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Hayashi Kyoko's story, Ritual Of Death, centers around her experience as a schoolgirl caught in the Nagasaki bombing. She was saved by the shadow of a school porter who had crossed in front of her at the moment of the flash. Along with stories, there are poems, essays and art, including photographs. In this collection, the editor aimed for a personal kind of expression, and work that not only shows concern for life and living, but does so with the artist's skill. ... Read more

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An essential reference for journalists, activists, and students, this book presents scientifically accurate and accessible overviews of 24 of the most important issues in the nuclear realm, including: health effects, nuclear safety and engineering, TMI and Chernobyl, nuclear medicine, food irradiation, transport of nuclear materials, spent fuel, nuclear weapons, global warming.

Each "brief" is based on interviews with named scientists, engineers, or administrators in a nuclear specialty, and each has been reviewed by a team of independent experts.The objective is not to make a case for or against nuclear-related technologies, but rather to provide definitive background information.(The approach is based on that of The Reporter's Environmental Handbook, published in 1988, which won a special award for journalism from the Sigma Delta Chi Society of professional journalists.)

Other features of the book include: a glossary of hundreds of terms, an introduction to risk assessment, environmental and economic impacts, and public perceptions, an article by an experienced reporter with recommendations about how to cover nuclear issues, quick guides to the history of nuclear power in the United States, important federal legislation and regulations, nuclear position statements, and key organizations, print and electronic resources. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great for marketing professionals in the nuclear industry
As a young marketer working for a company peripherally involved in the nuclear industry, it was urgent for me to learn more about the current state of the world, market, and opinion set in the particular industry which I suddenly found myself working in. This book was enormously helpful for that purpose. ... Read more

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The promise and peril of nuclear power have been a preoccupation of the modern age. Though the nuclear industry has witnessed periods of expansion and retrenchment, there are now more than one hundred nuclear reactors providing America with almost a quarter of its electrical power.

Robert Duffy now examines the politics of nuclear power over the last fifty years, relating broad trends in American politics to changes in the regulation of the nuclear industry to show how federal policies in this area have been made, implemented, and altered. He weaves a discussion of institutional change in all three branches of government into a study of agenda-setting, regulatory reform, and "subgovernment" politics, demonstrating how these forces combined to create policy change in this important area of public policy.

Duffy's work traces nuclear politics from the creation of a powerful subgovernment through the public lobby reforms of the late 1960s and early 1970s and the deregulatory backlash of the Reagan years. He demonstrates that while policies did change in the 1970s, they did not change as much as other accounts have suggested, and that the industry continued to receive considerable federal support. The book is particularly significant for extending the discussion of nuclear policy through the Bush and Clinton years, including the controversy over waste disposal, new licensing procedures enacted in the 1992 Amendments to the Atomic Energy Act, and the effects of deregulation of electric utilities.

By providing both a description of the transformation of this policy community and an analysis of how regulatory change occurs, Nuclear Politics in America offers a new and important view of policymaking in America. ... Read more

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This report discusses nuclear energy issues facing Congress include federal incentives for new commercial reactors, radioactive waste management policy, research and development priorities, power plant safety and regulation, nuclear weapons proliferation, and security against terrorist attacks. ... Read more

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"It is now a quarter of a century since nuclear energy was introduced to the public.Its introduction was made in the most dramatic, but unfortunately in the most destructive way - through the use of a nuclear weapon. "Since that introduction enormous strides have been made in developing the peaceful applications of this great and versatile force.Because these strides have always been overshadowed by the focusing of public attention on the military side of the atom, the public has never fully understood or appreciated the gains and status of the peaceful atom. "This book is an attempt to correct, in some measure, this imbalance in public information and attitude.It is a compilation of remarks, and excerpts of remarks, that I have made in recent years in an effort to bring to the public the story of the remarkable benefits the peaceful atom has to offer man.This is a story that grows with the development and progress of the peaceful atom.It must be told so that we can learn to use the power of nuclear energy wisely and through this use help to build a world in which the military applications of the atom will never again be a threat to mankind."--- Glenn T. SeaborgContents:IntroductionThe Need for Nuclear PowerNuclear Power---Status and OutlookNuclear FusionNuclear Energy in SpaceThe Atom's Expanding Role in MedicineThe Atom's Expanding Role in IndustryThe Atom's Expanding Role in AgricultureThe Atom's Expanding Role in the HumanitiesSwords into PlowsharesMan and the Atom---By the Year 2000 ... Read more

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Because of global warming, nuclear energy is getting a second look. This book discusses the benefits and drawbacks of this controversial, but clean and reliable, source of power. It also features case studies which show how the technologies are helping make production of nuclear energy safer. ... Read more

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Heavy water (deuterium oxide) played a sinister role inthe race for nuclear energy during the Second World War. It was a keyfactor in Germany's bid to harness atomic energy primarily as a sourceof electric power; its acute shortage was a factor in Japan's decisionnot to pursue seriously nuclear weaponry; its very existence was anagging thorn in the side of the Allied powers. Books and films havedwelt on the Allies' efforts to deny the Germans heavy water bymilitary means; however a history of heavy water in itself has notbeen written.

