Power switch: A nuclear future without uranium

Celeste Biever, deputy news editor

Could the solution to the world's energy problems lie in nuclear power? Yes, if we switch the fuel, argues energy expert Richard Martin in Superfuel. He makes the case that thorium, an abundant, safe element that cannot easily be turned into a weapon, should be fuelling our reactors instead of uranium. And indeed, energy-hungry emerging powers China and India are both now banking on thorium for their nuclear power programmes.

Thorium reactors are not new, though, and Martin is at his best when describing the human struggles of the cold-war era that spelled their doom - most notably the battle between physicist Alvin Weinberg, a diplomatic thorium proponent, and Hyman Rickover, a navy admiral intent on preserving uranium's dominance to further his military ambitions.

At times, Martin seems entranced by thorium and its proponents. But his message is still convincing: given humanity's lack of affordable, sustainable and safe energy options, we cannot afford to overlook something as promising as thorium.

Book Information
Superfuel
by Richard Martin
Palgrave Macmillan
?18.99/$27

Will technology bring out the best or worst in us?

Sally Adee, features editor

In The Blind Giant, Nick Harkaway first imagines two extreme futures: a dystopia in which we rot in front of our screens and a fairy tale in which everything is amplified by the glory of technology. He then explodes both, arguing that human nature renders even the shiniest technology a mere tool.

The real question is which aspects of human nature we should use our tools to amplify. He argues that the price of technological utopia for some is the exploitation of others - ruined states where the building blocks of utopia are mined on the cheap. Put bluntly, smartphone parts are the new blood diamonds.

If shiny baubles are valued more highly than the lives of the people who mine them, what hope do we have of looking honestly at the materials that make up our sacred tablets?

From that depressing question, Harkaway shifts to the promise of technology: amplifying the best parts of ourselves. His final point - that technology, used in the right way, makes us more who we are than we have ever been - is both a promise and a threat.

Book Information
The Blind Giant
by Nick Harkaway
John Murray
?20/$31

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