Book dossier

Going Nuclear

by Veronica Mcdermott

"Energy crises and climate change have revived interest in the 'nuclear option' as the first decade of the twenty-first century edges towards an uncertain close. Going Nuclear is essential reading for anyone seeking co understand the origins and landmark developments of the nuclear age, why civil nuclear power became an iconic protest issue in the late twentieth century and the lessons we may draw from that as we confront the most serious environmental problems threatening our planet and human civilisation." "Publication of this book coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the Windscale Fire of October 1 957, the world's first major accident in a nuclear reactor. 2008 marks the start, thirty years ago, of the mass protest movement in Ireland against construction of a nuclear power station at Carnsore Point in Wexford. Going Nuclear provides a non-partisan account of these events. It traces the emergence of a fundamentalist anti-nuclear stance among Ireland's political classes, the national and international political campaigns waged to force the immediate closure of Sellafield and how Sellafield gradually acquired the status of an intractable issue in Anglo-Irish relations."--Jacket.