This book fills that gap. It concentrates on the circumstances wherebyNorway became the pre-eminent producer of heavy water, and on thescientific role the rare isotope of hydrogren played in the wartimeefforts by the Axis and Allied powers alike. Instead of a purelytechnical treatise on heavy water, the book may better be described asa social history of the subject.

The book covers the discovery and early uses of deuterium before WorldWar Two; its large-scale production by Norsk Hydro in Norway,especially under German control; the French-German race for theNorwegian heavy-water stocks in 1940; its importance for thesubsequent German uranium project, including Allied sabotage andbombing of the Norwegian plants; likewise its lesser role in Alliedprojects, especially, the United States and Canada. The book concludeswith an overall assessment of the importance, or perceived importanceof heavy water for the German program, which alone staked everythingon heavy water in its quest for a nuclear chain reaction. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Another piece of the Atom Bomb Race in Germany
The quality of the writing is very good. The people involved are portrayed as people and as scientists. Insights are given regarding atomic research in France, Germany and the United States. For the researcher studying the German atomic project, a few interesting facts emerge. The author, having had access to Norsk Hydro archives, also tells about internal sabotage by plant workers and the role of the British in their attempts to destroy part or all of the plant. A report is also given about German plans to dismantle the equipment for producing heavy water and moving it out of harm's way to Germany. Then, there is a strange report about the Germans, after securing an 'important' shipment of heavy water, which was designated to be destroyed by the Norwegians at any cost, leave it relatively unguarded on a boat. The saboteurs gain easy access, sink the boat and most of its precious cargo. The key to understanding that episode is to look at the possibility of a feint by the Germans designed to keep attention focused in Norway while a larger, more heavily funded concern, IG Farben, the world's largest chemical cartel, could have simply and quietly duplicated the process, and the required equipment, in Germany. This, I think, is the most important conclusion to be drawn from the book. That, and the fact that IG Farben had part ownership in Norsk Hydro.

The Americans were also looking at heavy water as a moderator for their atomic pile work. Another detail which I think is missed when considering the history of this substance. For the serious researcher, this book adds important details and makes clear the importance of heavy water in atomic research.

a great book at great cost
This is a fantastic book, Mr Dahl is one of the few authors that I've read that doesn't feel the need to "dumb down" his material. The book is well written and chock full of technical detail. My only regret is that I had to get a copy from the library, since the $75 cost(at the time of this review) is far too steep for anything other than a textbook. If the publisher were to lower book's cost to the $20 or below price point I would happily buy a copy to add to my collection.

The thrilling history of a unique scientific substance.
With his newest work of science history, Heavy Water and the Wartime Race for Nuclear Energy, physicist and author Per Dahl pulls off the remarkable feat of delivering both a scholarly work and a nail-biting thriller.*** Late in 1938, Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn, and Fritz Strassman discovered thephenomenon of atomic fission; physicists everywhere realized that if chainreactions could be tamed, fission could lead to a new source of power. Whatwas needed was a substance that could "moderate" the energy ofneutrons emitted in radioactive decay, so that they could be captured byother fissionable nuclei. Heavy water was a prime candidate for the job --its role in world affairs thus forever assured.*** While plenty ofbooks and movies have dealt with Allied efforts to deny heavy water to theGermans in World War II, Dahl's is the first history of the substanceitself -- not as "a purely technical treatise," he writes in thepreface (although there are details and diagrams aplenty), but "asocial history." *** Deuterium, a hydrogen atom whose nucleusincludes one neutron, was discovered before the neutron itself. In 1931,most scientists thought the differing weights of isotopes were due to extraprotons bound to "nuclear electrons." By Thanksgiving of thatyear, Columbia University chemist Harold Urey had identified the spectrallines of what he would later call deuterium in a few cubic centimeters ofconcentrated liquid hydrogen. Not until February 1932, in Cambridge,England, did James Chadwick discover the neutron. *** Deuterium isphysically so different from ordinary hydrogen (roughly twice as massive,for one thing) that chemists eagerly turned their attention to it. Theywondered what differences deuterium instead of ordinary hydrogen might makein the behavior of chemical compounds; what the effects on plants andanimals of water with two deuterium atoms per molecule might be; and evenwhat therapeutic potential this literally heavy water might possess.*** The protean Gilbert Lewis, Urey's mentor at the University of California atBerkeley, was a pioneer in these investigations, and he soon made moreheavy water than Urey himself -- enough that, among many other experiments,he was able to feed two-thirds of a gram of the precious stuff to a mouse.The mouse survived, Lewis reported, but showed "marked signs ofintoxication." *** Concentrating heavy water requires enormousamounts of electricity. In the 1930s, one of the few places in the worldwith power to spare was the Vemork plant of Norway's Norsk Hydro-Elektrisk,which had harnessed a 144-meter-high waterfall to produce fertilizers.Norsk Hydro supplied the world's scientific community with heavy water onlyas a sideline. Inebriated mice aside, what was it good for? *** Nuclear fission supplied the answer. The best candidates for moderators inatomic reactors were heavy water and pure graphite. Dahl relates thefascinating events, including romantic distractions, that persuaded Germanscientists that graphite wouldn't do the job. When, in late 1939, theGermans began ordering heavy water in very large quantities, Norsk Hydromanagement suspected "some kind of deviltry."*** FrédéricJoliot knew perfectly well what kind of deviltry, and with the cooperationof Norsk Hydro, the French managed to spirit the company's entire stock ofheavy water, some 185 kilograms, out of the country under the noses ofwatching German agents. Later, Joliot's assistants smuggled most of it outof Vichy France and used it to convince the British that chain reactionswere practical.*** Meanwhile the Germans had invaded Norway, and theAllies set out to destroy Vemork, a story familiar from the 1965 Hollywoodfilm, Heroes of Telemark, starring Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris. Despitetragic loss of life, the Norwegian underground repeatedly sabotagedVemork's heavy water production until the Germans finally gave up.*** The German attempt to build a reactor was feeble and disorganized -- andtheir effort to build an atomic weapon nonexistent -- but the Allies didn'tknow that. German interest in heavy water was a major factor in the race tobuild the A-bomb. *** Per Dahl masterfully recounts all these eventsand many more. There is wisdom in his judicious treatment of persistenthistorical debates, including the rancorous argument that still rages aboutthe motivations of Hahn, Werner Heisenberg, and the other members of theGerman "Uranium Club." His style is lively, his researchthorough, his organization superb.*** The Institute of PhysicsPublishing company has matched Dahl's efforts by giving Heavy Water and theWartime Race for Nuclear Energy the scholarly apparatus and handsomeproduction it deserves. ... Read more

