Nuclear 2.0: Why A Green Future Needs Nuclear Power, Lynas, Mark - Amazon.com
Nuclear 2.0: Why A Green Future Needs Nuclear Power Kindle Edition
by Mark Lynas (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 out of 5 stars 152 ratings
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Everything you thought you knew about nuclear power is wrong. This is just as well, according to Mark Lynas in Nuclear 2.0, because nuclear energy is essential to avoid catastrophic global warming. Using the latest world energy statistics Lynas shows that with wind and solar still at only about 1 percent of global primary energy, asking renewables to deliver all the world’s power is “dangerously delusional”. Moreover, there is no possibility of using less energy, he reminds us, when the developing world is fast extricating itself from poverty and adding the equivalent of a new Brazil to global electricity consumption each year. The anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s and 80s succeeded only in making the world more dependent on fossil fuels, he shows: its history is “not lit by sunshine, but shrouded in coal smoke”. Instead of making the same mistake again, all those who want to see a low-carbon future need to join forces, he insists, concluding the book with an ambitious proposal for an Apollo Program-style combined investment in wind, solar and nuclear power. Mark Lynas is an environmental writer and campaigner. His previous books have drawn attention to the perils of global warming, and he was Climate Advisor to the President of the Maldives from 2009-2011. He is a Visiting Research Associate at Oxford University’s School of Geography and the Environment, and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies. He recently featured in the movie documentary Pandora’s Promise, which inspired the writing of this book.
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Mark Lynas is an environmental writer and campaigner. He is a visiting research associate at Oxford University’s school of geography and the environment, and vice-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies. He was the climate advisor to the president of the Maldives from 2009 to 2011 and is the author of The God Species, High Tide, and Six Degrees.
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"A passionate appeal to environmentalists to embrace all the tools available that can tackle climate change. This book deserves to be read." -- David MacKay FRS, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Department of Energy & Climate Change
Product details
File Size: 2430 KB
Print Length: 112 pages
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publication Date: November 22, 2014
Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B00Q1TAOC8
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
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Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Screen Reader: Supported
Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #720,174 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#1314 in Energy Production & Extraction
#124 in Physics of Energy
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Martin H. Goodman
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb, highly accurate, very well presented
Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2015
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This is to date the single most complete, clear, and relatively concise treatment of the subject of nuclear power that I have read (and I've read a number of them). I highly recommend it to all... especially to those who still question whether nuclear power is as undeniably safe, clean, and economical as it in fact is. I found it to cover a remarkably full range of the important issues and facts and history, with great care and accuracy.
I've been an environmentalist, mountaineer, cyclist, and fighter for social justice and rational application of science and medicine all my life. I am strongly opposed to reliance of fossil fuel, which kills tens of thousands per year and rapes the environment generally (coal and oil and natural gas mining), in addition to the increasingly strongly documented role of CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuel in accelerating global warming. The child of two teachers, trained in science and medicine at Harvard, UCSD, and elsewhere I have a special appreciation of clear yet detailed communication. This book should be read by all. It helps dispel the many anti-nuclear myths, on by noe, clearly and factually, and also addresses the many myths regarding the false notion that "renewable" power is anything other than a proven failure when it comes to meeting most of our electricity needs, or displacing use of fossil fuel.
It is honest and straightforward.
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Christopher Paul Winter
5.0 out of 5 stars A pragmatic change of heart
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2016
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In this slim book, Mark Lynas confesses his change of heart about nuclear power. Beginning as an anti-nuclear activist, in 2005 he reversed that position. It is worthwhile to consider the background against which his conversion took place.
At that time, the world had experienced two very disturbing nuclear accidents: Three Mile Island in 1979, and Chernobyl in 1986. The latter was far more serious in objective terms; 50 immediate deaths resulted, and Lynas reports that 6,000 children came down with thyroid cancer (but only 15 died.) Not a single death is conclusively linked to Three Mile Island.
There have been other nuclear accidents, of course. The worst since 2005 was Fukushima Daiichi, in which three reactor cores melted down after their plant was flooded by a tsunami in March 2011. Much radiation was released; but, again, no human death is linked to that radiation.
Meanwhile, some 100 nuclear plants in the U.S., and 400 worldwide, have been operating without major mishap for decades. This points up the arguments Mark Lynas makes in his book. They are a) that while nuclear has problems, it has compiled an impressive overall safety record, especially when compared to coal, and b) that despite the rapid progress in renewables like wind and solar, the case for bringing enough renewables on line in time to forestall the worst harm from climate change does not hold together. Pragmatically, then, if fossil fuels must be phased out ASAP and renewables cannot fully replace them soon enough, the only remaining option is nuclear.
Feel free to dispute my views, or the arguments Mark Lynas makes in this important book. That is how progress is made. But please base your dispute on facts. The matter is too urgent for smoke and mirrors.
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George D. Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars Don't give up on Nuclear.
Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2014
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Clear and cogent. Lynas dares to confront reality. Renewables are great but will probably not do the job. Nuclear is essential and should not be consigned to the dust bin despite Fukushima. New nuclear technology can solve many of the problems of waste and danger that exist with the existing fleet of reactors. Newer reactor designs can eat their own waste. They are a lot safer. Most nuclear reactors today are old and unsafe, and should be replaced with the newer technology. Please look up the Science Council for Global Initiative on the web for good basic information.
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VINE VOICE
4.0 out of 5 stars Nuclear Power in Perspective
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2013
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Nuclear 2.0: Why a Green Future Needs Nuclear Power by Mark Lynas
"Nuclear 2.0" makes the compelling case that in order to resolve the global warming crisis; nuclear power must complement other low-carbon power sources. Environmentalist, Mark Lynas provides the readers with a succinct, accessible book that makes the strong case for nuclear power. Time and scientific evidence has converted the author from the anti-nuclear camp to a pro-renewable and pro-nuclear outlook. This stimulating 71-page includes the following unnumbered chapters: The Carbon Bomb, The Rise of the Rest, Coal reality, Fossil fantasies, The carbon challenge, Renewables revolution, Energetic denialism, Breaking the nuclear taboo, Nuclear and the environment, The anti-nuclear movement, A world safe for coal, Nuclear accidents, Fukushima health impacts, Radiation and reality, Chernobyl, Deaths per Terawatt-hour, The German Experiment, Next-generation: Nuclear 2.0, Too expensive? Solving climate change, and All of the Above.
Positives:
1. Well-researched, accessible and succinct book.
2. A very important topic handled with utmost care and deference. Lynas does a good job of avoiding falling into the proverbial alarmist well.
3. The book is full of facts, "In total, 1.4 billion people still do not have access to electricity today."
4. Makes the compelling case that maintaining an anti-nuclear ideology is both ill-conceived and fundamentally incompatible with resolving the climate change crisis.
5. While a lot of books of this ilk spend a lot of time on demonstrating the reality of global warming this one focuses more on how to address it through the use of nuclear power.
6. Makes it perfectly clear that there is a price to pay to improve global economic development and that requires more energy. "The world will burn around 1.3 billion more tons of coal per year by 2017 compared with today."
7. Debunks many misconceptions. "It is worth mentioning at this stage that there is no prospect whatsoever of us running out of coal - or indeed any other fossil fuel - in time to save the climate."
8. Complementing nuclear power with other sources of renewable energy (solar and wind).
9. Making clear what he does not support and why.
10. Does a wonderful job of educating the public on nuclear power. "Despite all the high emotion that nuclear power seems to cause, few people remember the rather prosaic fact that all a nuclear reactor does is generate heat."
11. Putting two of the most significant nuclear accidents in perspective (Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011). The health impacts.
12. Radiation and reality. "Coal-fired power stations in fact release far more radiation into the environment than nuclear power stations, due to trace radionuclides being concentrated into coal ash and blown away in dust and smoke."
13. The evolution of nuclear reactors. Improved standards of safety.
14. Solving climate change...the reality. "The conclusion is clear: if nuclear is removed from the picture, even the greatest imaginable investment in renewables reduces eventual global warming by at best a couple of tenths of a degree Celsius as compared to business as usual."
15. Provides footnotes.
Negatives:
1. Charts and graphs would have added value.
2. The author makes a compelling case for nuclear power but doesn't really delve into the question of whether or not we have the will as a planet to properly address it.
3. Footnotes are not properly linked.
4. The author mentions several books but there is no formal bibliography.
In summary, the author makes a succinct compelling case for nuclear power. Mark Lynas makes it perfectly clear that he is not against renewables; his main point is that it will require much more than solar and wind to supply enough power to a rapidly-growing globe and address climate change simultaneously. The case is irrefutable; it's a matter of whether or not we humans can address the issue of global warming in a timely and effective manner. Will we build enough nuclear power plants to properly address our increasing global demand in the best interest of our planet? A great Kindle value, I highly recommend it!
Further recommendations: "Energy for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines" by Richard A. Muller, "The Crash Course: The Unsustainable Future Of Our Economy, Energy, And Environment" by Chris Martenson, "Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America" by Shawn Lawrence, "Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather" by Mike Smith, "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines" by Michael E. Mann, "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming" by Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway, "Lies, Damned Lies, and Science: How to Sort Through the Noise Around Global Warming, the Latest Health Claims, and Other Scientific Controversies (FT Press Science)" by Sherry Seethaler, "Clean Break: The Story of Germany's Energy Transformation and What Americans Can Learn from It (Kindle Single)" by Osha Gray Davidson, "Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity" by James Hansen, and "The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes from a Climate-Changed Planet" by Heidi Cullen.
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Bubba
5.0 out of 5 stars Why IS Nuclear such a dirty word?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 9, 2013
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We cannot afford to turn away from the possibility of unlimited, cheap and carbon-emissions free energy without a full understanding of it and the issues connected to it. If James Hansen, the 'father' of climate change science, thinks it should be investigated as a possible solution for avoided the threatening carbon/climate disaster (see "Storms of my Grandchildren"), then it deserves a look. Or, to put it another way, how much do YOU really know about nuclear energy? Probably not as much as you could or should.
