Too Hot to Touch--the problem of high-level nuclear waste.

AuthorMacKerron, Gordon

Too Hot to Touch--the problem of high-level nuclear waste, by WILLIAM M. ALLEY and ROSEMARIE ALLEY (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 383 pages, ISBN 978-1-107-03011-4 Hardback.

Of all the problems besetting the conduct of energy policy, finding a scientifically credible and publicly acceptable way to manage radioactive waste is by some distance the most intractable. Throwing light on why this should be so is therefore of high interest--and this book does not disappoint. It manages to combine a readable account of the relevant science and its uncertainties with a sophisticated account of the way that the science and the politics interact (while the economics remain a sideshow until political consent can be constructed). "Too Hot to Touch", inevitably, does not try to provide any simple recipe for how we might extricate ourselves from the impasse that exists in this area, but it does make clear what will not work.

The book is exceptionally well and clearly written by a hydrogeoelogist and a literacy specialist. The pace is fast, the prose equal to that of the very best journalism, and there are occasional touches of both dry wit and irony. The dryness of the subject matter is frequently leavened with interesting and occasionally waspish pen-pictures of many of the U.S. protagonists

Above all, there is a remarkably high degree of impartiality in an area rife with partisanship. This is not to say that the story lacks villains--both the former U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the U.S. Government more generally come in for caustic and generally well-judged criticism. Credible charges are persistent secrecy, frequent distortion and occasional mendacity. Agencies from other jurisdictions are not exempt from similar criticism but as the book is around 90% concerned with the U.S. experience, these are treated quite briefly. The absence of substantial material from other countries is not as large a handicap as might be otherwise expected, as U.S. experience is in many respects very similar to European countries wrestling with the same problems.

The research underlying "Too Hot to Touch"--a pleasing title, as it can refer equally to the physical and political properties of radioactive waste--is wide-ranging, well-chosen and convincing. The book comes in three parts. The first, covering nearly 170 pages, outlines "The Problem"; the second "The Mountain" effectively meaning Yucca Mountain occupies just over 130 pages; and the last "No Solution in...

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