By Juan José Gómez Cadenas Espasa Calpe
Paperback: €22.95
Also published as:
L’ambientalista nucleare
Springer
Paperback: €25
E-book: €22.99
The Nuclear Environmentalist
Springer
Paperback: £24.99 €29.07
E-book: £25.99 €26.99
Juan José Gómez Cadenas is the director of the Neutrino Physics Group at Valencia University but is best known by the general public as a novelist – in 2008 he wrote Materia Extraña, a scientific thriller (The incurable attraction of physics) – and as an expert in science popularization. Even in a purely scientific environment he is able to deliver information in a most enjoyable way, as I found when I attended a scientific talk that he gave at CERN.
This same ease in communicating is recognizable in El ecologista nuclear, his book about the topic of renewable and green energy and the role of the nuclear energy. I read the Italian edition of the book and although I noticed that the translation was not always perfect and, especially in some cases, that it did not improve the quality of the reading, I really enjoyed the book and its factual approach to this delicate and controversial topic.
Gómez Cadenas makes his point of view clear in the first chapter: “All that glitters is not green.” This could shock the uninitiated because it immediately leads the reader to face “the problem”: climate change is a “bomb (that) has been activated” and humankind is “playing with fire”. The author does not just present this scenario as an opinion. Rather, he justifies all of his statements with graphs, scientific data and evidence.
The chapters that follow are a journey through the various solutions to the problem, in which he makes a strong case for the use of nuclear energy. Using data and graphs, he successfully proves that “safe” nuclear power is the only viable solution. I emphasize the word “safe” because this is the delicate point that matters most to the general public. Unlike other authors, instead of avoiding talking about the problem of safety, Gómez Cadenas discusses it openly, with constant reference to scientific data.
I like the book; I like the author’s open and honest approach, his competence and his rigorous summaries of a global problem that concern us all. I would recommend reading it before voting for any topic related to the energy problem on our planet.
