Nuclear Power: Villain or Victim?
Second Edition
The book in paperback form can be purchased at
Pebble Beach Publishers
914 Pebble Beach Drive
Madison, WI 53717
for $15.95 plus $3.50 for S&H
or through Barnes & Noble.
Max W. Carbon, Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wrote the book Nuclear Power: Villain or Victim? in 1997 and subsequently made it available electronically in 2005. The second edition was published in 2006.
The book was written for the general public, with the aim to inform the public about both the benefits and the risks of nuclear power. No scientific or mathematical training is needed to understand the material presented there. The book discusses the important aspects of nuclear power, including the following:
- The safety record of nuclear power is outstanding. Radiation from nuclear plants has not caused any known deaths among the public worldwide, except at the Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine. The known death toll from the Chernobyl accident is less than 50.
- Less radiation is given off by a nuclear plant than a coal plant. Nuclear power plants emit no carbon dioxide (which contributes to global warming) nor sulfur and nitrogen oxides (which cause acid rain).
- There is an excellent solution to disposing of our nuclear wastes - to bury them deep underground where they will be harmless. In contrast, there is no solution to handling the billions of tons of carbon dioxide which coal and natural gas plants release yearly, except to discharge them into the atmosphere.
- Nuclear power plants save thousands of lives yearly in the United States. This is because nuclear plants replace many coal plants, which emit tiny particulates into the atmosphere. These particulates are believed to cause the premature death of thousands of Americans each year. Nuclear plants emit no particulates.
The book explains these points and many others in detail. The book is available in Adobe PDF format. Click here or on the link at right to download the book. To read this book, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available free here.
About the Author
Max Carbon is Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he chaired the Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics Department and its predecessor programs from 1958 to 1992. After graduation with a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University in 1949, he worked for the General Electric Company at the Hanford Works and for the Avco Manufacturing Corporation before joining the University. He is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society, and has previously served on the federal Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, as chair of the University of Chicago Special Advisory Committee for the Integral Fast Reactor, on the National Nuclear Accrediting Board of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, on the Nuclear Safety Review and Audit Committee for the Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant, and as chair of the University of Chicago Special Advisory Committee for the Nuclear Technology Program at Argonne National Laboratory.