20% comes from nuclear plants that use low-enriched uranium as fuel, burn nothing, and emit virtually no CO2. In 50 years of operation, they have caused no deaths to the public.
When I began my research eight years ago, I’d assumed that we had many choices in the way we made electricity. But we don’t. Nuclear power is the only large-scale, environmentally-benign, time-tested technology currently available to provide clean electricity. Wind and solar power have a role to play, but since they’re diffuse and intermittent, they can’t provide baseload, and they always require some form of backup–usually from burning fossil fuels, which have a huge impact on public health.
My tour of the nuclear world began with a chance question I asked of Dr. D. Richard (”Rip”) Anderson. He and his wife Marcia Fernández work tirelessly to preserve open land, clean air, and the aquifer in the Rio Grande Valley. Rip, a skeptically-minded chemist, oceanographer, and expert on nuclear environmental health and safety, told me that the historical record shows that nuclear power is cleaner, safer, and more environmentally friendly than any other form of large-scale electricity production. I was surprised to learn that:
- Nuclear power emits no gases because it does not burn anything; it provides 73% of America’s clean-air electricity generation, using fuel that is tiny in volume but steadily provides an immense amount of energy.
- Uranium is more energy-dense than any other fuel. If you got all of your electricity for your lifetime solely from nuclear power, your share of the waste would fit in a single soda can. If you got all your electricity from coal, your share would come to 146 tons: 69 tons of solid waste that would fit into six rail cars and 77 tons of carbon dioxide that would contribute to accelerated global warming.
- A person living within 50 miles of a nuclear plant receives less radiation from it in a year than you get from eating one banana. Someone working in the U.S. Capitol Building is exposed to more radioactivity than a uranium miner.
- Spent nuclear fuel is always shielded and isolated from the public. Annual waste from one typical reactor could fit in the bed of a standard pickup. The retired fuel from 50 years of U.S. reactor operation could fit in a single football field; it amounts to 77,000 tons. A large coal-fired plant produces ten times as much solid waste in one day, much of it hazardous to health. We discard 179,000 tons of batteries annually–they contain toxic heavy metals.
- Nuclear power’s carbon dioxide emissions throughout its life-cycle and while producing electricity are about the same as those of wind power.
- Nuclear plants offer a clean alternative to fossil-fuel plants. In the U.S. 104 nuclear reactors annually prevent emissions of 682 million tons of CO2. Worldwide, over 400 power reactors reduce CO2 emissions by 2 billion metric tons a year.
I wanted to know if what Rip was telling me was true. He took me on a tour of the nuclear world so that I could learn firsthand its risks and benefits. I visited many facilities, talked to many scientists in different disciplines, and researched the conclusions of the National Academy of Sciences and various international scientific bodies. As I learned more, I became persuaded that the safety culture that prevails at U.S. nuclear plants and the laws of physics make them a safe and important tool for addressing global warming. Clearly many of my beliefs had originated in misinformation and fear-mongering.
I’ve now met many people dedicated to saving the environment while supporting nuclear power as well as other green resources. This path is only logical. Nuclear power is the only large-scale, non-greenhouse-gas emitting electricity source that can be considerably expanded while maintaining only a small environmental footprint. If as a society we’re going to reduce those emissions, we’ll need every resource to do so, and we’ll have to set aside our ideological blinkers, look at the facts, and unite to meet the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced.
The power to change our world does not lie in rocks, rivers, wind, or sunlight. It lies within each of us.
–Gwyneth Cravens
Author: Gwyneth Cravens
Hardcover: 464 pages
Company: Knopf (2007-10-30) (2007-10-30)
ISBN: 0307266567
List Price: $27.95
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Silent Steel: The Mysterious Death of the Nuclear Attack Sub USS Scorpion
Praise for Silent Steel
“The magnitude of the tragedy of the USS Scorpion is matched only by the depth of the mystery surrounding her loss. Stephen Johnson has done a remarkable job of shining new light on this dark moment in U.S. submarine history.”
–Sherry Sontag, coauthor of Blind Man’s Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage
“What happened to the USS Scorpion? The question has vexed submariners for almost four decades. Now, with meticulous research and incredible attention to detail, Stephen Johnson examines and dissects one of the most tragic and mysterious submarine accidents in U.S. Navy history.”
