Target -- Nuclear Power

Publisher:  One Sky Cross Cultural Centre, Saskatoon, Canada
Year Published:  1975
Resource Type:  Book
Cx Number:  CX243

Information about the controversial issue of nuclear energy.

Abstract: 
This booklet is a response to growing public need for education and information around the controversial issue of nuclear power.

The opening section explains the chemical reaction process involved in producing nuclear energy as well as a description of the physical workings of a nuclear reactor. Major issues of the nuclear controversy are examined. The most significant of which is nuclear waste disposal. Technology to dispose wastes is still at the research level while the government is committing itself to build more reactors.

In regards to the spread of nuclear arms, the booklet argues that the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty may have accelerated the spread of atomic weapons instead of slowing or stopping it. "Weapons" can now be manufactured in "peaceful" reactors. Tightening up the regulations for reactor sales is no guarantee that a foreign country will honour the terms of the sales agreement. The booklet points out that decisions regarding the development of nuclear energy are made with very little public participation: a few examples of how public participation is in fact discouraged are cited.

The booklet concludes by stating that those who oppose the expansion of the nuclear industry should realize that beyond the fight with the government is the question of the great corporate wealth involved - private industries could not withdraw from the nuclear business without suffering bankruptcy. In an appendix secion, the booklet discusses such viable alternatives to nucelar fission energy as solar energy, hydrogen energy, fusion energy, geothermal energy and fuel cells.