Nuclear Implosions tells the story of a state government agency's failed attempt in the 1970s to build five large nuclear power stations in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Facing huge cost overruns and long construction delays, the agency completed only one plant and found itself unable to repay a $2.25 billion of municipal bonds. These projects reflect the tangled relationships between American nuclear power and nuclear weaponry, the emerging era of limits, and the nation's troubled attempts to resolve conflicts through complex legal cases.
The Oscar-shortlisted documentary Command and Control, directed by Robert Kenner, finds its origins in Eric Schlosser's book and continues to explore the little-known history of the management and safety concerns of America's nuclear aresenal. “A devastatingly lucid and detailed new history of nuclear weapons in the U.S. Fascinating.” —Lev Grossman, TIME Magazine “Perilous and gripping . . . Schlosser skillfully weaves together an engrossing account of both the science and the politics of nuclear weapons safety.” —San Francisco Chronicle A myth-shattering exposé of America’s nuclear weapons Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America’s nuclear arsenal. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved—and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind. While the harms of global warming increasingly dominate the news, the equally dangerous yet more immediate threat of nuclear weapons has been largely forgotten. Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years. It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policy makers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can’t be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States. Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with people who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view. Through the details of a single accident, Schlosser illustrates how an unlikely event can become unavoidable, how small risks can have terrible consequences, and how the most brilliant minds in the nation can only provide us with an illusion of control. Audacious, gripping, and unforgettable, Command and Control is a tour de force of investigative journalism, an eye-opening look at the dangers of America’s nuclear age.
Provides timely and up-to-date facts, context, perspectives, and tools to make informed decisions about nuclear energy. In the 21st century, nuclear power has been identified as a viable alternative to traditional energy sources to stem global climate change, and condemned as risky to human health and environmentally irresponsible. Do the advantages of nuclear energy outweigh the risks, especially in light of the meltdown at the Fukushima plant in 2011? This guide provides both a comprehensive overview of this critical and controversial technology, presenting reference tools that include important facts and statistics, biographical profiles, a chronology, and a glossary. It covers major controversies and proposed solutions in detail and contains contributions by experts and important stakeholders that provide invaluable perspective on the topic.
Nuclear Fusion by Inertial Confinement provides a comprehensive analysis of directly driven inertial confinement fusion. All important aspects of the process are covered, including scientific considerations that support the concept, lasers and particle beams as drivers, target fabrication, analytical and numerical calculations, and materials and engineering considerations. Authors from Australia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, and the U.S. have contributed to the volume, making it an internationally significant work for all scientists working in the Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) field, as well as for graduate students in engineering and physics with interest in ICF.
Communication Yearbook 39 continues the tradition of publishing state-of-the-discipline literature reviews and essays. Editor Elisia Cohen presents a volume that is highly international and interdisciplinary in scope, with authors and chapters representing the broad global interests of the International Communication Association. The contents include summaries of communication research programs that represent the most innovative work currently. Offering a blend of chapters emphasizing timely disciplinary concerns and enduring theoretical questions, this volume will be valuable to scholars throughout communication studies
The beauty of the Hudson River Valley was a legendary subject for artists during the nineteenth century. They portrayed its bucolic settings and humans in harmony with nature as the physical manifestation of God's work on earth. More than a hundred years later, those sentiments would be tested as never before.In the fall of 1962, Consolidated Edison of New York, the nation's largest utility company, announced plans for the construction of a pumped-storage hydroelectric power plant at Storm King Mountain on the Hudson River, forty miles north of New York City. Over the next eighteen years, their struggle against environmentalists would culminate in the abandonment of the project. Robert D. Lifset offers an original case history of this monumental event in environmental history, when a small group of concerned local residents initiated a landmark case of ecology versus energy production. He follows the progress of this struggle, as Con Ed won approvals and permits early on, but later lost ground to environmentalists who were able to raise questions about the potential damage to the habitat of Hudson River striped bass. Lifset uses the struggle over Storm King to examine how environmentalism changed during the 1960s and 1970s. He also views the financial challenges and increasingly frequent blackouts faced by Con Ed, along with the pressure to produce ever-larger quantities of energy. As Lifset demonstrates, the environmental cause was greatly empowered by the fact that through this struggle, for the first time, environmentalists were able to gain access to the federal courts. The environmental cause was also greatly advanced by adopting scientific evidence of ecological change, combined with mounting public awareness of the environmental consequences of energy production and consumption. These became major factors supporting the case against Con Ed, spawning a range of new local, regional, and national environmental organizations and bequeathing to the Hudson River Valley a vigilant and intense environmental awareness. A new balance of power emerged, and energy companies would now be held to higher standards that protected the environment.
