>I'm guessing that you could be the author of the attached piece.

Ha! No. I actually haven't finished reading it yet. Too busy lately. This was actually mentioned in a recent Scientific American article.

>I have questions about how much nuclear power could be rolled out in a relevant time frame if the political will to do so could be summoned.

In my opinion, the only way we will see lots of nuclear power is if we see it produced on a factory line the same way 747s are. The economies of scale that come from mass production just can't be denied. This means we are very likely going to have to move away from pressurized water reactors toward small modular reactors.

(I will note that Russia claims their breeder reactor is cost competitive now, but I've been taking Russian claims with a grain of salt lately.)

>(Out of curiousity, who are the power brokers behind nuclear power?)

There really aren't any. Big Oil hates nuclear because they love to produce natural gas. Big Coal hates nuclear because they are direct competitors. Big Green hates nuclear because they aren't good at math and have internalized some really bad information. So nuclear development today is mostly done by small start-ups in the west or government research institutions in China, India, or Russia. India's thorium reactor looks promising. My money is on China simply because they've devoted the most resources to advanced nuclear.

>While it's an intelligently crafted article, it's largely an opinion piece with a highly optimistic bias and spin.

I'll have to finish reading the article to see if I agree.

>His story has no albedo, permafrost, methane hydrates, tropical storms or wars.

You and I have discussed some of these things. I stand by my claim that food supply is the biggest risk from climate change. It has the potential to cause more death than all other effects of climate change combined.

The author does discuss that early in the article, and he makes the same point that I've made in past conversations (with others, not with you). A lot of cropland is being misused for biofuel production. This is, in my opinion, much better done in the ocean. I don't think you've conversed with him, but I have had lengthy conversations with /u/Vailhem (a moderator here and in many other subs) about the oceans:

• being the best source for biofuel.
  
  
• being a great supplementary source for food and/or agricultural feed.
  
  He's a pretty busy guy, but I thought I would mention him here in the event he would like to jump in. (I also recommend some of his other subs, like /r/BioChar and /r/UrbanAgriculture.)
  
  >One source of personal optimism for me is the evolution of battery technology...
  
  I'm watching this as well, particular solid state batteries. I tend to think in terms of Amara's Law, which I'll paraphrase as, "People tend to overestimate a technology in the short term and underestimate it in the long term." I think that batteries are overhyped in terms of development right now, but I do believe that continued development over the coming decades will make EVs become economically viable.
  
  (Related to that, I think that batteries and advanced nuclear power are a match made in heaven. When is the best time to charge an EV, on average? At night. This would level out the daily power curve and nuclear works great 24 hours each day.)
  
  >Would this be public sector $$ or private?
  
  The efforts of which I am aware in the US, UK, and Canada are all private sector startups, though the UK has made a policy decision to favor SMRs going forward. (Probably due in part to the massive cost overrun at Hinckley C.)
  
  In India and China, the money is coming from governments at the moment. The Chinese Academy of Sciences claims they have 400 PhDs working on SMRs at the moment.
  
  >How does the cost compare with untaxed fossil fuels?
  
  Robert Hargraves claims that thorium reactors in particular would be cheaper than coal:
  
  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A3HZTWO/
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayIyiVua8cY
  
  >Does it require a fossil fuel tax to become price competitive?
  
  Maybe. Natural gas is really cheap right now, but I think it's foolhardy to believe that will always be the case. What would help it more is restructuring how we do regulation. There's a reason ThorCon moved to Indonesia to start work on MSRs, and it wasn't the price of fossil fuels. https://clearpath.org/jay-and-richs-take/nuclear-innovation-isnt-welcome-here/
  
  "But before building his first plant to test the idea, Jack faced a choice.
  
  "1. Build in America. It would take 10 years and cost around $500 million, including roughly $100 million in fees to get it approved by the NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
  
  "2. Build in Asia. Get it approved to build in 4 years. Save millions."
  
  >How many plants?
  
  If you go the SMR route, and using 747s as an example, you could roll a reactor off the factor line every day. That's in just one factory. Each SMR would probably be (and this is a pretty wild guess), in the low hundreds of megawatts of electrical capacity.
  
