Book Reviews : How safe is Nuclear Energy? Alan Cottrell. Heinemann Paperback £2.50
| Published date | 01 April 1982 |
| Date | 01 April 1982 |
| DOI | 10.1177/004711788200700316 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
2126
Baltic
and
the
Danube.
There
must
be joint
programmes
at
the
international
level
through,
interalia,
the
EEC
or
OECD
on
the
one
hand,
and
Comecon
on
the
other.
On
this
level
the
barriers
between
the
two
systems
do
not
arise.
The
subject
is
then
treated
from
the
aspect
of
bilateral
and
multilateral
environmental
cooperation
between
East
and
West
covering
CSCE,
UNECE,
relations
between
Comecon
and
the
EEC,
and
a
selected
number
of
individual
problems.
The
main
manuscript
was
written
in
1978
and
a
Postscript
deals
with
developments
since
then.
There
is
a
most
valuable
Appendix
covering
the
major
legislation
and
regulations
on
the
environment
in
the
DDR
USSR,
Czechoslovakia
and
Poland and
an
extensive
bibliography.
The
conclusions
drawn
are
sober
and
realistic
and
the
value
of
the
control
of
environmental
pollution
so
far
achieved
in
reality
is
not
overestimated.
But
the
result
of
continuing
policies
which
fail
to
take
this
factor
into
account
is
becoming
more
widely
realised
and
its
implications
accepted.
Moreover,
&dquo;in
view
of
the
growing
environmental
consciousness
in
Europe,
further
advances
in
environmental
co-operation
could
well
make
a
considerable
contribution
to
the
stabilizing
and
further
development
of
East-West
relations&dquo;.
The
book
itself
is
a
valuable
contribution
to
a
better
understanding
of
the
subject.
How
safe
is
Nuclear
Energy?
Alan
Cottrell.
Heinemann
Paperback
£2.50
In
his
Preface,
(January
1981),
Sir
Alan
states
that
the
aim
of
his
book
is
&dquo;to
provide
the
reader with
a
simple
guide
to
nuclear
safety;
to
lay
the
facts
out
fairly
and
squarely,
in
a
form
in
which
I
hope
people
can
grasp
them
and
then
make
up
their
minds
about
nuclear
power
in
a
more
informed
and
sensible
way
than
is
possible
at
present.
The
book
says
almost
nothing
about
the
costs
of nuclear power,
the
availability
of
uranium
supplies,
the
general
energy
problem
or
the
need
for
electricity,
I
believe
that
what
matters
to
the
general
public
is
the
safety
of
civil
nuclear
power
and
that
in
the
end
it
is
this,
not
any
of
these
other
facts,
which
will
eventually
decide
the
acceptability
of
nuclear
power
in
western
democratic
society&dquo;.
In
succeeding
chapters,
1
The
fear
of
the
unknown,
2
Unleashing
the
nucleus,
3
How
radiation
affects
us,
4
Is
there
a
safe
level
of
radiation?,
5
Which
radioactive
substances
are
dangerous?,
6
According
to
plan,
7
When
things
go
wrong,
8
The
control
of
nuclear
reactivity,
9
Keeping
cool,
10
Defence
in
depth,
11
Margins
of
safety,
12
To
err
is
human,
13
Nuclear
inheritance,
14
Security,
15
Plutonium
economy, 16
Nuclear power
and
the
nuclear
powers,
and
17
Nuclear safety
in
focus.
he
sets
out
the
relevant
facts
and
discusses
them
in
context
and
comes
down
firmly
on
the
side
of the
development
of nuclear
power.
On
the
question
of proliferation
of
nuclear
weapons
he
writes
&dquo;While
proliferation
is
undoubtedly
a
major
world
problem,
it
is
to
a
large
extent
independent
of
civil
nuclear
power.
A
total
ban
on
civil
nuclear
power
would
not
eliminate
the
proliferation
problem
because
many
other
technically
better
routes
to
the
acquisition
of
nuclear
weapons
exist.
We
have
seen
that
various
steps
can
be
taken
to
make
civil
nuclear
power
an
extremely
difficult
and
unattractive
route
for
a
country
which
intends
to
acquire
nuclear
weapons
and
an
almost
impossible
route
for a
terrorist
organisation.
Such
actions
will
not
of
course
dispose
of
the
general
proliferation
problem,
which
needs
a
political
solution
at
the
international
level,
but
they
can
assure
that
civil
nuclear
power
will
not
make
worse&dquo;.
On
his
Conclusion,
however,
&dquo;Life
began
on
earth
about
3,500
million
years
ago.
The
first
organisms
lived
off
a
rich
store
of
fossil
energy,
a
soup
of energy-rich
molecules
in
the
oceans.
They
thrived
and
multiplied
until
this
store
was
nearly
all
consumed.
Faced
by
this
challenge,
life
then
made
its
greatest
discovery,
photo-
synthesis,
which
opened
up
an
entirely
new
access
to
a
different
energy
source.
The
organisms
could
live
directly
off sunlight
and
so
they
became
independent
of fossil
energy.
The ’age
of
solar
energy’ lasted
unchallenged
for
about
2,000
million
years,
until
life
discovered
another
store
of
fossil
energy,
a
few
hundred
years
ago,
in
the
form
of coal
and
then
also
of
oil
and
natural
gas.
History
is
now
repeating
itself
and
life
is
challenged
once
more
by
the
exhaustion
of
stocks
of
fossil
energy.
Yet
again,
life
has
made
a
great
discovery,
this
time
nuclear
power,
which
can
open
up
access
to
an
entirely
different
energy
source.
This
new
source
has
its
risks.
But
so
had
photosynthesis,
which
introduce
a
major
poison-oxygen-into
the
early
organisms.
Modern
life
has
the
inestimable
advantage
of
intelligence,
which
allows
it
to
understand
the
hazards
and
think
out
steps
to
protect
itself against
them.
The
long
thrust
of
life,
over
the
millenia,
is
inevitably
towards
any
new
energy
that
will
succour
it.
The
next
move
into
nuclear
energy
is
inevitable.
Life
now
expresses
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