What are you reading that's nuclear energy-related? And thoughts?

[Marguerite]

For the month of November 2013 we are focussing our Goodreads group readings on a topic, rather than a specific book. And the topic is: Nuclear Energy!

Please use this discussion folder to post about any and all of your nuclear energy-related books or articles that you're reading.

Nimai and a few other Greener Readers are reading "Thorium: Energy Cheaper than Coal." Feel free to read that book if you don't have any other nuclear energy-related books to read, or pick a different book and bring that book's ideas into the discussion!

If nuclear energy doesn't interest you specifically, then perhaps some of the consequences of nuclear radiation, or disasters like Chernobyl interest you. Interestingly enough, I just found that Goodreads has this list of popular books about Chernobyl: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/.... Feel free to think outside the box on this one and looking forward to hearing from you! :)

[Justine]

p. 12 "It became clear to me that the world's nations will never adopt carbon taxes that economically
disadvantage them individually, and that dissuading nations from burning coal will require an
economically superior technology. If we can provide better energy technology, universally
available, each nation's economic self-interest will lead it to retire coal-burning power plants."

p. 17 "It's as simple as that. Rely on the economic self-interest of 7 billion people in 2S0 nations to
choose cheaper, nonpolluting energy." Fostering Sustainable Behavior disagrees

p. 17 "Many environmentalists advocate replacing fossil fuel energy with wind
and solar energy sources, blind to the fact that these are 3-4 times more costly!" True? False?

p. 43 "By switching to cooked,
softer, more energetically rich food homo erectus was able to devote time to more productive
activities, making tools, farming, and interacting socially, as evidenced by records of their larger
brains and smaller guts, jaws, and teeth. Reduced kinetic energy demands for metabolism
permitted evolution of the human's large brain, which consumes a quarter of the body's energy."

p. 44 "With forests consumed, cattle dung is another fuel used even today in developing countries such as
India, where it is collected, shaped, dried, and burned rurally or sold in cities for $0.14/kg, or about $0.03/kWh." I'm learning about the magic of cattle dung in farm class too!

p. 45 "So another great invention of the time was grinding seeds into flour, which was made into bread.
The grinding, the fermentation, and the cooking made an easily digestible, transportable, storable
food energy supply that sustained people living in villages and cities rather than dispersed people
for hunting and gathering.
Agriculture allowed accumulation of food, creating wealth. Increasing that wealth required human
labor to tend more crops, and slave labor became an important source of energy for wealthy
nations such as the Roman Empire. As Christianity spread and slaves were freed, this power source
was lost, and with it the glory of Rome." Wow, human history in a paragraph

p. 56 "Meadows was rebuked by economists who pointed out that innovation and rising prices for
resources have historically resulted in finding new resources and inventing new ways to increase
economic productivity. New resources could be found at higher prices, but increased economic
productivity would make them affordable. The world is finite, though. Since then the world has
experienced the oil price shocks of the 1970s and now commodities price shocks as more energy is
required for making iron, aluminum, corn, and other commodities more in demand from an
increasingly demanding, expanding world population."

p. 59 "With increased income, there is less need to have children to work in agriculture, or to care for
aging parents. There is less need to give birth to extra children to compensate for childhood deaths.
With work saving technologies such as water pumps, efficient cook stoves, and washing machines,
women are freed from constant labor. They are able to have time for education and to earn money.
With more independence and access to contraceptives, women can choose to have fewer children,
as evidenced above." When did having babies for fun come into play!?

p. 61 "Adequate electric power alone can not guarantee a prosperous economy and civilization without
education, basic health care, rule of law, property rights, financial system, and good government.
But electricity is essential for economic progress."

p. 72 "Dissolved C02 depletes the carbonate ions
that corals, mollusks, and some plankton need for reef and shell building. By mid-century this will
threaten survival of shellfish and the marine food chain."

p. 73 "The EPA estimate is 13,000 to 34,000 deaths per year. Most of these deaths arise from sulfur
dioxide from coal plant flue gases that nucleate fine particles (< 4% the diameter of a hair) that are
inhaled. Nitrogen oxides and mercury are two other fatal pollution contributors. EPA estimates the
annual economic benefit from reducing emissions to be 120 to 280 billion dollars."

p. 74 "The March 2012 OECD outlook projects that with business-as-usual policies
"Urban air pollution is set to become the top environmental cause of mortality worldwide by
2050, ahead of dirty water and lack of sanitation. The number of premature deaths from
exposure to particulate air pollutants leading to respiratory failure could double from
current levels to 3.6 million every year globally, with most occurring in China and India."

p. 74 "Just the 15 largest container ships emit as much air pollution as the world's 760 million cars. Large
ship diesel engines are powered by refineries' residual oil, essentially asphalt that contains 2000
times the sulfur of automobile diesel fuel. The 2300 ton engines generate up to 90 MW of power
while burning 16 tons of fuel per hour. Shipping has increased as China has become the largest
manufacturing country. The industry consumes 7 million barrels of fuel per day. The entire ocean
fleet annually emits 20 million tons of S02. Shipping is responsible for 18-30% of the world's NOx
(nitrogen oxides) pollution, 9% of SOx pollution, and 4% of all climate change emissions.
The US EPA is working to reduce costal ship emissions, causing 12,000 to 31,000 premature
deaths, 1.4 million work days lost, and from $110 to $270 billion dollars of health care costs."

p. 81 ""Technology policy lies at the core of the climate change challenge... If we try to restrain
emissions without a fundamentally new set of technologies, we will end up stifling
economic growth, including the development prospects for billions of people... We will
need much more than a price on carbon ... technologies developed in the rich world will
need to be adopted rapidly in poorer countries."