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Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima
Unavailable
Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima
Unavailable
Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima
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Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this ebook

A “delightfully astute” and “entertaining” history of the mishaps and meltdowns that have marked the path of scientific progress (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

Radiation: What could go wrong? In short, plenty. From Marie Curie carrying around a vial of radium salt because she liked the pretty blue glow to the large-scale disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima, dating back to the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters.

In this lively book, long-time advocate of continued nuclear research and nuclear energy James Mahaffey looks at each incident in turn and analyzes what happened and why, often discovering where scientists went wrong when analyzing past meltdowns. Every incident, while taking its toll, has led to new understanding of the mighty atom—and the fascinating frontier of science that still holds both incredible risk and great promise.
 
LanguageEnglish
PublisherPegasus Books
Release dateFeb 4, 2014
ISBN9781480447745
Unavailable
Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima

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Rating: 4.196721180327868 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I knew by looking over the well-illustrated, copiously sourced and footnoted text that this book would be informative. I never expected a book on such a serious topic to be entertaining and humorous as well. It's a rare book that will both appall and amuse the reader. Nuclear bombs dropped on North Carolina? Disregard of ancient tsunami warning stones when the location for Fukushima nuclear power complex was chosen? Both well-known incidents and others much more obscure are described. Initially I chose this book as an audiobook. Because of the technical nature of some of the material, I found it worth reading a print copy along with listening to the audiobook. And those footnotes? Don't skip them. (If you listen to the audio version of the book, they will be omitted.)
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I picked this book up on Monday, it was listed on BookBub as being available from Amazon for my Kindle, for $1.99! It is easily worth the regular price of $13.99. The author breaks down most known accidents, mishaps,, and mishandling of of nuclear weapons, nuclear power plants, and nuclear technology. What makes this book different is that the author is a pro advocate of. The nuclear power, but breaks down what went wrong, how it went wrong, what should or could have been done differently,, and if possible what was learned from it, in terms that are relatively understandable, for a non nuclear physicist. Yes at time it is overly simplified or optimistic, but you still get a full clear story, of everything from the development of the first atomic bombs, the "tickling the dragon" experiment, the mishandling of nuclear weapons, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. You also learn about some of the mishaps and lax precautions at Hanford plutonium manufacturing plant, Rocky Flats plutonium trigger Manufacturing plant, and the bomb assembly plant Pantax in Texas.There are many wonderful books that cover each of these case study subjects exclusively and far more in depth such as 1. The Making of The Atomic Bomb- Richard Rhoades2. Full Body Burden- Kristen Iversen (Rocky Flats)3. Command and Control- Eric Schlosser (Nuclear weapons development, mishandling and mishaps).This book details each incident expertly and the reader gets a much better understanding of what is a nuclear reactor, what is criticality, what is a meltdown, what makes a bomb atomic. This is a fantastic informative enjoyable book to read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    From the hubris of engineers to the foolishness of operators, this book is an easy-to-read and understand the history of the successes, failures and near misses of nuclear power generation, nuclear war-fighting, and the people involved.Highly engaging, well written, and completely understandable by the average reader, Mr Mahaffey has done an admirable job of bringing the nuclear industry's mistakes to the regular reader.Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Pretty disheartening to hear stories where the theme was a lack of understanding of how to prevent criticality was the cause. The desire to minimize training in order to reduce costs ended up costing everything; lives and entire power plants. All said, I'm still a fan and advocate of nuclear power. I just feel even more strongly about employee training now.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    You know those old crotchety engineers who are really offensive but still keep the secrets of the universe? That's James Mahaffey.

    In a literal technicality sense, this book is well-researched. The author very obviously has a long and well-informed history with nuclear reactors, and his love is clearly for the chemical oddities and phenomena that caused radiation and supercriticality events.

    I also liked the footnotes that had useful things, like links to videos of some of the experiments or things he was talking about (way easier to follow than trying to verbally describe a reactor layout, which is what he usually did). So there: more diagrams, please.

