The Case for Nukes: How We Can Beat Global Warming and Create a Free, Open, and Magnificent Future

<p>The Case for Nukes is a unique book. In it, world-renowned nuclear and aerospace engineer<br />\nDr. Robert Zubrin explains how nuclear power works and how much it has to offer humanity. He<br />\ndebunks the toxic falsehoods that have been spread to dissuade us from using it by variously the<br />\nignorant, the fearful, the fanatical, and by cynical political operatives bought and paid for by<br />\ncompeting interests. He tells about revolutionary developments in the field, including new<br />\nreactor types that can be cheaply mass produced, that cannot be made to melt down no matter<br />\nhow hard their operators try, that use a new fuel called thorium far more plentiful than uranium,<br />\nand still more advanced systems, employing thermonuclear fusion - the power that lights the sun<br />\n- to extract more energy from a gallon of water than can be obtained from 300 gallons of<br />\ngasoline. He tells about the bold entrepreneurs - a totally different breed from the government<br />\nofficials who created the existing types of nuclear reactors - who are leading this revolution in<br />\npower technology.<br />\nBut there are broader issues involved in the nuclear debate than technology alone, and Zubrin<br />\nis not shy about addressing them. He makes clear the critical difference between practical<br />\nenvironmentalism, which seeks to improve the environment for the benefit of humanity, and<br />\nideological environmentalism, which seeks to use instances of human insult to natural<br />\nenvironment as evidence for a prosecutorial case against human liberty. He shows how the latter<br />\nschool of thought is wrong, not only with respect to the catastrophic harm it would do to<br />\nhumanity, but to nature as well. He also exposes the masters of mercenary environmentalism,<br />\nwho deploy troops of dupes to shut down companies or whole industries in order to eliminate<br />\ncompetition in return for being suitably rewarded by the beneficiaries of such efforts. He shows<br />\nthat when it comes to environmental improvement, freedom is not the problem; freedom is the<br />\nsolution. He makes clear both the possibility and necessity of a nuclear-power-enabled\\nrevolution in the human condition by putting it in a broader historical context of the overall process of development of civilization, whereby new technologies create new resources and new knowledge, which in turn make possible still more technological advance.<br />\nFinally, Zubrin brings all this to bear to address the greatest threat facing humanity today<br />\n- which is the possibility that we will turn on each other, as we did in the 20 th century, under the<br />\nspell of the false idea that resources are finite.<br />\nOnly in a world of unlimited resources can all men and women be brothers and sisters.<br />\nOnly in a world of freedom can resources be unlimited.<br />\nThat is the world we can, and must, create. In The Case for Nukes, Zubrin shows us how.</p>