  >How much money in total?
  
  A number I've heard cited by John Kutsch for a test reactor is $100 million. That's less than 1% of what we've spent on ITER so far.
  
  >Time to implement?
  
  A test reactor could be built in less than five years if the funds were committed. China intends to have a test reactor built in two years.

Well it looks like a major increase it is only increasing by 1.8% (the rate of inflation). Here's is a long explanation to background for those interested

Basically in 2017 the Liberals then in power were feeling the heat from people concerned due to the rising cost of power (various reasons for the increase such as nuclear refurbishments, green energy act and lack of prior maintenance). They decided to subsidize/artificially reduce the cost of power by 25% for 4 years then increase at inflation via OPG in a complex trust that ratepayers would have to pay back. This had 2 benefits in that it showed consumers on their bills that they were paying cheaper rates and that it stayed off the provinces books as OPG was financing it (accumulating debt plus interest) and IESO accounting for it via a global adjustment modifier on it's monthly reports.

What happened next was that the auditor general got upset at the "improper accounting" that would " Applying the government’s complex accounting/financing structure could result in Ontarian incurring extra interest costs over 30 years that could total up to $4 billion more than necessary (Section 2.0)" (Auditor,2017 Pg 6-8) She wanted the rebate to appear on the governments books as an expense item in the energy ministry and then when the ratepayers started paying it back via a "Clean Energy Adjustment" or debt retirement charge 2.0 in the late 2020's to 2048 (Auditor, 2019 Pg 12-13). Basically Ontarian were getting $18 billion in relief but paying $40 billion in the future for this short term relief, if I am not mistaken the auditors report in figure 3 on page 12 summarizes this best. " The total borrowings to be repaid will be an estimated $39.4 billion, made up of $18.4 billion borrowed to cover the current rate reduction shortfall and $21 billion in accumulated interest over the term of the borrowings" (I was always confused why the Wynne Liberals called it a mortgage but if someone could explain that analogy that would be great, to me it's more like a mortgage for OPG and a car loan for ratepayers)

The PC's got into power and decided to take up the auditors advice and put the expense on the books to save interest as the province could borrow at lower interest rates then OPG. The government now has an expense of $4 billion per year to lower electricity rates. The Ford government is keeping the rebate but trying to make it more "transparent" by showing the cost you should be paying and then giving you a electricity rebate to lower the overall increase to only 1.8% or inflation. My theory is that the Ford government is trying to show ratepayers how much taxes they are paying in order to provide justification to increase rates more then inflation and help reduce the $9 billion deficit. Don't always agree with Ford but I agree on the transparency part but hope he does not increase rates above inflation but time will tell.

IMHO electricity in Ontario has been a political football for the past 30-40 years with various schemes to lower rates or "fix the system". From the Rae government delaying Darlington while freezing rates inflating costs and causing debt to increase at Ontario Hydro to Harris's tomfoolery with semi-privatizing the system to Mcguinty's well intended but costly Green Energy Act to Wynne's accounting tricks with the Fair Hydro Plan. Time will tell what Ford will do but based on his governments track record it is not the most promising outlook. There is a great book call Hydro the Fall and Decline of Ontario's Electric Empire that does a great background on this topic.

Anyway thanks for reading, hope it helped explain the backstory.

​

Edit; Links to Auditors Report and other info

Auditor Report http://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/specialreports/specialreports/FairHydroPlan_en.pdf

Fall economic statement: https://budget.ontario.ca/2019/fallstatement/pdf/2019-fallstatement.pdf

Hydro book: https://www.amazon.ca/Hydro-Decline-Ontarios-Electric-Empire/dp/1896357881

If you're going to be modeling the edge/divertor region then I would highly recommend looking into [The Plasma Boundary of Magnetic Fusion Devices by Stangeby.] (https://www.amazon.com/Boundary-Magnetic-Devices-Physics-Dynamics/dp/0750305592) I personally have not read it, but my friends in the edge community swear by it. It's not cheap, and I don't know how much money you have to spend, but if you're going to do edge physics then it's worth considering.

Chen's Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion is the classic introduction to plasma physics text book. If you haven't taken any plasma physics then it is a good starting point.

