Given that I’m working on another book on energy, I’ve been reading a lot about nuclear power. The best and most concise one I’ve come across is All About Nuclear Energy: From Atom to Zirconium published last year by the French nuclear giant, Areva.

Areva’s a great source for the information as France now gets about 80% of its electricity from nuclear power. My favorite fact in the book: After decades of operating the world’s second-largest fleet of fission reactors (the U.S. is the biggest), all of France’s high-level radioactive waste can be stored in area covering less than two acres, or about the size of one soccer field. Now do me a favor: Compare that volume of French nuclear waste to the 300 acres in eastern Tennessee that were flooded with coal ash late last year after an ash-containment system at a coal-fired power plant failed, and then explain to me—and, please, do it slowly—why in the hell are the Democrats and the green left so opposed to nuclear power in the U.S.?

Original file here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/beast-board/