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Relations between the United States and Iran in recent months have been defined by Iranian intransigence and U.S. stubbornness, all because Iran has continued to insist its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes whereas the United States and allied countries remain convinced the real purpose is to produce a nuclear weapon. This report tracks the almost daily development of this issue, thus allowing the reader to arrive at his own conclusion, which in turn may change over time.

The author poses the question: Do sanctions work? Iran has been variously sanctioned since 1987, and efforts are now underway to secure more punishing sanctions through the good offices of the UN Security Council. These new sanctions, if agreed to, would strike at Iran's dependence on gasoline imports and at the expanding economic and nuclear influence of the Islamic Republican Guard Corps. The author in effect answers his own question by offering a quote from the Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Agency who thanked Americans for sanctions because they have united his country.

Although the report centers on the Iranian nuclear program, crude oil and natural gas still matter. Iran holds tremendous reserves of both fuels, but development sharply lags because of lack of investment. Iran exports relatively large volumes of crude oil but little natural gas. Export pipelines are lacking. Grandiose plans have been laid out for new pipelines, but the availability of natural gas to fill these proposed lines is questionable. The author concludes with an epilogue, serving to bring the reader up to date and offering a view of Iran s future. ... Read more

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In the past two decades young people, environmentalists, church activists, leftists, and others have mobilized against nuclear energy. Anti-nuclear protest has been especially widespread and vocal in Western Europe and the United States. In this lucid, richly documented book, Christian Joppke compares the rise and fall of these protest movements in Germany and the United States, illuminating the relationship between national political structures and collective action. He analyzes existing approaches to the study of social movements and suggests an insightful new paradigm for research in this area. Joppke proposes a political process perspective that focuses on the interrelationship between the state and social movements, a model that takes into account a variety of forces, including differential state structures, political cultures, movement organizations, and temporal and contextual factors.This is an invaluable work for anyone studying the dynamics of social movements around the world. ... Read more

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A nonpartisan analysis of America's nuclear industry-how it was implemented, why it has been so unsuccessful, and what lessons it can teach us for future energy policymaking. Joseph Morone and Edward Woodhouse argue that a radically altered form of nuclear power could provide a more acceptable and less environmentally destructive energy future-if we learn from the failures of the first nuclear era. ... Read more

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This is one of a series of titles covering the subject of energy as part of the science coverage at Key Stage 3 and aimed at reluctant readers in the 11-14 age range. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

makes you go hmm...
was not as infromative as i though it would be. THere is still more to be improved on...how about a new edition? ... Read more

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Eugene Wigner is one of the very few scientists that maysafely be describedas creators of 20th-century physics.This volume of his Collected Works isdevoted to hiscontributions to nuclear energy. In his Introduction andAnnotations A.M. Weinberg surveys Wigner's contributionstonuclear-reaction physics and nuclear engineering, at thesame time giving a glimpse of the early history ofnuclear-reactor technology. Wigner himself gave a lively andcritical account, which is published in thisvolume for thefirst time. Furthermore the book contains forty-tworeportsand memoranda from 1941 to 1945 and twelve of Wigner'smanypatents relating to nuclear energy. ... Read more

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Publication date: 0Subjects: University of California, Berkeley. Dept. of Nuclear EngineeringNuclear engineers -- CaliforniaNuclear engineeringNuclear energy -- AccidentsNuclear energy -- Research CaliforniaNuclear energy -- Safety measuresRadioactive waste disposalRadioactive waste disposal in the groundNuclear arms controlNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more