Machine generated contents note: -- Table of Contents -- Introduction -- Part 1 Global Warming and Energy Production -- 1 Global climate change: Real or myth? -- What is the debate about? -- The IPCC and International Conventions -- The greenhouse effect -- Skeptical politicians and pundits -- Skeptical scientists -- Historical temperature and greenhouse gas record -- Last 10,000 years of climate -- the Holocene -- Recent changes in temperature and CO2 -- Melting glaciers and rising seas -- Models -- Response to Singer and Avery -- Predictions of future global warming and consequences -- Sea level and acidification -- Global weirding -- 2 Where our Energy Comes From -- A brief history of energy -- Coal -- Oil and natural gas -- Uranium -- How much energy do we use and where does it come from? -- World energy usage -- What can be done to reduce our carbon-intensive energy economy? -- 3 The Good, Bad and Ugly of Coal and Gas -- Coal -- Anatomy of a coal-fired plant -- Carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants -- Mining and health hazards -- How much is there? 50 -- Carbon Capture and Storage -- Natural Gas -- How much is there? -- Greenhouse gas emissions -- Fracking -- 4 The Siren song of renewable energy -- Solar -- Photovoltaic (PV) solar power -- Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) -- Solar heating -- Limitations of solar power -- Wind -- Limitations of Wind Power -- Summary -- 5 Back to the Future: Nuclear Power -- Anatomy of a reactor -- Advantages of nuclear power -- Baseload power 82 -- Greenhouse gas emission -- Location and footprint -- Cost -- Subsidies for nuclear and renewables -- Advanced Reactor Technology -- Can nuclear replace coal? -- Arguments against nuclear power -- Part 2 Radiation and its Biological Effects -- 6 The world of the atom -- What is radiation? -- Black body radiation -- the quantum -- The nuclear atom -- The quantum atom -- The nucleus -- Radioactivity: decay processes -- Fission -- Summary -- 7 How dangerous is radiation? -- Interactions of Radiation with Matter -- Electromagnetic radiation (photon) interactions -- Charged particle interactions -- Neutron interactions -- What is a dose of radiation? -- Effects of radiation on DNA and cells -- How does radiation cause cancer? -- What are the risks? -- Death from radiation -- Cancer from radiation -- Hereditary effects of radiation -- How bad is plutonium? -- Summing up -- 8 What comes naturally and not so naturally -- Natural Background Radiation -- Cosmic radiation -- Primordial terrestrial radiation -- Medical exposure -- Part 3 Risks of Nuclear Power -- 9 Nuclear Waste -- What is nuclear waste? -- The long and the short of waste storage -- Yucca Mountain -- Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) -- Recycling spent nuclear fuel -- Making new fuel from recycled "waste" -- Summing up -- 10 About those accidents -- The Scare, March 16, 1979 -- Three Mile Island, March 28, 1979 -- How the accident happened -- Consequences of TMI -- Chernobyl, April 26, 1986 -- How the accident happened -- The hazardous radioisotopes -- Health consequences -- Environmental consequences -- A trip to Chernobyl -- Consequences for nuclear power -- Fukushima, March 11, 2011 -- How the accident happened -- Health and environmental consequences -- Consequences for nuclear power -- Public perception of risks from nuclear power -- 11 The Quest for Uranium -- Mining for uranium -- Shinkolobwe -- Shiprock -- Milling -- In Situ Recovery -- Enrichment -- Fuel fabrication -- World resources of uranium -- Megatons to Megawatts -- Is there enough uranium for a nuclear renaissance? -- Breeder reactors -- Thorium -- Summary -- 12 Now What? -- Myth 1: Radiation is extremely dangerous and we don't understand it -- Myth 2: There is no solution to the nuclear waste produced by nuclear power -- Myth 3: Nuclear power is unsafe and nuclear accidents have killed hundreds of thousands of people -- Myth 4: Uranium will run out too soon and mining it generates so much carbon dioxide that it loses its carbon-free advantage -- Myth 5: Nuclear power is so expensive it can't survive in the marketplace -- Afterword -- Appendix A: Global warming -- Earth's energy balance: -- Radiative forcing -- The emission scenarios of the IPCC special report on emissions scenarios (SRES) -- Appendix B Glossary of terms, definitions and units -- Appendix C Glossary of acronyms and abbreviations -- Appendix D Selected Nobel prizes -- Index