Stop the Fuelishness – Book Review

Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Stop The Fuelishness: Plan For A World W/o Fossil Fuels Save The Environment
by Johnroy Messick
Published by Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 9781514431085
Available in hardcover, softcover & e-book
Perfect Bound Softcover – Price $19.99
Dust Jacket Hardcover – Price $29.99

FuelishnessThe short review could be: “this book is utter foolishness” and it could end there.

The author claims to be completely independent and while the book is self-published a PR company has been used to publicize and promote the book worldwide. Now tell me again someone may not have received some financial incentive from somewhere to promote nuclear energy over renewables for instance and that as “clean” energy.

The book has been produced by an obvious vanity press outfit, shown by the quality of the book, but then that matches the writing of the author. The style is rather that of someone not well versed in writing for an audience, which makes reading extremely cumbersome.

It seems to be extremely fashionable at present to have supposed experts write books – disguised as serious work – praising the benefits of nuclear energy and passing off any concerns about the safety of nuclear power, and especially that of the waste, with comments such as: “we expect to have overcome that problem in time”. Really? Yes, sure, and pigs will fly as well by that time.

Yes, it is probably true that renewables cannot provide for the way we are intending to continue consuming electricity and wasting it. On the other hand it has been proven that, with the right provisions, renewables, such as wind and solar, and especially small wind and small solar, could be the answer. The right provisions are the problem though, as in using electricity differently and more efficiently.

Nuclear fission is not safe and never will be and that not just because accidents will happen, as we have seen often enough, but also and especially because of its legacy, the radioactive waste and later the decommissioning of nuclear power stations. Neither is it a cheap source of energy; the opposite rather, for it is heavily subsidized by governments, whether in Britain or elsewhere. Renewable energy, on the other hand, has to make do without any government help and claiming that it has to learn to stand on its own feet, as has been said by some of those writers, really is laughable as nuclear certainly is not standing on its own feet.

Governments, however, subsidize nuclear energy because the spent fuel rods are a source material for the production of weapons' grade Plutonium for the making of nuclear weapons. Were it not for that there would be no money for nuclear from government coffers. Nuclear is also prepared to wave wads of cash in front of politicians and, it would appear, writers. Something solar and wind are not (prepared to be) doing.

Authors that are perpetuating the myth of nuclear as a safe (and cheap) source of energy, and a carbon neutral one, are not just deceiving themselves, they are lying to the world. More than likely they are doing so on behest of the government(s) or the industry and anyone who gives such a spiel of promoting nuclear energy cannot be considered independent, not by a long shot.

Aside from the fact that this book is so badly written that it is painful to read it, and then the author claiming to have financed this all himself and being completely independent, etc., believing and claiming, like the author of other book I had the misfortune to read, that the issue surrounding the dangerous waste will be sorted in due course, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, it can only receive a rating of zero out of five.

© 2016