Book reviewEnergy and human needsS.C. Curran and J.S. CurranScottish Academic Press, 1979, 330 pp., £8-50 ISBN:0-7073-0237-4

Energy today means mainly oil and coal and gas, all ofthem basic sources of chemical energy. Physical sourcesare relatively small at present; namely, water and nuclear,but most of the alternatives proposed for the future, alsoseem to be physical, for example, winds waves, tides, andgeothermal and solar sources. It is not, therefore, surpris-ing that two authors with distinctly physics/nuclear back-grounds should produce a book that is much better on newpossibilities for the future than on the major existingenergy sources and their prospects. They have little to sayabout fossil fuels, only 20 pages or so in 330.

The authors take 310 pages to come forward with whatis clearly their main theme and life interest: 'Proposals forexpanding the Nuclear Power Programme in the UK',writing 'We believe this book has demonstrated that onlynuclear energy can save our way of life from being danger-ously disrupted when oil and natural gas begin to run outat the turn of the century. What rate of expansion willbest secure its advantages while minimising its risks?' asthe only question. Their own answer seems to be to boostelectricity generation by 7% per annum from the early1980's with further nuclear capacity. How the UK elec-tricity supply industry would cheer today if they wereexpanding at half, or even one tenth, of that rate, nuclearor not! Instead, they find themselves squeezed between fuelcosts that are rapidly rising and sales of electricity that haveactually fallen. The authors' question and conclusions hada good deal of sense behind them in the early seventieswhen much of their material was developing but in today'senergy climate they look less than convincing. For instance,predictions being made in 1974 indicated that coal wouldhave dropped to only a few per cent of the total (non-electrical) UK energy market by 1980. That has just nothappened and is not now expected to do so in the foresee-able future.

This is a continual hazard for anyone writing in theenergy field. Events move so rapidly that the whole situ-

ation can change in the time it takes a book to be writtenand published; these authors are perhaps a shade lessfortunate than most in that respect. Nevertheless, a gooddeal of their book has more permanent value. Their generalassessments of the energy in the universe and in the atomgive useful broad treatments that are often intriguing, withinteresting insights. It is particularly helpful that theyassume no prior knowledge of the underlying science andprovide within a single volume what is essential to theserious reader.

Their references are often to such popular but respon-sible journals as Scientific American and The Listenerwhich may be more accessible to the general reader than arethe more specialist learned journals. They are particularlygood on the nuclear options where the technology haschanged less rapidly than the planned rate of constructionand they do manage to cover most of the important topicsin the debate, with chapters on Social, Environmental andInternational Aspects as well as on the various existing andalternative technologies.

There are a few misprints and errors on points of detail;namely, hydroelectric plants did not generate 1178TW in1970, large m.h.d. generation experiments achieve tempera-tures of much more than 2000° C, the attraction of theMoon on the oceans is not twice that of the Sun but1/200 th, and so forth, although these do not affect themain lines of argument. It is a pity that the figures have alltheir words and numbers handwritten. SI units have notbeen used throughout but a list of most of the units thatare used in the text is provided, together with some conver-sion factors.

Altogether, this is an interesting book covering anunusually broad range of basic energy subjects, particularlyon technical matters. It could be of considerable value forthe techniques and topics that it brings together but theeconomic assessments and projections need to be treatedwith caution in the light of actual developments that havetaken place recently.

D.T.SWIFT-HOOK

Erratum

BADEN FULLER, A.J., and DOS SANTOS, M.L.X.: 'Newmethod for the display of three-dimensional vector fields',IEEProc. A, 1980, 127, (7), pp. 435-^42

In Section 3, the 24th to 28th lines, 'magnitude at . . . witha', should have appeared as the 3rd to 7th lines.

In Section 3.1 the line immediately above Fig. 7 shouldread 'immediate visualisation of the field behaviour isobtained.'

584 IEEPROC, Vol. 127, Pt. A, No. 8, NOVEMBER 1980