Abstract
Seminal texts that cover the merits, costs, and risks of nuclear power and also explore sustainable non-nuclear energy options.
Today, 31 nations use nuclear power to produce electricity. During the past decade, volatile oil and gas prices and fears of dwindling fossil fuel resources have stirred talk of the need for increasing reliance on nuclear energy. In the past few years, 43 states have approached the International Atomic Energy Agency and expressed interest in introducing nuclear power in their countries. Nuclear energy also has found support among some concerned that global greenhouse gas emissions must urgently be reduced to limit the severity of climate change. Any hopes for a nuclear-powered future, however, need to be tempered by the world's previous experience with nuclear energy.
The dream of powering the world with nuclear energy is more than 100 years old. In 1901, Frederick Soddy and Ernest Rutherford discovered that the phenomenon of radioactivity released energy, and Soddy argued that this offered a potentially “inexhaustible” source of power that could “transform a desert continent, thaw the frozen poles, and make the whole Earth one smiling Garden of Eden.” It took World War II and the desperate U.S. effort to build the atomic bomb to finally release and control this energy–as such, the first nuclear reactors were designed to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. For 60 years, this fundamental technological link with nuclear weapons has shadowed its commercial uses. The development and building of large nuclear reactors to generate electricity also proved to be much harder and far more costly than most people had imagined. Additionally, few envisioned the persistent safety problems and risks of catastrophic accidents that have plagued nuclear energy programs around the world. The public also has grown wary of the environmental dangers posed by the nuclear fuel cycle–from uranium mining to disposing of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel.
This reading list provides a whistle-stop tour of basic issues associated with nuclear energy. It ranges from the 1946 Acheson-Lilienthal Report, which warned of nuclear power's dual-use potential, to recent assessments of its economics, safety, and environmental costs. The list also includes current debates about whether the growth and spread of nuclear energy can help limit greenhouse gas emissions in a safe, timely, and cost-effective way without increasing proliferation risks. When the problematic history of nuclear energy is brought up, one is confronted with the question: Is there an alternative? To address that concern, we have included three very broad readings on how sustainable energy, energy systems, and policies could meet basic human and social needs while satisfying the imperatives of economy, ecological sustainability, and intergenerational equity.
Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy
Also known as the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, this report was the first detailed effort to plot a way in which to abolish nuclear weapons and prevent the use of nuclear energy for weapons purposes. It argued that “the development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes and the development of atomic energy for bombs are in much of their course interchangeable and interdependent,” and that the basic issue was the “inseparable political, social, and organizational problems involved in enforcing agreements between nations each free to develop atomic energy but only pledged not to use it for bombs.” The report was drafted by J. Robert Oppenheimer and I. I. Rabi during Christmas week in 1945 for a special advisory committee to President Harry S. Truman whose members included Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson and Tennessee Valley Authority Chairman David Lilienthal. A summary was published as an article by Oppenheimer in the June 1, 1946 issue of the Bulletin. A copy of the original report is available at http://www.fissilematerials.org/ipfm/site_down/ach46.pdf.
The Curve of Binding Energy: A Journey into the Awesome and Alarming World of Theodore B. Taylor
A very early and vivid assessment of the risk that materials common in commercial nuclear energy programs could be used to make nuclear weapons, including by terrorists. Written in the form of a study of the life and work of Ted Taylor, a legendary U.S. nuclear weapons designer, it is a compelling account both of the issues and the man. McPhee travelled with Taylor to nuclear sites across the United States, while Taylor explained how simple it would be to steal nuclear material and make an atomic bomb. It begs the question: Why has more not been done in the past 35 years to address this persistent problem?
Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies
The 1979 Three Mile Island accident spurred an enormous number of studies of nuclear safety. The most influential was Normal Accidents, in which Perrow, a sociologist, argued that serious accidents should be considered a “normal” outcome of complex high-technology systems. He demonstrated how what happened at Three Mile Island was a result of the technological and institutional structure intrinsic to such plants and that, in a sense, the accident was an inevitable occurrence, albeit a rare one. Perrow's work has since spurred an enormous range of analyses on a variety of systems, which together constitute what has come to be called Normal Accident Theory. An updated edition of Normal Accidents was released in 1999.
Energy for a Sustainable World
This pioneering renewable energy study focused attention on the need to think about energy production, consumption, and energy policies in a new way. It set the agenda for a generation of energy researchers. The authors, known in energy policy circles as the “Gang of Four,” are from Brazil, Sweden, India, and the United States. They were among the first to challenge the conventional wisdom–still prevalent among policy makers, energy companies, and much of the public–that increasing energy supply and use makes possible greater levels of economic and social development and improved human well-being. They explain that inputs of energy are better seen as “means to an end,” with the end being human and social needs such as lighting, cooking, warmth, and transport rather than kilowatt-hours produced. It offers a path toward a world that is, as the authors say, “more equitable, economically viable, and environmentally sound.” A condensed version is available at http://pdf.wri.org/energyforsustainableworld_bw.pdf.
Nuclear Choices: A Citizen's Guide to Nuclear Technology
Nuclear Choices is an accessible introduction to nuclear science and technology and their uses in nuclear energy and weapons. For those without much prior knowledge in the area, it is a good place to start. The book takes its purpose seriously–to introduce citizens to the information that can allow them to better understand the nuclear issues that make the news so that they can make up their own minds and participate in public and policy debates, rather than leaving it up to experts.
Governing the Atom: The Politics of Risk
A collection of essays that highlights a theme often neglected in accounts of typical technology or policy histories of nuclear power: the social structures that are required for the development and maintenance of nuclear technology. The contributions cover the experience of Native Americans with uranium mining; the relationship between safety and public acceptance; and accounts of nuclear developments in Western Europe, the Soviet Union, post-Soviet Eastern Europe, and East Asia.
Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes Technology
Pool, a popular science writer, wanted, to “produce a straightforward treatment of the commercial nuclear power industry–its history, its problems, and its potential for the future.” But the nice, simple story that he envisioned disappeared as he pursued it. Instead, he ended up with a rich and complex story of how society shapes technology. Pool draws on a range of disciplines, including history, economics, risk analysis, management science, and sociology, to make his case that “things,” even nuclear power plants, are more than what they seem.
Red Atom: Russia's Nuclear Power Program from Stalin to Today
A historian of science and technology, Josephson has written one of the few detailed histories of nuclear power in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. The picture he paints is one of great optimism, frantic construction, and a technocratic elite's grip on policy making. The secrecy that came with the Soviet nuclear program, maintained in the interest of “national security,” engendered an absence of concern for workers and surrounding populations and the willful neglect of the economy, public health, and the environment. Similar behavior is found in nuclear programs in other countries. Not easy reading, in part because of the overwhelming detail that the writer provides, but Red Atom is useful for anyone interested in the future of nuclear power.
World Energy Assessment: Energy and the Challenge of Sustainability
This major U.N. study (co-sponsored by the World Energy Council, the U.N. Development Programme, and the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs) focuses on the social, economic, environmental, and security issues associated with the supply and use of energy in developing and developed countries. It includes contributions by, and reflects the perspective of, the authors of Energy for a Sustainable World. The authors include John Holdren, now science adviser to President Barack Obama. It is available for download at http://www.undp.org/energy/activities/wea/drafts-frame.html.
The Perception of Risk
The main cause for public opposition to nuclear power in many countries is the widespread perception that it is a risky technology. This perception has been something of a puzzle to many technical experts, who often rank nuclear power as less risky than other hazards. The gap between experts' views of risk and public perception is the underlying theme of Slovic's collection of papers and essays. (Slovic is a leading analyst of risk, risk perception, and risk management.) Together, the essays highlight how the public's perception of risk is shaped by questions of trust, power, agency, catastrophic potential, inequalities in risks and benefits, and the threat to future generations.
Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation
Since 1955, the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) has assessed nuclear radiation exposures and their health effects. In 2000, it published the most detailed assessment of the radiation levels and health effects from the April 1986 Chernobyl accident, documenting in dramatic detail an increase in thyroid cancers. (The assessment is located in Annex J of Volume II of the 2000 report.) Inasmuch as the likelihood of catastrophic accidents cannot be reduced to zero, Chernobyl will remain relevant. This report and others from UNSCEAR are available for download at http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications.html.
The Future of Nuclear Power: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study
MIT's study has underpinned much of the recent expert debate about the possibility that nuclear energy could expand rapidly enough to help meet rising electricity demand without adding to greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change. The report concludes that any large expansion of nuclear energy would rely on building more nuclear power plants based on conventional designs, which would perpetuate the same recurring problems. It argues, “We have not found and, based on current knowledge, do not believe it is realistic to expect that there are new reactor and fuel-cycle technologies that simultaneously overcome the problems of cost, safety, waste, and proliferation.” Nuclear advocates take heed. The report (including a 2009 update) is available at http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower.
Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
An award-winning collection of compelling, and at times heartbreaking, testimonies by workers, scientists, local officials, firefighters, soldiers, cleanup crews, doctors, nurses, and their families, which detail what it meant to live through the April 1986 nuclear power plant disaster.
The Global Nuclear Future: Volume 1
A special issue of Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, dedicated to exploring the future of nuclear power. It asks whether the potential worldwide growth and spread of nuclear power will lead to an increased risk of weapons proliferation and nuclear terrorism and also whether such growth could help limit greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the severity of climate change. A second volume is expected in winter 2010.
In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age
A journalist who has covered the nuclear beat since the 1980s, Cooke has written a compelling account of the nuclear age, covering both the production of electricity and weapons and the close connections between the two pursuits. We cannot but agree with the assessment of Princeton University's Frank von Hippel: “[A] s the title suggests, the subtext is the question of whether fallible humanity is up to managing this technology wisely. This is the best treatment of the question that I have seen.”
Sustainable Energy–Without the Hot Air
An accessible, entertaining, and iconoclastic introduction to renewable energy and climate change, Sustainable Energy makes a compelling argument that wide-ranging changes are needed in how modern societies use energy and how this energy is produced. Because, as MacKay writes, “If everyone does a little, we'll achieve only a little.” The book uses numbers to illuminate arguments, but readers need little more than a basic knowledge of arithmetic to follow along. More technical chapters (requiring high school-level math and science) are at the end of the book for those who want to get into the details. It is available for free at http://www.withouthotair.com.
Nuclear Power: Economic, Safety, Health, and Environmental Issues of Near-Term Technologies
A useful and concise overview of the present understanding of nuclear power economics; safety (including the effects of safety culture and human agency); risks and consequences of major nuclear reactor accidents; environmental impacts of normal operation of a nuclear energy program; and the still unresolved problem of disposing of nuclear waste in a way that is environmentally benign and publicly acceptable.
The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2009
This review of worldwide developments in nuclear energy by Schneider, a leading nuclear skeptic, and co-authors has been published on and off since 1992. It contains overviews of nuclear energy programs by country and by region. Some of the earlier reports are available online. The 2009 report includes a wide-ranging survey of the economics of nuclear plants. A condensed version is available in this special issue of the Bulletin. The full report is available for free at http://www.bmu.de/english/nuclear_safety/downloads/doc/44832.php.