Insurmountable Risks: The Dangers of Using Nuclear Power to Combat Global Climate Change

This book provides a meticulously researched analysis of the risks of using nuclear energy to combat global warming. Were there no alternative, the severity of the threat facing humankind and other species from global climate change might warrant serious consideration of the risks of nuclear energy. But as Insurmountable Risks convincingly shows, there are far safer economical alternatives.

How much will nuclear energy cost relative to other means of getting rid of carbon dioxide emissions? What will be the risks of catastrophic accidents if we build reactors at the rate of one a week or more, cookie-cutter style, around the world? What about the risks of proliferation and terrorist attacks and nuclear waste?

This book provides a meticulously researched analysis of the risks of using nuclear energy to combat global warming. Were there no alternative, the severity of the threat facing humankind and other species from global climate change might warrant serious consideration of the risks of nuclear energy. But as Insurmountable Risks convincingly shows, there are far safer economical alternatives.

BRICE SMITH is a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Maryland. He has authored or coauthored works on nuclear weapons policy, nuclear waste management, uranium enrichment technologies, and the economics of wind power in the western United States. He received a Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003.