Atomic Accidents

A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters; From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima

By: James Mahaffey

Narrated by: Tom Weiner

Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

From the moment radiation was discovered in the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative scientific exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters.

Mahaffey, a long-time advocate of continued nuclear research and nuclear energy, looks at each incident in turn and analyzes what happened and why, often discovering where scientists went wrong when analyzing past meltdowns.

Every incident has lead to new facets in understanding about the mighty atom—and Mahaffey puts forth what the future should be for this final frontier of science that still holds so much promise.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2014 James Mahaffey (P)2014 Blackstone Audio

wow

all of it over my head but very interesting information. I would recommend this book

Rare Piece

As an engineer, I rarely read a book with enough technical facts to hold my interest. This book gave me breadth and depth of information on the subject matter. One of the best books I've listened to this year.

dark humor

Excellent book about nuclear industrial accidents. The author provides technical information. But, you don't need a PhD in nuclear engineering to understand what is going one.
The author has an entertaining dark humor about a very serious subject.
I plan on re-reading it in the near future.

Long book that doesn't seem long enough

This is much more than just a listing of nuclear accidents. It goes back to before the discover of radioactivity and does a great job of taking you thru history in an interesting and fun way. It left me with a longing to learn more about some of the specific incidents and accidents that have happened.

Wow!

Richly detailed. Amazing analysis. Loved every second of it. Well worth the time if you like techie non-fiction.

Terrific, Balanced Look at Nucleae Power

Although the story gets pretty technical, this is a great read if you are interested in nuclear power in the United States. The author covers the history of the industry using notable accidents as his springboard, but this is about more than just those incidents. He also briefly touches on the future of nuclear power at the end of the book.

The narrator has sufficient vocal gravitas to do justice to the book, yet without becoming ponderous or pedantic.

The fairly substantial technical detail may be too much for the casual reader, which is the only reason I rated the story as four stars instead of five.

Very Analytical

You can tell the author is in the nuclear field because he gets very technical which I feel helps give a full picture of what happened and why. With that being said, it is not a very exciting listen but is very informative. It also had some fun fact side notes related to several incidents.

Don't listen! Read it instead!

For someone who knows only the bare minimum about nuclear accidents, this is a perfect entry point. Each accident mentioned is covered in sufficient detail, both in terms of its circumstance & scope and the science behind it. The author, James Mahaffey, an expert and professional in the field of nuclear science, knows when to dumb it down, as it were, for the layman like me. He can also expand on the really minute stuff without making it seem overwhelming. But the experience certainly would have been more enriching had I read it instead of listening to it.

While the subject matter itself is dense, with footnotes doting the entirety of the book, the droning voice of the narrator really doesn't enhance the listening. He sounded like he was reading a grocery list, totally bored, with no personality added at all. I had to speed up the recording just so I could be done with his voice.

In terms of nuclear accidents mentioned, I wish a few more were included like Goiânia accident or Samut Prakan accident. I wish Mahaffey also expanded more about the safety of nuclear power itself and discussed more about the future prospects, which was only discussed briefly. But I just wish they got a different narrator entirely, one who can actually inject some personality into the recording. Overall, this is a pretty good, non-esoteric introduction to nuclear accidents and nuclear science, in general.

Adventures in radioactivity

If you could sum up Atomic Accidents in three words, what would they be?

Man's nuclear follies

What did you like best about this story?

For history and science buffs, a good history not only of nuclear power but also the naïveté, creativity and hubris of man's relationship with all things nuclear. Underlying every accident is a system designed to avoid it, someone's attempt to circumvent the system, and the complex interaction between the two. Fascinating stuff, with enough technical details to interest the science buffs and a connect the dots narrative to keep the history buffs glued. I found it all very fascinating and it was a definite plus that the narrative is told with the odd bit of sarcastic humour in it. My only criticism was that the three most infamous accidents: Three mile island, Chernobyl, and Fukishima, are given a comparatively short treatment compared to the rest of the book.

What does Tom Weiner bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Well read.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Probably not. There is a fair bit of technical detail that would leave most readers head's spinning to get through this all in one reading.

Any additional comments?

The author has a background working in the nuclear industry which is a definite plus.

Wonderfully simple and interesting

Starts out slow and seemingly misleading but quickly turns great ! I couldn’t put it down and wanted more and more! Better than expected and I had high expectations