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Nuclear Power Explained
From World War II to the present day, nuclear power has remained a controversial topic in the public eye. In the wake of ongoing debates about energy...
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Nuclear Physics and Its Applications
The power of nuclear reactions is what makes stars shine for billions of years and what can make them shatter in supernovae explosions. Usually, we...
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Star Birth
Star birth is a process that involves a considerable number of astrophysical processes, yet can be explained fairly easily. This the is the subject...
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Plasma Science
This chapter covers the basic theory and modeling of the state of matter known as plasma, in which nuclear fusion can take place. It begins with an...
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Sex, Love, Marriage, and Misogyny
As explained in Diane Ackerman’s 1994 book Natural History of Love, in most “post-Neolithic” (agricultural) societies, there is a clear link between...
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Innovative Water-Cooled Reactors
A conventional water-cooled reactor, whether a pressurised water reactor or a boiling water reactor, has a fairly modest efficiency of about 35%. If...
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Molten Salt Reactors
The sixth reactor type in the Generation IV programme is something completely different. The fuel uranium or plutonium is not present here as a solid...
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Tokamaks and Spherical Tokamaks
Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the quest for fusion power will know that for many years, the leading candidate has been a magnetic...
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Life on the Main Sequence
We have so far covered topics that describe how a star forms, how the mass of stars can be determined by observing binary-star systems, and how long...
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Radioactive Incidents and Disasters
In the afternoon of September 29, 1957, a giant explosion roared through a secret city in the Urals, throwing radioactive material high up in the...
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Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactors
After this excursion into radiochemistry, we can look in the following chapters at how to build the fast reactors needed for a truly sustainable...
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The Common Links in Our Journey
Among all the living species, humans are the only ones who observe the world and ask questions about how and why. The ability to seek patterns from...
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Power, and How to Change It
You’ve now been introduced to all of the tools you need to drive your reactor, so how do you respond to a request for a bigger change in power level?
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Star Death: White Dwarfs and Planetary Nebulae
Stars live for millions, billions and even hundreds of billions of years, and so you may be thinking how on Earth can we know anything about how a...
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High-Temperature Reactors
A pressurized water reactor generates saturated steam in its steam generators at <300 °C. The cladding tubes of the fuel assembly are made of...
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Between the Fronts: Conflict and Crisis Management on the Eastern and Southern Flanks of the EU
While Germany has shown its willingness to assert itself in economic policy issues since the outbreak of the global financial and economic crisis,...
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Origins – The Legacy of Hideo Itokawa
The story of Japan’s space programme may be traced to aeronautical research in the early twentieth century. In 1944, Germany sent Japan its rocket...
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Organizing: Coordinating Government and Army Support 1939–1943
TheEinstein, Albert firstWigner, Eugeneand Uranium Committee formal contact between nuclear scientists and American government representatives...
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From Atoms to Nuclei: An Inward Journey
The modern scientific picture of atoms as having nuclei of protons and neutrons surrounded by clouds of orbiting electrons emerged between the late...
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Chapter 4: Frank Knight on Risk and Uncertainty
This chapter begins with the whistleblowers of the 2008 financial crisis, who were ignored by policy makers and bankers alike. This is explained by...