Freidberg is a classic text on ideal MHD. You can't go wrong with it. It's also a good book for new PhD students in Fusion research. In case you want to save some money I'll point out that Friedberg's book is based off of his Ideal MHD review paper. You'll probably be able to access the paper for free through your university's library. At some point you'll probably want the book if you stay in the field. It goes into more detail, and the latest edition has been updated to reflect modern trends in confinement.

Hazeltine & Meiss is a good book for people going into plasma theory/computation. It does a good job of introducing a lot of advanced topics relevant to plasma physics. It's a great deal for it's price.

I think Steve Jardin's book is a good tool if you don't have a background in computation. In one chapter he introduces methods to solve a particular type of equation (elliptic, hyperbolic, parabolic, etc) and then in the next he applies those methods to problems relevant to magnetic fusion research.

Styx is a good reference if you know plasma waves, but I don't think it's a good book for learning plasma waves. Sawnson's book is better for learning waves.

I'm not too familiar with the other books you mentioned. I've heard good things about Birdsall & Langdon. I've heard mixed reviews of Goedbloed. I'm aware of Tajima's book but I know nothing about it. I've never heard of Hsu's book.

I've come to expect a few things out of drill-baby-drill articles:

• No discussion of how expensive it will be to extract and process of the exciting new find
  
• No discussion, or at best a dismissive hand-wave, of any environment concerns. This applies to both local environmental damage and hazards, and the release of pollutants into the atmopshere, especially but not limited to greenhouse gases.
  
• A mischaracterization of how dependent we are on Middle Eastern oil.
  
• A further mischaracterization of what effect the new play will have on our dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
  
• There is rarely a discussion of the anticipated production curve of the play.
  
• At least one really stupid platitude. In this case: "Clearly there is no energy shortage."
  
  For some reason, though, I usually expect the author to have at least a modicum of competence in the field. Or respectability. Or sanity. But sadly, not our Marita Noon:
  
  > Marita Noon is the executive director for Energy Makes America Great, Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). Readers of Maritas previous books, including best sellers, Wired That Way and Communication Plus, know her as Marita Littauer.
  
  As Marita Littauer, she has enjoyed quite a career as an author of Christian self-help books for women, many of which appear... delightful.
  
  She also has a company via which "she has trained thousands of talented Christians in the mastery of communication.".
  
  But what she really is, after all that, is an entrepeneur who's making money by running a front group for oil, gas and coal companies. She's not very honest, either.
  
  As far as it's possible to tell, she has no background whatsoever in energy, economics or (of course) environmental studies. She was writing Christian self-help books and charging (probably a lot) people to learn how to be better Christian communicators, and them bam, she's an energy policy expert.
  
  Thanks for wasting my time, OP. It took me that long to figure out that this really should have just come out on PRNewsWire.

Ok, in addition to the paper/booklet posted earlier from acedemia.edu about the lorica segmentata here are some other resources discussing armor and some on metal work techniques. Much of what is available is medieval period but many of the skills and techniques are similar.
On Divers Arts by Theophilus is a treatise on painting, glass making, and metalwork from roughly 1122ad. ISBN:978-0486237848

De Re Metalica by Georgius Agricola is a scientific book on mining and metallurgy from around 1556ad. ISBN: 978-0486600062

The Pirotechnia of Vannoccio Biringuccio is a treatise on metallurgy and alchemy/chemistry from 1540ad. ISBN:978-0486261348

Techniques of Medieval Armor Reproduction: The Fourteenth Century is an awesome book covering various metalwork techniques as applied to making 14th century armor. ISBN: 978-1581605365 He talks about tools you will need and some modifications to make to them for ease of use. He even gives you some ideas on finding good sources for drawing inspiration from for your armor patterns. If you are starting with making armor and don't have anyone nearby to help you learn this is a good guide to buy.

