Hoover Institution Press today released The Nuclear Enterprise: High-Consequence Accidents: How to Enhance Safety and Minimize Risks in Nuclear Weapons and Reactors, a book edited by George P. Shultz and Sidney D. Drell in which contributors examine risks associated with the nuclear enterprise of weapons and power plant accidents. This book emphasizes the importance of adopting essential safety and security measures so as to minimize these risks globally in view of the potentially devastating consequences of accidents in the nuclear enterprise.
The Nuclear Enterprise addresses three key issues: the need to improve the safety and security of nuclear operations; the importance of establishing and maintaining independent nuclear regulatory authorities and preventing their capture by government or industry interests; and how scientists, economists, and journalists can interact more effectively and communicate more clearly to raise public understanding of nuclear risks, consequences, and costs.
The book is based on a conference on the risks and rewards of the nuclear enterprise held at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution in October 2011. The conference included a panel of expert contributors who presented papers on technical safety, management operations, regulatory measures, and the importance of accurate communication by the media. The Nuclear Enterprise contains these papers, which have been edited by the authors in response to discussions at the conference.
Contributors include Hoover Institution Shultz-Stephenson Task Force on Energy Policy members Gary S. Becker, Michael J. Boskin, Jeremy Carl, John F. Cogan, Sidney D. Drell, Burton Richter, George P. Shultz, and John B. Taylor, as well as Steven P. Andreasen, Edward Blandford, Robert J. Budnitz, Drew DeWalt, Jim Hoagland, David E. Hoffman, Raymond Jeanloz, William F. Martin, Regis A. Matzie, Michael May, Per F. Peterson, Robert L. Peurifoy, Christopher Stubbs, and Frank A. Wolak.
George P. Shultz, the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution, has had a distinguished career in government, in academia, and in business. He served as the sixtieth US secretary of state and as chairman of the President’s Economic Policy Advisory Board during the Reagan administration.
Sidney D. Drell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor of physics emeritus at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University. A longtime adviser to the government on technical national security issues, Drell has served as a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the President’s Science Advisory Committee.
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