NEI Nuclear Notes

A couple of weeks back, we pointed readers to "the unlikeliest beach book of the year:" David MacKay's Sustainable Energy - without the hot air . Yesterday, this well-produced trailer for the book was passed along to us. Using a common 40-watt light bulb, MacKay provides a lucid demonstration of an individual's daily energy consumption. Touring the English countryside on his bicycle, the Cambridge physicist asks, and answers, what does the landscape look like when a country moves away from fossil fuels? Good show, indeed.

Cambridge physicist David MacKay is receiving heaps of praise for his new book, " Sustainable Energy-without the hot air ." Described by boingboing as "the Freakonomics of conservation, climate, and energy," The Guardian has declared the book "this year's must-read." And when I saw this blurb among the endorsements from academics, I took it to the loo and almost didn't come out again. - Matthew Moss, Private Secretary to the Vice-Chancellor, University of Cambridge I knew I had to take a look. (Naturally, I jumped ahead to the chapter on nuclear energy .) With clarity and objectivity, MacKay walks the reader through detailed explanations of nuclear fission, uranium, thorium, land use, and safety. And in a section called Mythconceptions , he dispels several of the popular arguments against nuclear power. Building a nuclear power station requires huge amounts of concrete and steel, materials whose creation involves huge CO2 pollution. The steel an...