Best of the Hammer is a black and white series of booklets that have great info on medieval metalwork from chainmail to bladesmithing. ISBN:978-0943228044

Roman Body Armor, by Hilary & John Travis is a good re-examining of the data on Roman armor up until this point. ISBN: 978-1445608037

There's an out-of-print book simply called "Passive Solar Energy." It's got lots of great information; I bet it will be just what you are looking for as far as the physics of solar energy and thermosiphoning (which is essentially "heated fluid rises because it's less dense than cooler fluid"). I'm an engineer and I really think that book gives you all you need to know to have a basic working knowledge of solar heat gain and how various systems of solar energy capture operate. Here's a list of books I have found helpful and/or interesting in regards to solar energy:

• Passive Solar Energy - The top link is a link to pdf's of the chapters of the book.
  
  
• The Passive Solar Energy Book - VERY in-depth on passive solar theory, design, and construction.
  
  
• Solar Air Heating Systems - Another design and construction book, specifically about solar air heating.
  
  
  
• The Solar Greenhouse Book - Name says it all. It's all about passive solar greenhouses.
  
  
• A Golden Thread - Really interesting book about how man has worked with the sun in building design through the history of civilization.
  
  
  For earthships/earth-sheltered homes, I recommend these books:
  
  
• Earth-Sheltered Housing Design - One of the most detailed and complete books on earth-sheltering available. Not earthships, but the same ideas apply.
  
  
• Earth-Sheltered Houses - Another essential book for earth-sheltering houses. Author has built several of his own and remains an authority in the subject as well as cordwood building, for which he has also written books.
  
  
• Earth-Sheltered Solar Greenhouses - Combines two subjects for a very Permaculture-appropriate building technique.
  
  
• Earthship Vol I and II - Needs no explaining.
  
  
  From my experience in university studying fluid dynamics, I recommend not going any deeper into the subject than what you would find in the solar energy books I listed above. The subject is math-heavy, and the academic study of the topic is not going to help you with what you are interested in with permaculture. It's kind of like studying the abstract physics/math of electromagnetism when all you want to do is wire a house.
  
  Hope this helps!

When I first started my hobby, I picked up a copy of Saltwater Aquariums for Dummies. I found it to be MUCH more useful than The New Marine Aquarium. (If you're just getting into the hobby). I've always enjoyed The Pocket Expert Guide to Marine Fishes and the Marine Invertebrates as well. With the pocket experts, I find their information to be different from other sources that I use to research a fish before I make a decision to buy or not. A book that I can't seem to finish but always find myself skimming through is the Plankton Culture Manual. It can be a difficult read at times (for me anyways) but it's very helpful when you want to culture something.

I'm really looking for a book to help identify hitchhikers, but I can't seem to find one. Hopefully this thread turns a leaf. I've picked up the Reef Creature Identification books in hopes they would be what I was looking for, but they weren't.

The Nano-Reef Handbook Was a fun read as well. Gives you many ideas for the nano aquarium.

Last but not least, Algae: A problem Solver Guide has really helped when it came to figuring out how to battle algae or which algae would be awesome to have in a tank for decorative purposes.

I would hazard a guess that it's unlikely you will get much power out of a residential wind turbine.

The power generated by a wind turbine is calculated by:

0.5x[area]x[air density]x[power coefficient]x[wind speed]^3

The air density at sea level is 1.225 kg/m^3. The area is the sweep area of the rotor. So if your blades are 1 m long, the sweep area will be 3.14 m^2.

The power coefficient changes with the wind speed, but will always be less than 0.593. In practice, this number will rarely reach above 0.45 due to the energy lost in the generator.

The wind speed will be location dependent. It tends to be pretty low down at surface level tends. This is because trees, buildings etc will slow the wind speed down significantly. I think 5 m/s would be a high average. For Australia, you can go to this link. You can select "Climate Statistics" in the left hand column and select any observation station. You can see the monthly wind speeds and you'll notice it pretty much rarely goes above 5 m/s.

So assuming a 1 m blade, sea level air density, a 0.4 power coefficient which is pretty generous for a home made wind turbine and 5 m/s wind speed, you are looking at 100 W of power generation.

Edit: This is a pretty good book for the theory side of things, but I don't think it'll help with building any DIY turbine.

