ENERGY OR EXTINCTION?

Chapter 1 is only 3 pages of text and two figures (the geographical distribution of coal and a map of the world's major oil fields); but it almost makes an airtight case for nuclear power by itself:

"If you were Russian, you would surely take careful note of the great crescent containing nearly 70% of world oil reserves which starts in the USSR and sweeps through the Middle East and North Africa. You would see the strategic importance of Israel nestling there between the horns of the crescent, the one firm base from which your western enemies could prevent you from exercising direct physical control over the Middle East. You would also notice the great bulk of Africa around which tankers from Europe and North America must go to reach the oil fields of the Middle East, and you would realize that control of the western coast line of Africa would permit you to cut those tenuous shipping lanes. So you would set your vociferous friends throughout the world howling and baying for the blood of Israel and South Africa. And to develop your muscle, you would expand your navy. . .

"The fly in this otherwise smooth ointment, which in your Russian guise you have prepared. is nuclear energy."

The next chapter is penned by the great astronomer: He plots the relative abundance of some strategic materials, including hydrocarbons, in the earth's crust. "A whole world of economics and politics is contained in those statements," he says, and you will find he is right.

Non nuclear energy sources? "The fact that these [soft] energy sources were already proving inadequate in the 17th and 18th centuries does not encourage the view that they are likely to stage a profound comeback in the 21st century." Windmills? Britain alone would require 20 million of them, each with a 100 ft span.

The association of nuclear bombs with nuclear power is no more sensible than "to say that because eating a piece of chocolate and exploding a hand grenade are both manifestations of chemical energy the two are the same." And he adds wryly in a footnote: "Both TNT and chocolate are made up of atoms of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. If one wanted to go to the trouble, the chocolate could be made into TNT."

Published by Heinemann, London; obtainable in the US for $6 postpaid from Energy Daily, 300 National Press Building, Washington, DC 20045.