    Another technical detail: pick a unit and stick with it. I know that some of this stuff is in living memory for you, but when I'm trying to remember the difference between Pu-239 and Pu-240, and whether the reactors yield or take U-235 or U-238, I can't also keep track of the historical difference between rems, sieverts, and curies. He's not using direct quotes, so he can do the calculations for us.

    On a human scale, Mahaffey fucking sucks.

    The author has absolutely no sense of empathy for anybody who isn't an American nuclear scientist. He obviously has a hate-on for the Japanese. First he expects the fishermen on the Lucky Dragon to know how to recognize and clear up a nuclear fallout event. Mahaffey's anti-gay hangups appear in a footnote on the Japanese version of a Bodhisattva (whose main characteristics seem to not have anything to do with his sexuality). Finally, he continuously compares the Fukushima I reactor to an American reactor built 30 years later (meaning new safeguards), when there are dozens of working Japanese reactors built at similar times with similar constraints that didn't suffer the same catastrophic failure.

    He mentions an African pilot being African and being arrested in a footnote. Why?

    He has clear and open disdain for Indian nuclear engineering ("Be afraid," he says).

    He complains about the civilian population of a city being distressed about a nuclear test facility nearby, then casually mentions the test failures that did bring the possibility of danger to said civilians.

    His chapter on British nuclear development is full of bizarre British stereotypes. I cannot fathom why. Did you know that British people all drink Guinness and tea? Did you know that a Bath accent is considered a drawl? This certainly hasn't been the case for any British person I've worked with!

    Oh, and his hate-on for Jimmy Carter. You can look up Jimmy Carter's biography and it mentions that he does not prefer to go by his full name. Mahaffey is so full of righteous disdain that he makes sure to only call him "James Earl Carter" whenever mentioned, for the sole reason that he deprived 300 people of a job at a nuclear reprocessing plant (never mind subsequent presidents that failed to revive it, as they had the option to).


    If this book was published thirty years ago, I would have given it more leeway in the xenophobia department. But I see a publication date of 2014, so all I can say is I cannot wait for these old racist shitheads to die off and get the hell out of engineering.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a highly readable account of the history of atomic power as seen through its accidents and safety failures. That might sound like it's anti-nuclear power, but in fact Mahaffey is a long-time advocate. His major point is that in fact significant accidents are fairly rare, and that with a few notable exceptions, serious casualties are even rarer.

    His account starts with a bizarre episode in the Ozarks in the late 19th century, with the accidental discovery of what eventually proved to be a radium mine.

    I will say that the discussion of radium and its various uses, not just for night-glow dials but its medical uses, both science-based and as "mineral water," is by itself worth the price of admission.

    As he takes us through the development of the bomb, and the first reactors to produce bomb-grade material, and then the development of peaceful nuclear power, there are stories both terrifying and delightful. Initially, everything had to be learned the hard way.

    The most terrifying detail, to my mind, is that for years the US military tried to develop nuclear-powered military aircraft. Surely they would never crash... Fortunately, that proved to be a technical bridge too far, and the program was cancelled.

    A recurring theme is that while all of the power-plant and bomb transport accidents involved designs that failed to anticipate a potential technological vulnerability, the power plant accidents only became disasters when one worker or another overrode the automatic controls, often for what seemed like logical reasons. There's also discussion of how politcal and economic factors played into decisions, as well as the inertia of sticking with a known design that's been reliable and effective, even though there may be better designs and paths not followed, that might make nuclear power safer, more reliable, and less unsettling for a concerned public.

    He does repeatedly hit a favorite theme of mine, the ways in which excessive secrecy to prevent public panic in fact fed public fear that there were dangers they weren't being informed about.

    All in all, this was an interesting and enjoyable read, or rather in this case enjoyable listen, and Tom Weiner captures exactly the right tone in his reading of it.

    Highly recommended.

    I bought this book.

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