Hey, Ocean Engineer here. I took a look at the topics and sample questions for the bowl..you've definitely got your work cut out for you!
Here's two books that I've used during my studies:

Introduction to Physical Oceanography by Knauss

Ocean Energy Conversion by McCormick

Both will give you a great overview of physical aspects of the ocean (currents, tides, wave mechanics, flow, seafloor, interactions with a variety of surfaces, etc) and the second will give you information about technology and renewable energy (definitely a hot topic). They are also both incredibly reasonably priced considering they are textbooks.

It's tough to point you to any one resource that would cover a variety of those topics, but a great resource all things ocean related is Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. On their website they have a section called Ocean Topics and covers just about every topic on the Bowl's list, with links to more references, news articles, and research papers.
http://www.whoi.edu/main/ocean-topics

Best of luck to your team, please come back and tell us how you do!

"Ignition" is a popular one that can get technical in the physics and chemical sections, but has a lot of great historical and technical information.

If you are interested in a structural and comprehensive book on flight vehicles, look into what we engineers call "The Bruhn" or more accurately "Analysis and Design of Flight Vehicle Structures". I could not do my job without this nearly every day!

A good free NASA e-biography, PDF warning, of a vehicle in flight now is "Taming Liquid Hydrogen" which is the history and a lot of technical information about the Centaur upper stage (used on Atlas V even today)

EDIT: A 5-part comprehensive video history of the Atlas ICBM up to the Atlas V can be found here. I uploaded a DVD from a friend that worked on the program for 35 years.

Start with The Prize. If you want to understand the economics of oil you need to understand the history of the business, the player's, the Middle East (especially Saudi Arabia) and the Caspian.

These are some great books to help you understand the industry better:

The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich

The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea

Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power

The Seven Sisters: The great oil companies & the world they shaped

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century

The Handbook of Global Energy Policy

Further reading/research: (Not all of which I've gotten to read yet. Some of which may be quite tangentially relevant to the discussion at hand along with the books and sites I mentioned above. Consider this more a list of books pertaining to the history of technology, machining, metrology, some general science and good engineering texts.)

Dan Gelbart's Youtube Channel

Engineerguy's Youtube Channel

Nick Mueller's Youtube Channel

mrpete222/tubalcain's youtube channel

Tom Lipton (oxtools) Youtube Channel

Suburban Tool's Youtube Channel

NYCNC's Youtube Channel

Computer History Museum's Youtube Channel

History of Machine Tools, 1700-1910 by Steeds

Studies in the History of Machine Tools by Woodbury

A History of Machine Tools by Bradley

Tools for the Job: A History of Machine Tools to 1950 by The Science Museum

A History of Engineering Metrology by Hume

Tools and Machines by Barnard

The Testing of Machine Tools by Burley

Modern machine shop tools, their construction, operation and manipulation, including both hand and machine tools: a book of practical instruction by Humphrey & Dervoort

Machine-Shop Tools and Methods by Leonard

A Measure of All Things: The Story of Man and Measurement by Whitelaw

Handbook of Optical Metrology: Principles and Applications by Yoshizawa

Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon by Gray

Machine Shop Training Course Vol 1 & 2 by Jones

A Century of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, 1882-1982

Numerical Control: Making a New Technology by Reintjes

History of Strength of Materials by Timoshenko

Rust: The Longest War by Waldman

The Companion Reference Book on Dial and Test Indicators: Based on our popular website www.longislandindicator.com by Meyer

Optical Shop Testing by Malacara

Lost Moon: The Preilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by Lovell and Kruger

Kelly: More Than My Share of It All by Johnson & Smith

Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed by Rich & Janos

Unwritten Laws of Engineering by King

Advanced Machine Work by Smith

Accurate Tool Work by Goodrich

Optical Tooling, for Precise Manufacture and Alignment by Kissam

The Martian: A Novel by Weir

Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain by Young Budynas & Sadegh

Materials Selection in Mechanical Design by Ashby

Slide Rule: The Autobiography of an Engineer by Shute

Cosmos by Sagan

Nuts, Bolts, Fasteners and Plumbing Handbook by Smith Carol Smith wrote a number of other great books such as Engineer to Win.

