Title Energy for the Public: The Case for Increased Nuclear Fission Energy Author R. Stephen White Synopsis Two of the most important energy issues facing the public are how to reduce global warming and how to improve our security by reducing the importation of oil and gas. A few of the many questions the book discusses are: Why is it difficult to store electricity? What are the energy source options to replace coal, gas and oil that emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and are a major cause of global warming? Why will it not be possible to increase substantially hydroelectric, geothermal and biomass power in the future? Why have solar cells and wind turbines not been able to penetrate significantly into the electrical power market and are not likely to generate more than a few percent of the nation's future electrical power? Why should generation of electricity by increased nuclear fission energy be the choice for the good of the public? When deregulation took effect in California in 1998 there followed, in the winter of 2000-2001, the worst electrical crisis ever as the price of electricity paid by the utilities to the suppliers went up by factors of 10 to 100. This disaster could have been avoided if the shortage of electricity had been correctly forecast, sufficient electrical generating power plants built, and traders and suppliers of energy had been properly regulated and not allowed to take advantage of the market by engaging in monopolistic practices. Futurists predict a hydrogen economy where vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells will replace our present gasoline, diesel and hybrid engines for transportation. Among the questions considered are: Hydrogen does not occur free in nature. Should it be separated from other elements by electrolysis or chemical reforming? Should the hydrogen fuel be used as a liquid or a gas? Why is it difficult to store hydrogen? How will hydrogen be transported? What will be the function of the corner service station? When may we expect to buy a reasonably priced hydrogen fuel cell family car with a range of at least 300 miles? The author concludes that increased nuclear fission energy will both reduce global warming and increase the security of the United States. He sees no scientific roadblocks to increasing nuclear fission generation of electrical power and the production of hydrogen when it is needed. Biography R. Stephen White has been an Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Riverside since 1992 and he now lives in Santa Barbara, California. He continued research in astrophysics in the nineties and wrote the column "Science Views" for the Santa Barbara News Press and the book Why Science? He received his Ph. D. from UC Berkeley in 1951. From 1948 to 1967 he published research in nuclear and high energy physics while at the Lawrence Berkeley and Livermore National Laboratories and space physics at Aerospace Corporation. For the next 25 years he was a Professor of Physics at the University of California, Riverside and Director of the campus branch of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics where he taught physics and astronomy and published research in space and astrophysics. Born in Ellsworth, Kansas in 1920, the author watched the windmills that dotted the farms and prairies gradually switch power from the unreliable wind to dependable natural gas and electricity. He saw electrification and mechanization ease the labor on the farms and the internal combustion engine transform transportation. Energy has always been at the center of his research. During World War II, while an officer at the Naval Research Lab, he helped develop the thermal diffusion separation of uranium 235 from uranium 238 as part of the Manhattan Project. He carried out research with high energy protons, electrons and gamma rays with accelerators at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. He measured neutron energies and yields at weapons tests at the Nevada Proving Grounds and in the Pacific. His interest in public energy issues was stimulated by the oil crisis in 1979 followed by a sabbatical in 1981-82 at three of the major energy institutes in the world. The book, Energy for the Public: The Case for Increased Nuclear Fission Energy, gives his solutions to the public's major problems of global warming and the nation's security threatened by importation of foreign gas and oil.

Book Details Price: $49.95 ISBN: 9780938711858 Dimensions: 6.3 x 9.3 Pages: 332 Quantity: