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THE MATERIAL WORLD
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Quentin Cooper reports on developments across the sciences. Each week scientists describe their work, conveying the excitement they feel for their research projects.
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| Calder Hall Nuclear Power Station, Sellafield |
Nuclear Power
17th October 2006 marked the 50th anniversary of the opening of Calder Hall. This was the first nuclear power station built on a commercial scale to supply energy to the National Grid. At the time, Britain was leading the way in nuclear power, supplying Italy and Japan with the technology to build their own systems.
However, by the 1960s, the programme was being scaled down. Even though we were worried about the increasing cost of mining coal, North Sea oil and gas had been discovered, and it looked as though we had our own supply of energy without having to rely on oil from the rest of the world.
Now it seems that nuclear power might be back on the agenda – just as we are decommissioning many of the UK’s power stations.
Malcolm Grimston, associate fellow on the energy and environment programme at Chatham House and Mark Wareing, decommissioning strategy manager for the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency join Sue Nelson to talk about the future of the British Nuclear industry.
The Best Science Book Ever
On 19th October, at Imperial College in London, an important battle was fought. Tim Radford, former science editor of The Guardian and Armand Leroi will battle out which book can take the title of The Best Science Book Ever. Tim and the event's chair, Jon Turney, join Sue in the studio to kick off the competition and discuss some of the books on the list.
Tim’s choices:
The Double Helix – James Watson (Penguin)
Of a Fire on the Moon – Norman Mailer (out of print)
The Periodic Table – Primo Levi (Abacus)
Armand’s choices:
Artforms in Nature – Ernst Haeckel (Dover)
Pluto’s Republic – P. B. Medawar (out of print)
King Solomon’s Ring – Konrad Lorenz (Routledge)
If you think there’s a book that should be on this list and isn’t, do contact us with your suggestion and Sue will compile them next week and announce the overall winner.
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RELATED LINKS
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Science & Nature
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 4 Science programmes
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