Tool & Cutter Sharpening by Hall

Handbook of Machine Tool Analysis by Marinescu, Ispas & Boboc

The Intel Trinity by Malone

Manufacturing Processes for Design Professionals by Thompson

A Handbook on Tool Room Grinding

Tolerance Design: A Handbook for Developing Optimal Specifications by Creveling

Inspection and Gaging by Kennedy

Precision Engineering by Evans

Procedures in Experimental Physics by Strong

Dick's Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes or How They Did it in the 1870's by Dick

Flextures: Elements of Elastic Mechanisms by Smith

Precision Engineering by Venkatesh & Izman

Metal Cutting Theory and Practice by Stephenson & Agapiou

American Lathe Builders, 1810-1910 by Cope As mentioned in the above post, Kennth Cope did a series of books on early machine tool builders. This is one of them.

Shop Theory by Henry Ford Trade Shop

Learning the lost Art of Hand Scraping: From Eight Classic Machine Shop Textbooks A small collection of articles combined in one small book. Lindsay Publications was a smallish company that would collect, reprint or combine public domain source material related to machining and sell them at reasonable prices. They retired a few years ago and sold what rights and materials they had to another company.

How Round Is Your Circle?: Where Engineering and Mathematics Meet by Bryant & Sangwin

Machining & CNC Technology by Fitzpatrick

CNC Programming Handbook by Smid

Machine Shop Practice Vol 1 & 2 by Moltrecht

The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles A fantastic book with tons of free online material, labs, and courses built around it. This book could take a 6th grader interested in learning, and teach them the fundamentals from scratch to design a basic computer processor and programming a simple OS etc.

Bosch Automotive Handbook by Bosch

Trajectory Planning for Automatic Machines and Robots by Biagiotti & Melchiorri

The Finite Element Method: Its Basis and Fundamentals by Zhu, Zienkiewicz and Taylor

Practical Treatise on Milling and Milling Machines by Brown & Sharpe

Grinding Technology by Krar & Oswold

Principles of Precision Engineering by Nakazawa & Takeguchi

Foundations of Ultra-Precision Mechanism Design by Smith

I.C.S. Reference Library, Volume 50: Working Chilled Iron, Planer Work, Shaper and Slotter Work, Drilling and Boring, Milling-Machine Work, Gear Calculations, Gear Cutting

I. C. S. Reference Library, Volume 51: Grinding, Bench, Vise, and Floor Work, Erecting, Shop Hints, Toolmaking, Gauges and Gauge Making, Dies and Die Making, Jigs and Jig Making
and many more ICS books on various engineering, technical and non-technical topics.

American Machinists' Handbook and Dictionary of Shop Terms: A Reference Book of Machine-Shop and Drawing-Room Data, Methods and Definitions, Seventh Edition by Colvin & Stanley

Modern Metal Cutting: A Practical Handbook by Sandvik

Mechanical Behavior of Materials by Dowling

Engineering Design by Dieter and Schmidt

[Creative Design of Products and Systems by Saeed]()

English and American Tool Builders by Roe

Machine Design by Norton

Control Systems by Nise

That doesn't include some random books I've found when traveling and visiting used book stores. :)

Not without challenges, but gasoline is pretty volatile as well. Jet fuel doesn't like you smoking near it either. But, there is the energy density required to move tubes of people through the air over long distances using hydrogen with minimal environmental impact. Some will argue filling the atmosphere with water vapor (clouds/exhaust) will reflect sunlight and cause a detrimental cooling effect, but could it be worse than what we're dealing with now? David Sanborn Scott wrote a pretty convincing book called Smelling Land some years ago in defense of hydrogen as a combustible energy source. Every energy source we take advantage of is beyond basic high school chemistry. I wouldn't want grade 12 kids running nuclear plants either.

Ok, here's a list of books that might interest you.

• [Introductory Mining Engineering] (http://www.amazon.com/Introductory-Mining-Engineering-Howard-Hartman/dp/0471348511/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412111081&sr=1-1&keywords=introductory+mining+engineering) as others have mentioned is a good, not too technical introduction to mining engineering and the industry as a whole.
  
  
• [Mining Explained] (http://www.smenet.org/store/mining-books.cfm/Mining-Explained%2C-11th-Edition/9041) is a good little overview of the industry, I believe it was written as an introductory guide for investors.
  
