ENERGY AND THE FUTURE

Rothman's experience as a physics teacher serves him well in the early chapters where he explains very simply the meaning of the terms energy and conservation of energy, makes it clear that burning fuel transforms but doesn't create energy, reviews the different kinds of energy and ways to generate electricity, and explains what goes on in the atom during fission and fusion. However, his later chapters on present practices and future prospects don't build or depend much on these basic concepts, and his conclusions are disappointingly commonplace and (to go by Halacy, above) naive. Population growth must be stopped and we must learn to live more modestly; improved use of coal will keep us going until the promise of breeder reactors is fulfilled (we must be willing to take some risks and pay an environmental price); solar energy is worth looking into and fusion ""most tantalizing."" Begins well but winds down disappointingly.