Power to Save the World; The Truth About Nuclear Energy

New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. Second printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Good. xv, [1], 439, [7] pages. Illustrations. Minor DJ soiling. DJ flap curled. Minor fep rippling. Includes Introduction: Gwyneth's Pilgrimage by Richard Rhodes. Also contains chapters on Origins; The Invisible Storm; The Hidden World; The Kingdom of Electricity; Closing the Circle; and Borrowing from Our Children. Also contains Notes, Glossary, Acknowledgments, and Index. Gwyneth Cravens is an American novelist and journalist. She has published five novels. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, where she also worked as a fiction editor, and in Harper's Magazine, where she was an associate editor. She has contributed articles and editorials on science and other topics to Harper's Magazine, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. At a September 2007 seminar given by the Long Now Foundation, Cravens outlined the message of her book, Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy. It argued for nuclear power as a safe energy source and an essential preventive of global warming. She appeared in the documentary Pandora's Promise to speak about the merits of nuclear power. She has given presentations to technical and academic communities around the U.S., including the Brookings Institution, the University of Hartford, and Sandia National Laboratories. She has often shared the podium with Dr. D. Richard ("Rip") Anderson, a chemist, oceanographer, and international expert in nuclear risk assessment. These talks emphasize the need for the environmental and technical communities to work together to reduce the causes of catastrophic climate change. With concerns about catastrophic global warming mounting, it is vital that we examine all our energy options. This book describes the efforts of one determined woman, Gwyneth Cravens, initially a skeptic about nuclear power, as she spends nearly a decade immersing herself in the subject. She teams up with a leading expert in risk assessment and nuclear safety who is also a committed environmentalist to trace the path of uranium--the source of nuclear fuel--from start to finish. As we accompany them on visits to mines as well as to experimental reactor laboratories, fortress-like power plants, and remote waste sites normally off-limits to the public, we come to see that we already have a feasible way to address the causes of global warming on a large scale. Derived from a review in Publishers Weekly: Novelist and science reporter Cravens begins this journey of discovery "through the Nuclear world" dubious of nuclear power's safety and utility: "I'd participated in ban-the-bomb rallies" but "never considered the fate of a retired weapon." Her trip begins with a casual conversation with nuclear physicist Dr. Richard "Rip" Anderson on the hidden warheads being dismantled outside Albuquerque, N.M.; as it turns out, the nuclear ""pits"" were to be used for fuel in nuclear reactors. Curiosity, and Rip's conviction that no other large-scale energy source is as "safe, reliable, and clean," drives Craven to spend 10 years with the scientist traveling to national laboratories, uranium mines and nuclear waste sites; reviewing accounts of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island; and examining modern reactor designs, the life cycle of uranium and studies on radiation's effects since 1945. Gradually convinced that "uranium is cleaner and safer throughout its shielded journey from cradle to grave than our other big baseload electricity resource, fossil fuel," Craven has submitted a thorough, persuasive report from the front lines of the world's energy and climate crises, illuminating for general readers the pros and cons of a highly misunderstood resource.