Renewable energy facts and fantasies
Subtitle: the tough realities as revealed in interviews with 25 subject matter experts
By: by Craig Shields
Publisher: Clean Energy Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: La Canada, CA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 314
ISBN-13: 9780615388359
Subjects: Renewable energy sources
Description: "Our civilization's ever-increasing hunger for energy-and its fixation on fossil fuels to provide that energy-is in the process of imploding on itself as our population grows and its demographics change. Yet we live in a world of tough realities, where an elegant solution simply does not exist." 2GreenEnergy founder Craig Shields provides a broad survey of the subject, presenting 25 interviews with the widest possible variety of subject matter specialists-each chosen to provide the reader with an accessible and fair-minded treatment of a particular issue. The technology, the economics, and the politics of renewables form a fantastically complicated calculus that needs to be thoroughly understood if we are to have relevant, informed discussions on this subject-the most important challenge in the history of mankind-the migration to clean and sustainable energy sources.
Notes: Includes index.
Table of contents: title: Tough realities : The political scene ; Peak oil ; Energy and national security ; Global climate change ; National renewable energy laboratory ; Renewables and environmental stewardship - thinking through all the implications ; The carbon war room and free market capitalism ; Using the law to enforce environmental responsibility ; The role of non-government organizations - NGOs; title: Tough realities : The technologies ; Biofuels ; Wind power ; Solar energy - photovoltaics ; Solar thermal - concentrating solar power ; Geothermal ; Hydrokinetics ; Cold fusion ; The sociology of driving ; Hydrogen fuel cells; title: Tough realities : Advocacy, economics and other issues ; Advocating for electric vehicles - plug-in America ; electric transportation and its impacts on our power grid ; Lobbying for electric transportation ; Renewables and clean transportation at the municipal level ; Intelligent energy management in buildings ; Activism and the media in clean energy ; The role of the media in clean energy ; Renewable energy - business and finance ; Renewable energy - another viewpoint on picking stocks; title: Conclusion; title: Epilogue : The gulf oil spill and its impact on renewables; title: App. All the physics that almost everyone needs to know.