Top Secret Science in Energy

Top Secret Science in Energy is part of Crabtree’s “Top Secret Science” series. The series relies heavily on the ‘Top Secret’ hype to engage students in a variety of science related topics, including technology, medicine, space, transportation, and military initiatives, as well as energy. Each book includes a Table of Contents, a simple glossary, additional resources listed in “Learning More”, which includes books and websites, and an index.

Top Secret Science in Energy begins with a clear description of different types of renewable and non-renewable energy in a chapter titled “Who Controls Our Energy?” Every double-page spread throughout the book includes a section titled either “Dark Science Secrets” or “Tomorrow’s Secrets”. It is very questionable whether these ‘secrets’ are very secret, but many of them may include information that is new to young readers. For example, “Dark Science Secrets” on page 5, accompanying the discussion of energy types, explains the role of lobbyists to influence government decisions to increase or reduce spending on renewable or non-renewable energy sources.

However, studies show that the oil, gas, and transportation organizations that rely on fossil fuels outspend environmental groups and the renewable energy sector by ten to one in lobbying budgets.

Canadian statistics and examples are used in a variety of topics. On the section on The Manhattan Project, Canada’s role in provided uranium for the first atomic bombs is highlighted in “Dark Science Secrets”.

It is not often talked about, but the Manhattan Project used Canadian uranium in the world’s first atomic bombs. Canada refined, or made purer, and supplied uranium for use in top secret facilities in the United States during World War II. Eldorado Gold Mining Company reopened a closed mine located near Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories to supply the U.S. military with the uranium it needed to produce the atomic bomb. Canada continued to supply uranium for another 20 years after the war, for use in nuclear reactors in navy ships and for the production of electricity.

The efforts to present the “Dark Science Secrets” as covert and mysterious seem overdone, but “Tomorrow’s Secrets” have an even more tenuous claim to being secrets. These topics would more accurately be named “Tomorrow’s News”.

A team of researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia are shaking things up. They have created a new reactor design that uses different elements and methods to heat up its core 200 times hotter than the Sun. This energy positive fusion reactor does not exist yet, but its strange globe shape could be a game-changer. In theory, the round shape should mean that the reactor produces more energy than it uses. Scientists are watching with interest to see if it is successful.

Topics in Top Secret Science in Energy include gas and oil, fracking, pipelines, wind, solar, geothermal, carbon capture and storage, nanotechnology, nuclear, hydrogen fuel cells, Large Hadron Collider (LHC), fusion, fission, and dark matter.

Like other books in the “Top Secret Science” series, Top Science Secrets in Energy ends with “Your Mission”. This section is titled “Be an Energy Research Scientist” and includes some higher-level thinking questions and activities for students to reflect on or complete. The final question is presented as “Top Secret” and includes asking students to comment on the ethics of keeping scientific secrets.

New ideas for energy production can be extremely valuable. Would you keep your research a secret? Would it be better to share the idea with others to make your idea even better? Explain your answers.

Although I am not a fan of the ‘secret’ tone of this book, the content is a good overview of energy research and development. I suspect that Top Science Secrets in Energy will appeal to some students who need or want to know more about energy.