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Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Energy Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America's Energy Odyssey | 
 enlarge | Author: William Tucker
Publisher: Bartleby Pr
Category: Book
List Price: $27.50
Buy New: $18.15
You Save: $9.35 (34%)
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Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 28872
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 420
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.5
ISBN: 0910155763
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.7924
EAN: 9780910155762
ASIN: 0910155763
Publication Date: September 19, 2008
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Product Description
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 onservation 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 as the forward-thinking solution. Terrestrial energy is without doubt, the only realistic, practical answer to our energy dilemma.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 16 more reviews...
Eye Opening January 6, 2009
This book is an eye opening look into what and where United States should be going today - leading the world in the research & development of green nuclear energy.
If the new president wants a legacy, he should read and implement this!
Very informative book. Discussion Open January 5, 2009
There is now an open discussion at www.terrestrialenergy.org/board for this infomative and though provoking book. All are welcome.
 Right time, important read January 5, 2009
I am very happy that someone is getting in the trenches in favor of nuclear energy. This book takes on the major choices we can make as we contemplate our future in energy production and all it encompasses. Each potential energy source - current and planned - has been investigated, well documented and explained, chapter-by-chapter.
An interesting tidbit (not from the book): T. J. Rodgers, founder and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor Corp, a manufacturer of solar-power systems, himself states that nuclear is the best option.
2 things I wish were covered:
1) Uranium mining. Proponents (like me) claim nuclear to be a technology that is nice to the environment, but one of the attacks against nuclear is that it requires major mining operations that are very polluting. This needs to be put into perspective. Disinformation about the danger of tailings needs to be dispelled.
2) Thorium. The next best thing in nuclear technology is Thorium. Thorium reactors produce far less bomb-making material and the Thorium fuel cycle itself is nearly tamper-proof. Secondly, there is 3x more Thorium in the Earth's crust that all the Uranium in the world; we have access to enough Thorium to last us a VERY long time: We will have fusion long before we run out. "Peak Uranium" is not an issue. Also, current reactors can be easily and cheaply made to burn Thorium fuel rods.
Overall, an enjoyable read, and I hope one of many works to come that help make the case for one inevitability of our future we can actually be excited about.
Excellent overview of the energy choices December 31, 2008
William Tucker's book Terrestial Energy is a book that should be read by anyone interested in dealing with the energy crisis. I have read it once and find myself going back to it to continually to absorb the multitude for information that it presents. The book deals with the overall energy issue. It presents the many choices that we have in a balanced way, and presents the benefits and the problems inherent in each choice.
The book shows that we are given a gift in the dust left over from the creation of the earth. There is energy in that dust that can be extracted to power the world for thousands of years. We were given the brains to discover this and use it for the benefit of mankind, with minimal impact on the environment.
This is not the choice popularized by Al Gore. As a matter of fact, as the book shows, his choice is a one-way ticket to disaster. A very interesting chapter deals with what happened in California in that past few decades. The "green" path was chosen and has led to a severe energy crisis that was partially solved only by constructing expensive gas turbines and massive imports of nuclear and other conventional energy from other states. California is now left with high electric rates and a mass exodus of industry and jobs. Some think we should follow lead of California nationwide. I think not.
Easy to read December 29, 2008
I usually need a fast paced, page-turner to actually read the whole book, so I was worried that a book on energy was going to be difficult for me to finish. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy this book was to read. It reads more like a story than a book of facts. You don't have to know anything about nuclear power or energy to follow long.
Oh...I finished this book in two days!
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