  
• [The Deep Dark] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Deep-Dark-Disaster-Redemption/dp/0307238776) is about the Sunshine Mine disaster. It is a well written book that reads like a novel. It gives a good overview of hardrock mining techniques in northern Idaho, but is more focused on the people, the disaster and the recovery efforts.
  
  
• [The World of Mining] (http://www.amazon.com/World-Mining-Richard-Woldendorp/dp/0415671892/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412111733&sr=1-1&keywords=the+world+of+mining) is more of a photography book, but it has a lot of great contemporary pictures from mines around the world.
  
  
• [Deep Enough] (http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Enough-Working-Stiff-Western/dp/0806125292/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412110097&sr=1-1&keywords=deep+enough) is the memoir of a man from an affluent New York family that decides to go to the western US in the early 1900's, where he ends up working in mining. This is a good one if you're interested the culture of a 1900's mining camp as well as the technical aspects.
  
  
• [Trapped] (http://www.amazon.com/Trapped-1909-Cherry-Mine-Disaster/dp/0743421957) is about the 1909 Cherry Creek mine disaster at a coal mine in Illinois.
  
  
• [The Making of a Hardrock Miner] (http://www.amazon.com/making-hardrock-miner-experiences-molybdenum/dp/0831071168/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412110431&sr=1-1&keywords=the+making+of+a+hard+rock+miner) is similar to Deep Enough, but written in the 1970's.
  
  
• [Mines, mules and me in Mexico] (http://www.amazon.com/Mules-Mines-Me-Mexico-1895-1932/dp/0816506264/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412110933&sr=1-1&keywords=mines+mules+and+me+in+mexico) similar in style to Deep Enough, it was written by a mining engineer that was working in Mexico before and during the Mexican Revolution.
  
  
• [Grasberg] (http://www.amazon.com/Grasberg-richest-deposit-mountains-Indonesia/dp/0965289001) is a historical account of the discovery and development of the Grasberg mine in Indonesia.
  
  
• [The Roar and the Silence] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Roar-And-Silence-Shepperson/dp/0874173205) is a historical account of Virginia City, Nevada which was the most advanced and affluent mining camp of its day. It follows Virginia City from a gritty mining camp, to a city whose influence rivaled some of the biggest cities of its day, through its slow fade into obscurity.
  
  
• [Out of the Fiery Furnace] (http://www.amazon.com/Out-Fiery-Furnace-History-Mankind/dp/027100441X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412110707&sr=1-1&keywords=out+of+the+fiery+furnace) is a look at how world history was shaped by mankind's discovery and utilization of different metals. It discusses how mining techniques have evolved over time.

I always really liked the aesthetics of old chemical plants. The inside of the guinness storehouse comes to mind. Around the refinery where I used to work, there were sketches like this one. I took this photo one morning, walking into work. You'd walk in some mornings through the steam, with the flare in the background, and feel like they had a dragon back there or something. You could also maybe see if you can find some technical drawings, like this one of a distillation column. Maybe you could look into historical photographs, like in this book about the gasworks of London. Hope that helps you out.

If you're interested in Nuclear accidents, I have been listening to the audiobook of this: http://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Accidents-Meltdowns-Disasters-Mountains/dp/1605984922 It is VERY a-political, unlike Pandora's Promise, IMHO. Although I agree with Pandora's Promise mostly, It feels like the producers are trying to convince me of something. The book "Atomic Accidents" doesn't feel that way at all, very factual, historical, informative, and as a lay-person, I didn't feel it was out of my depth at all. As for the Audiobook, it is pretty well read, and has good reviews on Audible: http://www.audible.com/pd/History/Atomic-Accidents-Audiobook/B00I2U1NLA

Backing up to your statement about studying or researching transportation policies....did you happen to see this discussion on this sub a few days ago? Specifically the claim that Saudi oil isn't 'fully costed' because the super tanker operating costs are ignored. Is that at all credible? I'm sure that I have read elsewhere (as it relates to the 100 mile diet) that the carbon cost to move food from Chile to Vancouver is much smaller than the carbon cost to truck that food to Calgary which is also smaller than the carbon cost for me to drive to the store to buy those bananas or whatever.

