Environmental Case for Nuclear Power : Economic, Medical, and Political Considerations

Preface ix The Fossil Fuels: Civilization's Troubled Servant 1(12) Life Was Simpler Then, but 2(1) Doubts about Coal and Oil Arise: The Killer Fogs 3(1) Lower Levels of Air Pollutants Are also Deadly 4(1) Some Other Problems with the Use of Oil 5(2) The Trade Deficit 7(1) The Worst Risk Associated with Depending on Oil 7(1) Shouldn't We Be Cutting Down on the Oil We Use? 7(1) The Latest Problem with the Fossil Fuels 8(1) Rio and Kyoto 9(2) Needed: A Better Solution 11(2) Found: A Substance with 2.7 Million Times More Energy Per Pound than Coal! 13(16) The First Nuclear Reactor 15(1) Can Nuclear Reactors Explode as the Atomic Bomb Did? 16(1) The First Atomic Bomb 17(2) The Cold War and Nuclear Weapons 19(1) Using Nuclear Reactors for peaceful Purposes 20(1) Nuclear Research Reactors 20(2) Using Nuclear Reactors to Generate Electricity 22(1) Opposition to Nuclear Power Grows 23(2) Three Mile Island 25(1) Has Nuclear Power Been Correctly Evaluated? 26(2) Reevaluating Nuclear Power 28(1) The ``Unsolvable Problem'' of Waste Disposal 29(20) Nuclear Waste Disposal as Reported by the Media 30(1) How We've Solved the ``Unsolvable Problem'' for the Past Fifty-five Years 31(1) How Dangerous Are Nuclear Wastes? 31(1) Disposing of Nuclear Wastes 32(2) Over a Long Period of Time, Using Nuclear Power Could Save Even More Lives 34(1) Fossil Fuel Waste Disposal 35(1) Gaseous Wastes Produced by Coal 36(1) What's So Dangerous about the Pollutants Released by Coal? 36(2) Natural Gas 38(1) Oil and Its Derivatives 38(1) Changing to Electric Cars Could Increase Air Pollution's Death Toll 39(1) The Problem of Mutations 40(1) Who is Responsible for Air Pollution? 41(1) A Brief History of Air Pollution in the U.S. 42(2) Disposal of Solid Wastes from Coal Burning and Coal Mining 44(1) Disposal of the Nuclear Wastes Produced by Coal Burning 45(1) Even More Waste Is on the Way 46(3) Air Pollution: Twentieth-Century Scourge 49(18) The Greenburg Study 52(1) The Fossil Fuels' Role in Air Pollution 52(1) Why Breathing Polluted Air is So Dangerous 53(1) Emphysema: Death by Slow Suffocation 54(2) Bronchitis 56(1) Lung Cancer 57(1) Pulmonary Heart Disease 57(2) The Death Toll Claimed by Air Pollution 59(4) A Century of Air Pollution 63(1) A Simple Plan to Prevent 40,000 Unnecessary Deaths a Year 64(3) The Environmental Effects of Using Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power 67(22) Carbon Dioxide and Global Warming 68(1) The Recent History of Global Temperatures 69(1) Greenhouse Hysteria 69(1) What Might Be the Consequences of Global Warming? 70(2) Cutting Back on Energy Usage As a Solution to the Problem of Global Warming 72(2) A Better Solution to the Problem of Global Warming 74(1) Acid Rain 74(1) Acid Rainfall Damage 75(2) Acid Rain Is an International Problem 77(1) Other Damage 78(1) Attempts to Control Acid Rain 78(1) Oil Spills 79(2) The Environmental Effects of Nuclear Power Plants 81(1) What We Know about Radiation 82(1) Low Levels of Radiation Are Not Particularly Dangerous 83(2) What Medical Studies Tell Us About Radiation 85(4) Risky Business 89(38) It's Risky to Depend on Foreign Oil 90(1) A Modern History of the Turbulent Middle East 91(1) OPEC 92(1) Monopolies, Embargoes, Inflation, and Recessions 93(2) How to Deal with Monopolies and Embargoes 95(2) Remaining Competitive in the World Marketplace 97(1) Nuclear Power Is Our Cheapest Source of Energy 98(1) More Evidence that Nuclear Power Is Our Cheapest Source of Energy 99(1) The Rest of the World Is Building Nuclear Power Plants 100(1) How to Become a Second-Class Nation 101(1) In 1991, Oil Forced Us into War, and It Could Happen Again 101(1) Why the U.S. Had to Go to War 102(1) War in the Desert---and Elsewhere 103(1) The Economic Consequences of the War 104(2) A Note on a Frightening Scenario 106(4) The World's Greatest Risk 110(2) When Being an Optimist Could Be Very Dangerous 112(1) Can Solar Energy Do the Job? 112(1) Coal---A Temporary Reprieve from Freezing to Death 113(2) The End of Civilization As We Know It 115(1) The New Killer Fogs 115(1) Coming: The World's Last Great Depression 116(1) Food Production Plummets 117(1) We Become a Nation of Farmers Again 118(1) The Great Die-Off: Two Billion People Must Perish 119(4) There Have Been Other Warnings 123(1) We Can't Continue to Let Antinuclear Activists Dictate Our National Energy Policy 124(1) Risky Business: Using Fossil Fuels, or Using Nuclear Power? 124(3) What the Record Shows about Accidents and Terrorism 127(24) Antinuclear Activists' Exaggerations and the Reality of Chernobyl 130(1) Chernobyl's Death Toll Compared with Air Pollution's 131(1) Coal Mining Accidents 132(1) Accidents Involving Oil and Natural Gas 133(2) The Real Unprecedented Disaster 135(1) Heavily Populated Fire Hazards 136(1) Some Disasters Have Already Happened 137(3) Nuclear Power Plants: Targets for Terrorists? 140(4) How Nuclear Power Plants Might Diminish the Threat of Terrorism 144(1) Fossil Fuel Facilities: Targets for Terrorists? 145(1) Terrorists Have Already Attacked Oil Pipelines 146(1) Air Pollution Episodes: The Killer Fogs 147(1) The Five Greatest Air Pollution Disasters 147(1) A Summary of the Record 148(3) What Are the Alternatives? 151(32) Solar Energy 151(3) We'll Have to Evacuate Five States 154(1) Solar Energy Isn't Free 154(1) Alcohol as a Fuel 155(1) Hydrogen as a Fuel 156(1) Hydroelectric Power 157(1) Oil Shales and Tar Sands 158(1) Windmills and Wishful Thinking 159(1) What the Experts Think about Alternative Sources of Energy 160(1) Conservation: The Most Dangerous Alternative 160(5) The Only Alternative to Fossil Fuels 165(1) Breeder Reactors 166(3) The Bad News about the Second Generation of Reactors 169(1) Seabrook 169(5) Without Energy, a Prosperous Area Will Become a Slum 174(2) What Needs to Be Done 176(2) The Heidelberg Appeal 178(1) Why Progress Should Not Be Rejected 178(5) Notes 183(5) Recommended Reading 188(1) Index 189