BOOK REVIEW

R.E. Hester and R.M. Harrison (Eds.): Nuclear Powerand the Environment

Ken Jones

Published online: 21 February 2012

� Springer-Verlag 2012

As volume 32 in the RSC series entitled ‘‘Issues in

Environmental Science and Technology’’ it follows the

general series pattern of editors selecting a range of

experienced authors to collate relevant facts that will

thoroughly cover the subject matter. Divided into nine

chapters, all principal environmental issues in the nuclear

industry are dealt with, but there is a distinct UK-centric

bias. Each chapter is well referenced, but surprisingly

poor cross-indexing makes it difficult to move easily from

subject to subject.

Globally 436 nuclear power plants have been built, 60

more are under construction and 131 proposed; but now

comes the contradiction—the eye-watering estimates for

decommissioning, with a prediction of $1 trillion for the

USA alone. It is widely assumed that the cost of

decommissioning a nuclear generator is the same as its

construction cost—but then there is an actual cost,

declared in the press but not included in this book. The

Windscale advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) has just

been totally stripped, leaving the building available for re-

occupation, at a cost of £110 M—quite a contrast with

prediction. It is also claimed the next decommissioning

will cost even less.

In contrast high level waste (HLW) disposal is in a

mess, with most nations continually pushing the problem

into the future, exceptions being Sweden and Finland.

Sellafield alone has 100 tones of separated plutonium to

either use or dispose of; so who will take the decision to

store it safely; or better, utilise it as a fuel? The one route

clearly not in consideration is to research and build reactors

known as accelerator driven systems (ADS) where thorium

replaces uranium as the primary fuel. These reactors also

consume HL wastes as fuel. Creating what will be in effect

a new industrial sector is already well advanced in China

and India—but not anywhere in Europe. The lack of a

mention of this possible opportunity for European countries

is very surprising in a book with this title.

With over a century of accumulated knowledge, more is

probably known about the effects of radiation on humans

than there is about the effects of any other hazard. The

average lifetime background dose from natural exposure is

2.2 mSv. In a study of 174,500 workers just 6% had

experienced a lifetime dose exceeding 100 mSv, and it was

shown statistically that this group had no increase in cancer

over that indicated from national rates. There was, how-

ever, a slightly elevated risk of leukaemia. In contrast,

many European health services restrict mammograms to

bi-annual assessment, which have an individual exposure

level of 0.4 mSv. This compares to a 0.1 mSv contribution

from a 10-h flight, and 16 mSv from a CT heart scan.

Bibliography

Nuclear Power and the Environment

R.E. Hester and R.M. Harrison (Eds.)

RSC Publishing, Cambridge, UK, 2011, pp 246

ISBN 978-1-84973-194-2

GBP 65.00

K. Jones (&)

Knutsford, Cheshire, UK

123

Chromatographia (2012) 75:429–430

DOI 10.1007/s10337-012-2208-6

There are lots of interesting historical facts in all

chapters. Calder Hall (UK, 1956) was the world’s first

nuclear electricity generator connected to the national grid,

the Manhattan project employed 100,000 people at a

today’s cost of $22 billion, and so on. An interesting read

for anyone looking at yesterday and today; but no predic-

tions for the future are provided.

430 K. Jones

123