I did a quick interweb search to try to find the CO2 emissions to move 1 ton of oil 1000 miles by pipeline or by truck or by rail or by ship...no go...do you have a good source?

Most of my hydrogen/nuclear thinking is nicely encapsulated in this book - heard of it and/or read it?

As for storage of energy, I like the method highlighted here, second image.

This was the book I used when I took Advanced Calculus II:

http://www.amazon.com/Differential-Forms-Complement-Vector-Calculus/dp/0127425101

It was really really straight-forward and really funny at times. I think it's a good book and has decent enough explanations with a good amount of exercises.

Atomic Accidents by James Mahaffey has a chapter on them. It's only a chapter, but it goes into the scientific details of what happened to their bodies without getting too complex for a layman reader. The book overall is wonderful and I highly recommend reading the whole thing. It's free to read on Kindle Unlimited if you have Prime. I also recommend his first book, Atomic Awakening, for a general history of nuclear power.

Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HVPI1IA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_IcZpDbEYHGPZN

Loved it.

This one was good too:

https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Accidents-Meltdowns-Disasters-Mountains-ebook/dp/B00HVPI1IA/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?keywords=nuclear+incidents&qid=1564888260&s=gateway&sr=8-6

Power professor here:

The golden bible for distribution is this:
power system analsys by Grainger (blue book) I got 3 copies myself: https://www.amazon.com/Power-System-Analysis-Grainger/dp/0070585156/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478498866&sr=8-1&keywords=power+system+analysis+grainger

Granted I am sure there are newer ones. But all the theory has not changed.

For protection : Old but good, Art and Science of Protective Relaying http://www.gegridsolutions.com/multilin/notes/artsci/artsci.pdf

For controls, I dont really know any tbh, sorry. I dont mess with that as much : (

• From a historical perspective I would suggest De Re Metallica: http://www.amazon.com/De-Metallica-Dover-Earth-Science/dp/0486600068
  
  
  
• An easy blog to read with events going on in the mining industry today: http://ithinkmining.com/
  
  
• Mining industry news:
  http://www.infomine.com/
  
  

Powerflow: Steveson/Grainger

System Dynamics: Kundar

Protection: Blackburn

For an elementary account, there is a book by Weintraub called Differential Forms, which is very accessible. It is explicitly written as a "complement to vector calculus".

For a more advanced treatment take a look at Arnold's Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics. There is a standalone chapter on differential forms which is extremely well-written and well-motivated (as is the rest of the book, for that matter).

Unfortunately, operating reactors tend to irradiate everything around them, so even if everything works great and you core stays intact, you end up with a highly radioactive spaceship.

I recently read "Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima"; which talks about a bunch of "experiments" that led to issues. It was very enlightening.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HVPI1IA

safety protocols in fukushima were not dangerously lax.

read this, it is fantastic and not given to hype or hysteria:

http://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Accidents-Meltdowns-Disasters-Mountains/dp/1605984922

basically most nuclear disasters have happened when people decide to override the automated safety systems.

Some of the disasters they talked about are just mind-bendingly stupid. like the SM-1 plant incident. Some are complex and painful lessons learned such as the placement of sensors in early plants giving false information. Most modern plants that have had problems, however, had them because people thought they were smarter than the automated safety systems and over rode them.

I got it for my Kindle

> http://www.amazon.com/Differential-Forms-Complement-Vector-Calculus/dp/0127425101

I'm currently working through this, and enjoy it a lot!

I learned from Differential Forms: A Complement to Vector Calculus and Advanced Calculus: A Differential Forms Approach. In first book many of the exercises seem tedious, but you should do them anyway.

> There is no alternative to fuel for aircrafts at the moment however.

You did say "at the moment"...

Setting that aside for a moment, thoughts about using H2 for aircraft as outlined in this book?

" Specifically, the new evidence – based on modelling of air mass movements around the time of the accident – indicates Russia's Mayak nuclear complex in the southern Urals "should be considered as a likely candidate for the release", the researchers conclude. "


No surprise there. I've been reading "Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima" and the stuff Russia has let happen at Mayak makes even the US during the 50s and 60s look good.