Reviewing Joseph P. Tomain, Nuclear Power Transformation (1987). ‘A few seconds after 4 o'clock on the morning of March 28, 1979,’ various mechanical and human failures combined to produce the accident at Three Mile Island. ‘For critical hours, as water boiled into steam, the reactor failed to cool and began to disintegrate. . . . [T]housands of gallons of deadly radioactive water were negligently pumped into an adjoining building.’ So begins Nuclear Power Transformation, Professor Tomain's thought-provoking effort to bring reason and responsibility to American nuclear energy policy. This book is an important contribution to the debate over nuclear power and over energy supply in general in the United States. It has two great strengths and one great weakness. As the first of its strengths, it details the history of nuclear power and its regulation by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and by various state ratemaking bodies. That history, particularly the details of management incompetence, regulatory failure, and financial disaster at three nuclear reactor projects, reveals the need for a major revision in American nuclear energy policy. Second, the book proposes a coherent energy policy that would address many of the problems revealed by the history of nuclear power to date. The book's weakness is its failure to suggest a realistic means through which that policy might be adopted. I recommend Nuclear Power Transformation to anyone who is concerned with the future of nuclear power. For nuclear opponents, it provides the facts necessary to make a strong case against the current regulatory scheme. For supporters of nuclear power, it provides a clue as to what has gone wrong so that similar mistakes can be avoided in the future. For advocates on both sides, and for state and federal policy makers, it proposes a policy designed to assure that nuclear energy development is consistent with safety requirements, energy needs and market realities.