This is what Mark Lynas, a respected environmentalist author with a sound track record ("Six Degrees," for instance), has set out to do in this modest, as well as cheap, and easily accessible book, well aware that he might upset some of his colleagues on green issues. But this is what has to be done, in a no-stone-unturned approach to escaping climate change. While people like Harvey Wassermann scream hysterically from the roof-tops, Animal Farm-like, "Renewables good, nuclear bad," (and getting his "facts" muddled into the bargain) you may want to ask yourself how many people have died in accidents at nuclear power-plants, to see if the word "Nuclear" deserves its bad reputation. You may like to reflect that no-one died at Fukushima, no-one died at Three Mile Island. According to a list, compiled from multiple sources, in Wikipedia, the figure is less than 70 fatalities at the time of the accident, including Chernobyl, from 1952 to 2009. Meanwhile, last year 32,000 Americans died in car accidents. And we still drive cars.
This book shows how nuclear technology has moved on; the way we have made nuclear energy in the past has been incredibly inefficient (1% of the fuel's potential) and incredibly dirty, using so called slow neutrons in fission. Using fast neutrons - the Nuclear 2.0 of the title (although fast reactors have been around in experimental form since the 1950s) - you can stop mining Uranium as there is already enough in the world, you can reduce waste, you can actually burn waste (Hansen mentions an estimate of $50 trillion's worth waste already sitting around in the US that could be turned into fuel and turned from being waste) you can reduce weapons proliferation (what waste there is, is unsuitable to make weapons from.) You might be tempted to say, "What's not to like?"
"Nuclear" might just be the clean word we have been looking for. If renewables can't hack it - and, with the best will the world, as fast as we expand them, we are making life difficult by constantly increasing our per capita demand on top of an increasing population - at the very least this book gives an excellent and up-to-date picture of the current situation. Even if you don't agree, at least you will be better informed.
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5.0 out of 5 stars research trumps emotion
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 10, 2014
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Should be required reading for all New Age activists.I cannot believe how defenceless even the most intelligent people are when their emotions are prioritised.
It is a great shame the Green Movement was hijacked by fanatics - as the Feminist Movement was perverted by implacable prejudice.
We have only one way to deal constructively with the world around us: the greatest achievement of the animal kingdom - SCIENCE! There is literally nothing else that WORKS.
Lesson: before you commit yourself, do the proper research. QED. As important is the absolute dominance of compromise - a word hated beyond reason by the very young and the over-committed! (and, needless to say, patriarchs and dictators and other super-salesmen). If you refuse to compromise, you will inevitably fall into the trap of doing exactly the opposite of what you originally intended...
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Mr. J. Preedy
5.0 out of 5 stars If you are passionate about averting climate change read this book!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 18, 2014
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Mark Lynas was an anti-nuclear campaigner who had not examined the facts about nuclear power until at a conference he realized that it is the major source of carbon dioxide free power generation.
In his book he makes a very convincing case that it is only by using both renewables and nuclear power that we can hope to mitigate the effects of climate change due to the rapidly increasing concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. He has written a thoughtful book which is well referenced. In it he works through the consequences of adopting the Green's proposed nuclear free future and shows that using renewables to replace nuclear power will have the effect that more fossil fuels will be burnt not less. Furthermore he makes the case that opposition to nuclear power since the 1970's has already resulted in delaying the replacement of old and unsafe plants as a result of a slowdown in investment and research. It has also resulted in the increased use of coal burning power stations. I was sufficiently impressed to write a more detailed review here http://johnpreedy.blogspot.fr/2014/08/nuclear-20-by-mark-lynas-why-green.html
I recommend anyone with and open mind to read his short book.
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Lugus Luna
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 15, 2014
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Good book about an important topic. I used to be very anti-nuclear, but discovered that my views were based on fear and misinformation. When I started to educate myself I was amazed at what I discovered. The fossil fuel industry has done a great job of making everyone so terrified of nuclear power that we turned away from the one energy source that is capable of fully replacing fossil fuels today with an energy source that is cleaner, safer, more cost efficient and virtually unlimited (assuming the use of third and fourth generation designs).
Not just worth a read, but almost an obligation if you are serious about preserving our environment and ensuring a decent quality of life for our descendants.
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Geoff Kirby
5.0 out of 5 stars This is a timely, clear and welcome statement of ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 2, 2014
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This is a timely, clear and welcome statement of the necessity of embracing nuclear power as an essential part of a low carbon energy future. This programme should have been pursued decades ago but was thwarted by the dogmatic and irrational anti-nuclear dogma of the 'Green' activists. The facts about nuclear generation safety are surprising and important. My only reservation about this book is that the future development of fusion power generation receives so little mention when the massive ITER project is being built in Southern France. Ultimately the future of a low carbon 'unlimited power' planet lies with fusion research.
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Spirituality, Mind-Body, Gender, Ecology, Ageing, Peace, Scrapbook (in English and Korean)
