{"title":"Mike Conley","description":"\u003cp\u003eMike Conley’s works offer a thought-provoking exploration of contemporary scientific topics, with a particular focus on nuclear science and environmental impacts. Readers can expect detailed analysis and critical perspectives that challenge conventional understanding.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHis books, such as \u003cem\u003eEarth is a Nuclear Planet\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe LNT Report\u003c\/em\u003e, delve deeply into the complexities of radiation and its effects, inviting readers to reconsider established scientific narratives within the broader context of nature and human health.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"earth-is-a-nuclear-planet-by-mike-conley-9781637700594","title":"Earth is a Nuclear Planet","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eEarth Is a Nuclear Planet\u003c\/em\u003e is a book on nuclear energy unlike any other. It makes the reader feel like a genius by clearly explaining all the relevant basic science in a fun and entertaining way.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFaced by the looming catastrophe of devastating climate change, more and more environmentalists and climate scientists are turning to nuclear power as the cleanest, safest, and ultimately least costly technology for generating the electricity we all need. But there are many myths and conceptions about nuclear energy, irresponsibly hyped by the sensational media, which require to be understood, debunked, and cleared away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eEarth Is a Nuclear Planet\u003c\/em\u003e goes through all these myths and misconceptions, carefully noting all the fallacies and misunderstandings which plague discussion of the energy options confronting humankind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMike Conley and Tim Maloney, two superbly talented popular writers, have spent years questioning a select panel of leading scientists to arrive at a fresh and luminous understanding of the issues surrounding nuclear power. All their factual claims are documented with abundant citations, which some readers will readily skip while others will follow them up. Every scientific claim made in the book has been checked and rechecked a dozen times by fully accredited experts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOn the issue of nuclear safety, Conley and Maloney pay special attention to the notorious accidents, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, identifying the misconceptions which prevail, and spotlighting many surprising facts along the way.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFears of nuclear energy are often completely backward. For example, should a person be more afraid of a radioactive material with a long half-life or a short half-life? Anti-nuclear propaganda encourages more fear of the long half-life material. \"It's going to be radioactive for a million years!\" Actually, something that will continue to be radioactive for a long time means it isn't very radioactive right now. All other things being equal (size of sample, type of radiation) material with a short half-life is more dangerous.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eI have always known the half-life example of mistaken fear, but I was amazed to see how many examples the authors of \u003cem\u003eEarth Is a Nuclear Planet\u003c\/em\u003e found. Writing this book must have been an amazing research project. It has 60 pages of endnotes plus 30 pages of supplements. The supplements are more detailed explanations of things like calculations of mining wastes. By relegating some of the heavy-duty material to a separate section, the authors made the main part of the book very readable.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFor example, the book has several chapters on the Linear No Threshold (LNT) theory: the title of one chapter is \"No Safe Dose of BS\". LNT claims that there is \"no safe dose\" of radiation. Since life on Earth includes background radiation, I guess we are all going to die. Wait, . . . wait, . . . we ARE all going to die! But not of the effects of radiation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe authors explain that BS in the chapter title means Bad Science. (Of course, it does. Why didn't I notice that?) For me, reading this book was enjoyable as well as informative.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe live on a planet with a great deal of natural radioactivity. There are also many ways in which radioactive material can be used for human health and happiness. This comprehensive book is a guide to our nuclear planet and our nuclear future. Please read it!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMeredith Angwin, author of \u003cem\u003eShorting the Grid\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47486033920236,"sku":"9781637700594","price":54.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/fa85c96f453bb89b7b0da98720d36e30.jpg?v=1775783166"},{"product_id":"the-lnt-report-by-mike-conley-9781637700655","title":"The LNT Report","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e#1 New Release in Nuclear Engineering\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn May 2025, President Trump issued his executive orders greenlighting nuclear power and identifying something called \"LNT\" as a flawed theory not grounded in science. Suddenly, many thousands of people wanted to know, \"What the hell is LNT? And why, after all these years, should it be abandoned?\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis new book by Mike Conley provides answers to these questions. It is the first book for the general reader on this important topic. LNT (\"Linear No-Threshold\") is the hypothesis that any amount of nuclear radiation, no matter how tiny, does some harm, and the only safe dose of radiation is zero. This hypothesis is provably false, and yet it has dominated nuclear policy since the 1940s, holding back the development of the safest, most efficient, and cleanest form of energy generation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe LNT Report: How Bad Science Made the World Afraid of Nuclear Power\u003c\/i\u003e is a fascinating detective story, uncovering the history of the LNT dogma, showing how it finally came to be exposed and debunked as bad science (BS). Careless assumptions, panicky post-Hiroshima emotions, careerist bad faith, and the financial interests of fossil-fuel titans all played a part. The result was the domination of public discussion by a false conclusion: radiation is risky in any quantity, no matter how low the dose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1927, Professor Hermann Muller published a paper asserting the LNT hypothesis, though providing no evidence for it. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for this paper in 1946, despite the fact that the evidence he had gathered since 1927 was deeply flawed and the hypothesis itself dubious. In the years that followed, Muller and his supporters employed all available means to cover up the deficiencies in LNT, even to the point of suppressing contrary evidence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe hero of this detective story is the outstanding scientific authority in the field, Professor Edward J. Calabrese, who traced the LNT hypothesis from its inception up to recent years. Calabrese scrutinised every available detail of the discussion, including the private correspondence of Muller and others, demonstrating how, at every step, wrong assumptions and unsound experimental techniques were employed to save LNT from public refutation, and to save Muller's Nobel Prize from being scandalously discredited.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe truth, finally made clear by many years of careful scientific examination and by recent advances in cell biology, is that low doses of radiation are harmless, and even beneficial to health, owing to the human body's natural ability to repair cells damaged by radiation. Fears of the risks of nuclear power have been wildly exaggerated and irresponsibly hyped.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe are all constantly subject to natural background radiation. Life on Earth evolved subject to continual radiation, which has gradually declined over the millennia, so that we are pre-adapted to higher background radiation than we experience today, and may even benefit from increased radiation. Low-dose radiation is like exercise for your body's cells, which naturally respond by up-regulating their DNA repair mechanisms.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNuclear energy is not only clean and inexhaustible, but its risks are also far smaller than the hazards of any alternative, including not just fossil fuels but also 'renewables' such as solar and wind, which turn out to be more dangerous than people have been led to believe, as well as economically unsustainable. Wind and solar can only be maintained if supported by nuclear power or fossil fuels, or by environmentally hazardous fleets of jumbo batteries.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBeginning with Muller's careless assumptions, \u003ci\u003eThe LNT Report\u003c\/i\u003e traces the twists and turns of LNT's reception and dissemination by politicians, media, and the public. The propagation of LNT was boosted by people's horror at the prospect of nuclear war, motivating them to say anything to discredit nuclear energy, and also by fossil fuel financial interests with their own anti-nuclear bias.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe LNT Report\u003c\/i\u003e has been exhaustively vetted and approved by numerous scientific experts, some of whose names and credentials are listed in the book. This is solid science at its best, explained to the non-scientist reader by an outstanding popular science writer. It is a companion book to \u003ci\u003eEarth Is a Nuclear Planet\u003c\/i\u003e (2024) and the forthcoming \u003ci\u003eRoadmap to Nowhere\u003c\/i\u003e (2026), the ultimate exposé of 'renewables', both co-authored by Mike Conley.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47559040205036,"sku":"9781637700655","price":49.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781637700655-the-lnt-report.jpg?v=1776928037"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/mike-conley.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}