Nuclear Choices: A Citizen's Guide to Nuclear Technology

Front Cover
MIT Press, 1993 - Business & Economics - 467 pages
The benefits of nuclear technology are real. So are the dangers. In Nuclear Choices, physicist Richard Wolfson provides citizens with the background they need to make informed choices about the nuclear technologies that provide a substantial portion of our electrical energy, help airlines detect terrorists' bombs, and enhance the diagnosis and treatment of disease, but that have also produced the devastation of Hiroshima and the accidents at Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl. Wolfson introduces the concepts needed to evaluate the claims of proponents and opponents of the various nuclear technologies. He clearly and concisely explains the basics of nuclear energy and radiation, nuclear power (electricity, reactors, nuclear waste, and alternatives to nuclear fission), and nuclear weapons (their history, technology, effects, delivery systems, strategy, and control), and he invites readers to make their own judgments on controversial nuclear issues. -- Back cover.
 

Contents

3
39
Effects and Uses of Radiation
66
5
95
8
98
6
121
7
139
Nuclear Reactors
155
9
182
Nuclear Weapons
272
12
289
13
315
14
338
15
368
16
391
17
420
18
455

10
213
11
243

Common terms and phrases

References to this book

About the author (1993)

Richard Wolfson is Professor of Physics at Middlebury College.

Bibliographic information