A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow

If you’re interested in a book that gives you a mostly realistic view of how to implement nuclear power in order to tackle climate change, then A Bright Future does a pretty good job. While I disagree with a few pages/lines that seem to be “apocalyptic” about the effects of climate change and how fast we need to act, it didn’t go as overboard as I expected it to. This book provides a very quick overview of climate change and its problems, which is really all you need in order for this book to be effective.I don’t want to provide any spoilers, but how they introduce nuclear power is actually pretty funny/cool. I was like “what are they talking about??” for the whole chapter, until finally it clicked. Haha. The book basically gets broken down into a few countries/regions that are doing things right when it comes to climate change/nuclear power (Sweden, France, Ontario) and compares them to the rest of the world. While this isn’t the most fair comparison (due to geographic differences, population differences, and others between the countries), it does get the point across and makes the reader actually contemplate things. The book really opened my eyes to the failures when it comes to other countries, like Germany (phasing out nuclear power when it has tons of coal to get rid of), and how the only alternative to nuclear power is either hydropower or fossil fuels (mainly because nuclear power can provide on-demand power) and the only other fuels that can do that are hydro and fossil fuels; Solar/wind are highly dependent on the weather and are not reliable enough to be strictly coal replacements). This means that we need to essentially always compare nuclear power to fossil fuels (as hydropower is super geographic dependent). Therefore, when compared to coal/methane, for the most part, nuclear power always wins. Whether it be energy cost, efficiency, waste production, manpower, maintenance, safety, etc, nuclear power almost always wins (things like upfront costs are higher for nuclear power, but I’m ignoring those because this is clearly a long-term investment). There are some sections dedicated to how certain countries (like China and Russia) are doing a good job at building more power plants (or at least more efficient ones), but other sections that recommend other solutions to these countries in order to expedite their reliance on nuclear power.In the last third of the book, the authors spend a good amount of time “debunking” some myths, with the biggest one being safety. I was always skeptical when it came to safety, but after reading this book I’m convinced the lives lost due to fossil fuels every year is much higher than that from nuclear power. It goes even further to “poke fun” at the antinuclear activists who want the plants to shut down, but who also want “zero emission energy”. The authors make a good pitch as to why these activist groups are highly mistaken and are being scientifically daft. For example, Germany started shutting down its nuclear power plants due to Fukushima, but the book makes it clear that this was solely an emotional response and not one based on sound science.The book is a super easy read and could honestly be read within a few days if you dedicate a few evenings to it. While I don’t know how scientifically accurate it all is (as I didn’t go too deep into the references and I’n not a nuclear power expert), it does make some upfront points that I agree with as a fellow scientist. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a good overview of nuclear power and how it can alter the path of climate change for the better in a relatively short amount of time. Of note, this book isn’t super helpful if you really want some in-depth knowledge on nuclear power and the different types and all of that. I would still read this book first though as it covers the general concepts.

First, if you want to geek out on a detailed, in depth look at technology or policy, this is probably not the book you're looking for (though I would still recommend reading it). This is a very approachable story of how some large electric grids have been basically decarbonized, in relatively short order, at relatively modest cost, with existing off-the-shelf technology. But it's not only the story of what has been, but what could be (hence the title). Yes, we have some significant hurdles to get over before we can replicate the success of Sweden, France and Ontario, but our grids *can* be cleaned up, and we *can* do quickly. We are not going to avoid all the ravages of climate change no matter what at this point, but to make the biggest dent, we need to pay attention to the success stories out there, and learn from them. That's the message of this book -- we don't have to hope for a solution, we just have to implement it. There is enough detail in here to make it interesting to the technically-focused reader, but it is all easily digestible by any reasonably-intelligent lay person. No advanced degree required. And it's a fun, uplifting read. The only issue I really had was that I think it's a little too easy on wind and solar, which do not have any success stories of their own, in my view. The term "nuables", a contraction of "nuclear" and "renewables" is used to make the point that we need both of them. But hey, if you're rolling out a bunch of nuclear, it's not that much of a stretch to add one more reactor instead of a whole state full of solar panels and wind turbines, and you wouldn't have to deal with the intermittency. But, I digress.I recently re-read this book after suffering from a minor bout of depression, and indeed, doing that did make a bit of positive difference in my outlook. I think you'll like it too, and you will probably learn something as well. Highly recommended.

I bought the book for use in participation with a book group. I found it informative and I plan to pass it to several friends for their review. More people should begin to think of the positive impact on our environment for the use of Nuclear energy to generate electrical power.

That's just what I'd expect from an engineer and a professor of international relations.The role model for this transformation is Sweden. In 2014, Sweden emitted only half the CO2 of Germany (roughly 5 vs. 10 tons per capita.) The two countries had nearly identical per-capita GDP (US$50,000).How did Sweden do it? Kärnkraft! OK, no need to be coy, and anyway it's likely easy to guess: Kärnkraft is Swedish for nuclear power. By managing intelligently at the system level, Sweden keeps the costs of the plants lower than in the U.S. Other countries have done this too.Nuclear power is nothing to treat casually, of course. Waste disposal is still a vexing problem, and will be for some time. But the authors point out a paradox: coal power causes many deaths but is perceived as generally safe, while nuclear power kills fewer people but is perceived as very dangerous."So this, then, is the safety record of nuclear power over more than fifty years, encompassing more than 16,000 reactor-years: one serious fatal accident in the USSR with possibly, over time, up to 4,000 deaths; one Japanese 'disaster' that caused no deaths; and one American accident that destroyed an expensive facility but otherwise just generated vast quantities of fearful hype. In the United States, [commercial] nuclear power continues to produce about one-fifth of the nation's electric supply and has never killed anyone." (page 93)The authors are too sanguine in some places (which is why I inserted the word "commercial" above.) But their essential message is correct: nuclear power can provide steady, carbon-free baseload power with acceptable safety, and keeping it in the power portfolio is the only way to do a timely shift over to a low-carbon economy. Their well-researched book is a must-read.

Great insight into the potential of Nuclear Power as a bridge to carbon neutral.

I was an avowed anti-nuclear person for most of my life. Then, when I read this book, I changed my position to pro-nuclear. The book is well written and argued, covers a lot of ground, and addresses all the main and much voiced knee-jerk criticisms of nuclear power (those criticisms were often my own). I would very much recommend the book. It is an eye-opener and very well explains why nuclear has to be the main source of power to meet our ever increasing energy needs for the future.

What's the use of nuclear energy, what are the problems. In short: Nuclear ensures decarbonizing energy production, and there is no safer way to produce energy than nuclear. The book delivers the links to original information for yourself to check. If you are against nuclear power, try and refute what the book says. For anyone not yet familiar with nuclear energy.

I consider myself well informed about nuclear power. This book provides the main reasons that nuclear power should be one of the main tools that we should use to provide low carbon power. It includes a discussion of the main objections that opponents to nuclear power use to discredit this power source. I would recommend this book as a good primer for someone looking for a balanced pro-nuclear viewpoint.

Marie Curie, the famous scientist, once stated "Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less". I believe this book is definitely applicable to that quote. We need to understand the criticality of nuclear energy, as our global energy demand increases with increasing population and as more and more people make their way out of poverty. The increasing energy demand needs to be met by clean energy sources that do not pollute and do not produce CO2 emissions, which nuclear power does. We also need to replace polluting and high CO2 emitting energy sources with clean ones, which the book shows has already been accomplished in some regions via nuclear power. This book also describes why we also need wind and solar, but points out its limitations and why it should be combined with nuclear power.