''Non-Nuclear Futures: The Case for an Ethical Energy Strategy'' is a 1975 book by
Amory B. Lovins and John H. Price.
[Lovins, Amory B. and Price, John H. (1975). ''Non-nuclear Futures: The Case for an Ethical Energy Strategy'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1975. xxxii + 223pp. , ).] The main theme of the book is that the most important parts of the
nuclear power debate
The nuclear power debate is a long-running controversy about the risks and benefits of using nuclear reactors to generate electricity for civilian purposes. The debate about nuclear power peaked during the 1970s and 1980s, as more and more react ...
are not technical disputes but relate to personal values, and are the legitimate province of every citizen, whether technically trained or not. Lovins and Price suggest that the personal values that make a high-energy society work are all too apparent, and that the values associated with an alternate view relate to thrift, simplicity, diversity, neighbourliness, craftsmanship, and humility. They also argue that large nuclear generators could not be mass-produced. Their centralization requires costly transmission and distribution systems. They are inefficient, not recycling excess thermal energy. The authors believed that nuclear reactors were less reliable (a
grossly incorrect prediction) and take longer to build, exposing them to escalated interest costs, mistimed demand forecasts, and wage pressure by unions.
Lovins and Price suggest that these two different sets of personal values and technological attributes lead to two very different policy paths relating to future energy supplies. The first is high-energy nuclear, centralized, electric; the second is lower energy, non-nuclear, decentralized, less electrified,
softer technology.
[''Non-Nuclear Futures'', p. xxiii.]
Subsequent publications by other authors which relate to the issue of non-nuclear energy paths are
Greenhouse Solutions with Sustainable Energy
''Greenhouse Solutions with Sustainable Energy'' is a 2007 book by Australian academic Mark Diesendorf. The book puts forward a set
of policies and strategies for implementing the most promising clean energy technologies by all spheres of gover ...
,
Plan B 2.0,
Reaction Time
Mental chronometry is the scientific study of processing speed or reaction time on cognitive tasks to infer the content, duration, and temporal sequencing of mental operations. Reaction time (RT; also referred to as "response time") is measured ...
,
State of the World 2008,
The Clean Tech Revolution, and the work of
Benjamin K. Sovacool
Benjamin K. Sovacool is an American and British academic who is director of the Institute for Global Sustainability at Boston University as well as Professor of Earth and Environment at Boston University. He was formerly Director of the Danish Ce ...
.
See also
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Anti-nuclear movement in the United States
The anti-nuclear movement in the United States consists of more than 80 anti-nuclear groups that oppose nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and/or uranium mining. These have included the Abalone Alliance, Citizens Awareness Network, Clamshell All ...
*
Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power
''Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power: A Critical Global Assessment of Atomic Energy'' is a 2011 book by Benjamin K. Sovacool, published by World Scientific. Sovacool's book addresses the current status of the global nuclear power industry, i ...
*
List of books about nuclear issues
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, bu ...
*
Nuclear energy policy
Nuclear energy policy is a national and international policy concerning some or all aspects of nuclear energy and the nuclear fuel cycle, such as uranium mining, ore concentration, conversion, enrichment for nuclear fuel, generating electric ...
*
Nuclear or Not?
*
Nuclear-Free Future Award
Since 1998 the Nuclear-Free Future Award (NFFA) is an award given to anti-nuclear activists, organizations and communities. The award is intended to promote opposition to uranium mining, nuclear weapons and nuclear power.
The NFFA is a project of ...
*
Nuclear-free zone
A nuclear-free zone is an area in which nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants are banned. The specific ramifications of these depend on the locale in question, but are generally distinct from nuclear-weapon-free zones, in that the latter only b ...
*
Rocky Mountain Institute
RMI, or Rocky Mountain Institute, is a global, independent, non-partisan non-profit organization co-founded in the United States by Amory Lovins. As of 2025, RMI's stated mission is to transform "global energy systems through market-driven solut ...
*
Kristin Shrader-Frechette
*
Benjamin K. Sovacool
Benjamin K. Sovacool is an American and British academic who is director of the Institute for Global Sustainability at Boston University as well as Professor of Earth and Environment at Boston University. He was formerly Director of the Danish Ce ...
.
References
External links
Nuclear Power's Global Expansion: Weighing Its Costs and Risks
Nuclear-free future award
1975 non-fiction books
Energy policy
Social philosophy
Futurology books
1975 in the environment
Books by Amory Lovins
Books about nuclear issues
Ethics of science and technology
Friends of the Earth
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