Nuclear Power

The American public's introduction to nuclear technology was manifested in destruction and death. With Hiroshima and the Cold War still ringing in our ears, our perception of all things nuclear is seen through the lens of weapons development. Nuclear power is full of mind-bending theories, deep secrets, and the misdirection of public consciousness - some deliberate, some accidental. The result of this fixation on bombs and fallout is that the development of a non-polluting, renewable energy source stands frozen in time.

With the constant threat of oil shortages facing us and wanting to educate herself about possible alternatives, Gwyneth Cravens skeptically sets out to find for herself the truth about nuclear energy. Her conclusion: It is a totally viable and practical solution to global warming. She enlists the help of Rip Anderson, a leading scientist in the field of risk assessment, and with his tutelage, she travels the country, visiting uranium mines, enrichment centers, reactors, and waste sites.

Since the original publication of Nudge more than a decade ago, the title has entered the vocabulary of businesspeople, policy makers, engaged citizens, and consumers everywhere. The book has given rise to more than 200 "nudge units" in governments around the world and countless groups of behavioral scientists in every part of the economy. It has taught us how to use thoughtful "choice architecture" - a concept the authors invented - to help us make better decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society.

Power Unleashed: The Story of Nuclear Energy From Atom-Splitting to Clean Energy Futures Nuclear energy is powerful, controversial—and often misunderstood. In Power Unleashed, science and history come together in an engaging, highly readable journey through one of the most important technologies of the modern world. From the first experiments that cracked the atom to the heated debates about today’s energy future, this book explains what nuclear energy is, how it works, where it came from—and where it might take us. Written for curious readers with no scientific background, this ...

Through an unforgettable cast of characters, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes explains how wood gave way to coal and coal made room for oil, as we now turn to natural gas, nuclear power, and renewable energy. Rhodes looks back on five centuries of progress, through such influential figures as Queen Elizabeth I, King James I, Benjamin Franklin, Herman Melville, John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Ford.

Whether you are a scientist or a poet, pro-nuclear energy or staunch opponent, conspiracy theorist or pragmatist, James Mahaffey's books have served to open up the world of nuclear science like never before. With clear explanations of some of the most complex scientific endeavors in history, Mahaffey's new book looks back at the atom's wild, secretive past and then toward its potentially bright future.

Written in an accessible and authoritative voice, The Button reveals the shocking tales and sobering facts of nuclear executive authority throughout the atomic age, delivering a powerful condemnation against ever leaving explosive power this devastating under any one person's thumb.

Nearly 30 years after the end of the Cold War, today's world leaders are abandoning disarmament treaties, building up their nuclear arsenals, and exchanging threats of nuclear strikes. To survive this new atomic age, we must relearn the lessons of the most dangerous moment of the Cold War: the Cuban missile crisis. Serhii Plokhy offers an international perspective on the crisis, tracing the tortuous decision-making that produced and then resolved it, which involved John Kennedy and his advisers, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and their commanders on the ground.

And so it begins.... In the United States, the Department of Defense and the NSA computer networks have been hacked. A nuclear-armed CIA drone has lost all flight control. North Korea...Iran...Russia...and soon the gates of Hell will open. Humanity's most terrifying nightmare has become reality. Bombs are detonated, missiles are launched, counterstrikes are ordered, and within minutes, untold thousands of megatons have left countless millions dead or dying. Devastation of biblical proportions has fallen over the land...and the USA has been hit the hardest.

Atoms and Ashes recounts the dramatic history of nuclear accidents that have dogged the industry in its military and civil incarnations since the 1950s. Through the stories of six terrifying major incidents—Bikini Atoll, Kyshtym, Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima—Cold War expert Serhii Plokhy explores the risks of nuclear power, both for military and peaceful purposes, while offering a vivid account of how individuals and governments make decisions under extraordinary circumstances.

“Charles Jett has written an entertaining and factual memoir of an important time and series of events in the history of the cold war. He has succeeded in telling the unclassified story of the journey taken by an extraordinary group of men who built the first operational “Super Nuke” and effectively shared what they developed with others in the entire US nuclear submarine force. He created the SSN Pre Deployment training program, consolidated developments made on the Ray to create the highly useful Geographic Plot (Geo Plot) and wrote the tactical doctrine for the SSN based electronic...

Quantum physics is notable for its brazen defiance of common sense. (Think of Schrödinger's Cat, famously both dead and alive.) An especially rigorous form of quantum contradiction occurs in experiments with entangled particles. Our common assumption is that objects have properties whether or not anyone is observing them, and the measurement of one can't affect the other. Quantum entanglement rejects this assumption, offering impeccable reasoning and irrefutable evidence of the opposite. Is quantum entanglement mystical, or just mystifying?

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.

2023 revealed the stark reality: the threat of nuclear war is not just possible, it's imminent. "Nuclear War Survival Skills 2024" is your essential guide to not just survive but thrive in the face of this looming danger.

Paul Scharre, a Pentagon defense expert and former U.S. Army Ranger, explores what it would mean to give machines authority over the ultimate decision of life or death. Scharre's far-ranging investigation examines the emergence of autonomous weapons, the movement to ban them, and the legal and ethical issues surrounding their use. Through interviews with defense experts, ethicists, psychologists, and activists, Scharre surveys what challenges might face "centaur warfighters" on future battlefields.

Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds’ notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have. Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking-clock scenario.

How does a person who lives in a wood framed house in the suburbs survive a nuclear war, especially if they don’t have a basement? Turns out, the crazy advice to get into the interior rooms of your house and shelter underneath the mattress isn’t so nuts after all. You don’t need a fallout shelter to survive and you may only have to stay inside to avoid lethal radiation poisoning. How is this possible? A highly overlooked defense against radiation is distance. Basically, if you can get inside away from the radiation outside, the dose you will be exposed to will be around half. This is ...

One pulse… and civilization crumbles. A catastrophic EMP attack plunges the world into darkness, igniting a global nuclear war that wipes out 90% of humanity. With law and order collapsing, survivors must fight not only for food and shelter—but for their lives. Colonel Thomas Bradley, a brilliant electronic warfare expert, leads a desperate group of survivors deep into the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. Inside the massive underground facility, they battle against dwindling resources, radioactive fallout, and relentless attacks from militant factions determined to take what ...

Since the 1950s, scientists have attempted to harness nuclear fusion—the process that creates the Sun's energy—to generate near-limitless amounts of electricity. But the fact that we still have no fusion power plants is testament to the complexities of the challenge. Now, the deepening climate crisis means that researchers around the world are in a race to create a mini-Sun here on Earth. The glittering prize is an energy source that emits no greenhouse gases and could solve energy equity and supply issues at a stroke.

This Very Short Introduction looks at the science of nuclear weapons and how they differ from conventional weapons. Tracing the story of the nuclear bomb, Joseph Siracusa chronicles the race to acquire the H-bomb, a thermonuclear weapon with revolutionary implications; and the history of early arms control, nuclear deterrence, and nonproliferation. He also tracks the development of nuclear weapons from the origins of the Cold War in 1945 to the end of Moscow-dominated Communism in 1991, and examines the promise and prospect of missile defense.