. >> richard rhodes, winner of the pulitzer prize in his new book the twilight of the bomb:recent dangers, new challenges and the prospect of a world without nuclear weapons. realistically speaking is there a prospect for no nuclear weapons on the planet? >> i think so. really lost utility since the cold war at the cost of $50 billion a year. president obama announced the official u.s. policy that we move towards zero. it is a matter of working out security relationships that are standing in the way. >> with regard to working out those relationships will be come to agreement with countries like north korea and iran do seem to be on the path to making their own nuclear weapons? >> they do because that is the only way they can defend themselves against major nuclear power like the united states.

its author, richard rhodes. >> every weekend booktv brings you 48 hours of history, biography and public affairs. here's a portion of one of our programs. >> who do you think would be the best choice for our next repud pican candidate for president who has a real chance to win? even though john mccain is a good american would make the best candidate. >> i have this thing on my show called the deck of the day and by producers are rolling on c-span and will get me with the duck of the day. po don't know who the best persn is. i am not worried about that yet. po know everyone wants the next reagan to walk in our room. the next figure who will lead us out of the darkness. i am not worried about it. how have been in 15 cities in a weevery and half. i am thrilled about what i am seeing from the ground. pot is gest cng to happen away s supposed to happen. po have great faith. po have this cross on that everyone knows i where. po have great faith that we are not an accident, this country. this whole thing didn't happen because of a series of coincidencess, these brilliant men who came together a

. >>> from the national museum of nuclear science, pulitzer prize-winning author richard rhodes discusses nuclear disarmament in the post cold war age. this is a little more of an hour. [applause] >> thank you very much. i have been on a book tour for about a month and a half now, so at this point i can't hear out of my last year. my speech may be ragged and i will do my very best. this case it is a wonderful certainly most americans who are about these issues and the technology. i am going to use some slides just as a kind of background. some of it will be familiar to you. so i want to pick up the story of the nuclear age of this last volume does at the end of the cold war. i think during the end of the cold war as a kind of extended version of the cleanup process various countries responded in various and interesting ways to the end of the superpower positioned which polarized the world i think the first sentence of the book begins when the iceberg on the river of history at the end of the cold war and there was a sense of a lot of different individual national issues coming to some res

[applause] >> richard rhodes is the author of over 20 books.book "the making of the atomic bomb" with the recipient of the to surprise in in nonfiction and the national book award for nonfiction. mr. roach is also the host a correspondent of public televisions and there and experience and frontline. for more information, visit richardrhodes.com. >> we are here at the national press club talking with spencer abraham about his book, lights out. can you tell us what some of these solutions are to our energy crisis that you detail in the book? >> i will. as energy secretary i want to seem to work and what i felt was not working. we have a real energy challenge facing america going forward. and i think first we need to increase dramatically the whole nuclear energy place here in united states. right now it is 20% of our power and i think they should be 30% by 2030. we also need to increase the role of renewable energy here in the united states. right now it's wind, solar, biomass, geothermal. these renewables are only about 2% of our energy. we need

richard bennett, jan staples, joyce, alex mooney, massachusetts, michigan, saul anuzis, ron, minnesota, mississippi, missouri, montana, nebraska, nevada, new hampshire, new jersey, new mexico, new york, north carolina, north dakota, ohio, oklahoma, oregon, pennsylvania, puerto rico, rhode island, south carolina, south dakota, tennessee, texas, utah, vermont, burgeon islands, -- virgin islands, virginia, washington. west virginia. , wisconsin, wyoming. thank you, mr. chairman. if you are holding a proxy -- sorry, we already did that. linda harris. >> if there are any other members who have come to the floor, but whose names were not called, please check in with the secretary. we do have a quorum, so we may move lower. we would like to call upon jonah for a report of the proxy committee. >> the proxy committee wanted to assure accuracy. we need a few more minutes. >> ok. we will move on to approval of the agenda. rule number 8-a requires an agenda be mailed to you before the meeting. we will conduct business according to that agenda. hearing no objections, let's proceed. before you is a copy of the minutes from the 2010 summer meeting. we will dispense with meeting -- which reading of these meetings. -- dispensed with the reading of these minutes. the motion passes. i am