Light Water: How the Nuclear Dream Dissolved, by Irvin C. Bupp and Jean-Claude Derian

Abstract

This book is an interpretation of how the nuclear dream which emerged at the end of World War II and seemed to be on the verge of realization in the aftermath of the 1973 OPEC embargo dissolved during the ensuing four years. The central argument is that the origin of this disappointment can be found in circumstances that span the preceding 25-odd year period. Much of the first third of the book reviews events and developments of the 1950s and 1960s to answer the question of how American light water reactor technology overwhelmed the Western world market for nuclear power plants. The authors believe that the answer to this question contains the key to understanding the real condition of nuclear power today. To compress their argument into its most concise form: the way that the innovation process for light water reactors was managed by business and government in the US and Western Europe contributed to the identification of nuclear power technology with something that many citizens in these countries dislike and distrust about their societies. Moreover, it is this dislike and distrust which is the driving force behind the nuclear safety controversy and the principal cause for the dissolution ofmore » the nuclear dream. The authors conclude that it seems increasingly likely that the US, at least, will have to forego nuclear energy as a major source of power for the remainder of the century.« less

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