«Библиотека «Кругозора»»

Проспект книги «Горькая правда об атомной энергетике» («Bitter Truth about Nuclear Power»)

Этот проспект представлен не на русском языке, а на английском, так как сам текст предложенной Вашему вниманию книги можно принять за такой проспект на русском языке, хотя и более подробный.

Prospectus to the book by G.F. Lepin and I.N. Smolyar
“Bitter Truth about Nuclear Power”

This book is intended for a wide audience of readers reflecting upon the future of their country and the whole of the Earth. With knowledge and experience accumulated by mankind in dealing with atomic weapons and “peaceful atom” for the last decades it is possible to assess more objectively the perspectives of the use of nuclear energy. The literature which is available today in this area is extremely limited and it is basically of pronuclear orientation. Small editions of the books that truly depict nuclear problems (for example, A.V. Yablokov “Nuclear Mythology”, 1997) make them inaccessible to the broad audience of readers. The book is expected to expand the circle of readers. It contains a large amount of factual material allowing the book to be used as a manual for students studying at universities, technical institutes of higher education, colleges and senior pupils.

Basic statements made by atomic scientists are the following:

1.   Nuclear electric energy is the cheapest;

2.   Nuclear stations are completely safe;

3.   Nuclear reactors bring no harm either to us or to Nature, they will save mankind from a greenhouse effect and will keep oxygen for people;

4.   Nuclear fuel will suffice for people for ever;

5.   Nuclear stations are actively built all over the world;     

6.   We won’t survive without nuclear power;

7.   The majority of our fellow-citizens support the construction of atomic power stations. 

This book is dedicated to the analysis of the validity of these statements.

By raising the curtain over the absolute secrecy around atomic power stations it became possible to look at many things from quite a different angle. Curtailing of programs of the construction of nuclear stations almost worldwide, great problems connected with their operation and safety, as well as with burial of radioactive waste, and many other things have shaken our faith in our bright future in company with nuclear power.

It is quite obvious that without military interests the so called “peace reactors” wouldn’t have appeared. Much testifies to the fact that they are far from being peaceful and it is not so good or safe to have them in the vicinity of us. But they did everything for war regardless of the fact that the Earth was gradually becoming a hostage of these military ambitions. So it is not of free will that these “poisonous fruits” of military hysteria appeared on the Earth.

But after the catastrophe which befell Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia and which converted almost one fourth of the territory of Belarus into a ground for testing the ability of the whole nation to survive in conditions of active influence of “peaceful atom” the last doubts about the vaunted peaceful disposition of nuclear power were dispelled.

Graves of the Chernobyl victims, their memory, our friends and colleagues hobbling along after the tragedy don’t give us the right for oblivion of the terrible crime of the atomic scientists and their accomplices!

Our enlightenment was very precisely expressed by Academician Kapitsa in his aphorism:“Atomic power stations are nuclear bombs producing electricity”.

Because of Chernobyl one more, though not quite new, very important problem has come up. It is the problem about the value of human life. The wisest man of the antiquity Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote: “In one country a person costs so much, in another he costs nothing, and in the third he costs less than anything”.

What category would Jean Jacques Rousseau attribute our countries to?  We hope this book will help our readers to find the answer to this question.

The estimation of all these seven explicit statements made by atomic scientists has led us unequivocally to negative results. Thus assertions about the necessity for us (as well as for the whole mankind) to develop nuclear engineering can be made either by people who haven’t taken the trouble to acquaint themselves with the real danger of the perspective which is disastrous to every living thing on the Earth or by those who pursue their personal selfish ends.

However paradoxical it is, people have constantly been seeking for ways of self-destruction. Quite often Man is very near to it. A step toward a precipice was made by Man on 26 April 1986 when it became possible to blow up a reactor of the Chernobyl atomic power station. Having recovered from the shock and appraised the situation many world scientists came to the conclusion that the Earth couldn’t sustain a repeated “Chernobyl”.

Let us recall to our minds one very important idea which was so figuratively and precisely expressed by Louis de Broglie, one of the greatest physicists, a Nobel Prize winner: “The sole problem of the present consists in whether Man will manage to go through his own inventions”.

How long are military and “peaceful” atomic scientists going to pitilessly experiment on Man? It is high time such tests for survival were put an end to. Such tests are to be done with before they lead mankind to global catastrophe – “Atomic Paradise” or “Global Chernobyl”!

So do we have the right to create insoluble problems for our future generations by our actions?  After all it is not us who will have to live in the irremediably contaminated world and fight through these problems. And this is the reason for our being responsible for the Future. Those people who either don’t realize or don’t want to realize this are bound to commit the greatest Crime against Mankind!

Who will stop the spreading of “atomic infection” on our Planet?!

Who will present an account for what has already been committed    against people and Nature?

Who will repentance of all these crimes?

The more people realize what malicious joke atomic energy may play on all Mankind and thus on each of us, the more grateful the Earth will be for its salvation!

Alas, because of Chernobyl one of the authors of this book has already departed out of this world.

Georgiy  F. LEPIN