–Douglas Waller, author of Big Red: Inside the Secret World of a Trident Nuclear Submarine
“Stephen Johnson has crafted a forensic masterpiece that leads the reader back through time to unravel the gnawing enigma of the tragic 1968 loss of the nuclear attack submarine USS Scorpion. Sifting through a maze of conflicting theories, he meticulously lays out a tale of undersea detectives searching for conclusive evidence to one of the most baffling mysteries of the cruel sea.”
–Rear Admiral Thomas Evans, author, analyst specializing in submarine history and operations, and former officer on the Scorpion
“The manuscript arrived with yesterday’s afternoon mail. I finished reading it by nightfall. It’s that good! Thoroughly researched, impeccably documented, with an appealing and literate style, Silent Steel should become essential reading for submarine enthusiasts and for anyone else who enjoys an engaging and informative yarn.”
–A. J. Hill, author of Under Pressure: The Final Voyage of Submarine S-Five
Author: Stephen Johnson
Hardcover: 304 pages
Company: Wiley (2006-01-06)
ISBN: 0471267376
List Price: $25.95
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Jubak’s Journal: The nuclear power problem
Alternative power sources such as ethanol, wind and solar are all viable investing options. So why not nuclear power as well? MSN Money’s Jim Jubak says nuclear power is a tough investment option to figure out — but that, because the problems are mostly political, you should go overseas if you plan to make a nuclear-power play.
The Moonpool: A Novel
I remembered it from high school chemistry, one of those experiments where we made hydrogen. It was more of an acidic sensation on the palate than a real smell, but I recognized it. The pile of spent fuel at the bottom was beginning to outgas. Next would come the fire to end all fires. . . .
A private detective working in Wilmington, North Carolina, is found dead in a gas-station restroom, apparently poisoned. But when her body sets off radiation alarms in the pathologist’s office, suspicion falls on the nearby Helios nuclear power plant, a heavily guarded facility with supposedly failsafe procedures.
As the FBI, local police, and the power plant’s own security team investigate, ex-cop Cam Richter, head of the agency that employed the dead woman, begins his own inquiries. What was his detective investigating? And how could one person be poisoned by radiation without others being exposed?
Cam soon finds himself up against powerful forces that will stop at nothing to keep the plant’s problems secret. The most vulnerable part of Helios is its “moonpool”—the radioactive storage pond that cools spent but volatile reactor fuel and must be kept completely full. Racing against time, Cam discovers an inside threat, which will use the plant’s own systems to begin an unstoppable, disastrous sequence of events.
The Moonpool is a terrific thrill-ride, filled with insider details about the ultimate terrorist threat and how it might unfold.
Author: P. T. Deutermann
Hardcover: 304 pages
Company: St. Martin’s Press (2008-05-27) (2008-05-27)
ISBN: 0312371594
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McCain wants to build 45 nuclear power plants
(NECN: Wilkes-Barre, Penn.) - “I want to build 45 nuclear power plants by 2030 and that will create 700,000 jobs in America,” said John McCain at a town hall style meeting in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Wednesday. “Now, Senator Obama doesn’t want to…
McCain Speaking On Energy
From Warren, Ohio, Republican Presidential Candidate, John McCain speaks about the U.S. needs to explore nuclear power in addition to clean coal technology as a way to wean America off foreign oil.
The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor
Growing up in suburban Detroit, David Hahn was fascinated by science. While he was working on his Atomic Energy badge for the Boy Scouts, David’s obsessive attention turned to nuclear energy. Throwing caution to the wind, he plunged into a new project: building a model nuclear reactor in his backyard garden shed.
Posing as a physics professor, David solicited information on reactor design from the U.S. government and from industry experts. Following blueprints he found in an outdated physics textbook, David cobbled together a crude device that threw off toxic levels of radiation. His wholly unsupervised project finally sparked an environmental emergency that put his town’s forty thousand suburbanites at risk. The EPA ended up burying his lab at a radioactive dumpsite in Utah. This offbeat account of ambition and, ultimately, hubris has the narrative energy of a first-rate thriller.
Author: Ken Silverstein
Paperback: 209 pages
Company: Villard (2005-01-11) (2005-01-11)
ISBN: 0812966600
List Price: $13.95
Amazon Price: $7.87
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John McCain and Nuclear Power
Really Old in ‘08!
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