When it was announced in June that France had beaten Japan in the race to host the world’s next big fusion lab, the news made headlines around the world. The media reported in generally positive tones how the €10bn International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) will be the next step on the path to a commercially viable nuclear fusion reactor (Physics World August p5). The coverage was a clear sign of the growing debate surrounding the future of nuclear power.

Nuclear Renaissance is a welcome contribution to that debate. The book bills itself as a “semi-technical overview of modern technologies”, which perhaps underplays what the author has achieved. It reviews past, current and prospective nuclear technologies, but links them clearly to the wider topics of energy policy, climate change and energy supply.

Apart from being “semi-technical”, the book is also “semi-British”. Although those sections on technology have a global scope, the lengthy first part – devoted to the “policy landscape” – is firmly UK in its perspective. It provides a basic description of nuclear power, the economics of nuclear generation, and how nuclear energy could combat climate change. The contribution of nuclear power to a balanced energy supply and its links with weapons proliferation are also discussed. This opening part ends with a chapter on waste management.

While the first part of the book could be a stand-alone introduction to nuclear power for layreaders, the second and third parts – on nuclear fission and nuclear fusion – seem to be aimed at a different readership altogether. In particular, they will help students who have some scientific training to understand in more detail how specific types of nuclear technology work. If you want to know how a Westinghouse Advanced Passive Reactor differs from a European Pressurised Water Reactor – or learn the specifics of the Canadian CANDU reactor or the South African pebble-bed modular reactor – then this is for you. Nuttall helpfully highlights the advantages and disadvantages of each reactor type in terms of safety, economics, flexibility of operation, proliferation risk and so on.

The author also discusses so-called Generation IV technologies – advanced reactor designs that, the author believes, might be deployed from 2030 onwards. The term derives from a US-led international initiative to develop road-maps and strategies for the long-term technological development of nuclear power. Nuttall outlines how the initiative operates and briefly examines advanced reactor designs, including those that might be used for the production of hydrogen rather than electricity.

Although commercial power plants driven by nuclear fusion are certainly a long way off, the final part of the book covers the science of this form of energy. It describes how reactors like ITER will use magnetic fields to initiate fusion and how the National Ignition Facility in the US will use lasers to carry out that task instead. Although conventional wisdom has it that “fusion power is 50 years away, has always been 50 years away and will always be 50 years away”, Nuttall describes a “fast track” that would make fusion a commercially viable proposition within 30 years. Indeed, he believes that following such a path is a political imperative.

Given that the book has a strong policy component, where does the author stand on nuclear power? The impression is that he is a supporter of this form of energy who is struggling at all times to remain even-handed. In a curious afterword, Nuttall concludes that nuclear power is a “beneficial but not an essential technology”. He discusses at some length the proposition that, in retrospect, nuclear power has been a Pandora’s box for humanity, before finally concluding that it would “seem prudent for the developed world to maintain a civil nuclear power industry on at least its current scale”. This “yes, on balance” attitude reflects the tone of much of the policy discussion.

Is there anything in the book I would take issue with? One quibble is that by dividing the material into three almost independent parts – without any substantial linking passages – the book is less well joined up than it might have been. I would also have welcomed a simple summary and/or a diagram sketching out the basic families of nuclear technology. As it stands, the section on fission dives straight into a description of specific reactor types – so if you do not know your PWRs and BWRs from your LWRs and pebble-bed HTGRs, the book is not easy to dip into. I would also have liked some basic statistics about the deployment of different types of nuclear plant worldwide.

Overall, Nuclear Renaissance is a useful book that will help the reader get up to speed on nuclear technology. Although the more technical sections will be better suited to those with some scientific training, the first part should be widely accessible.