Book Description

As the energy market restructures into a significantly more competitive industry, many energy companies are considering distributed generation (DG) as part of a new customer-focused corporate strategy. Chambers, et al cover the technologies associated with DG including diesel engines, gas-fired internal combustion generator sets, fuel cell systems, micro-turbines, and photovoltaic systems in easy-to-understand language. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Thorough, Completely Clear Presentation of the Sector
This book by Ann Chambers depicts the growing Distributed Generation Energy industry with an impressive and wide-ranging command of the facts but with little in the way of hard-to-understand "under the hood" technical lingo. Effects of this burgeoning technology is documented for both the national and international markets; case studies describe the relative successes of DG installation. I cannot think of a better way to start -- as a company owner, as an investor, as a policymaker -- to begin than with this book.

Energizing...
Chambers, Schnoor and Hamilton have put together a concise non-technical book on some very technical issues.

Their research is detailed, accurate and extensive. The book is well written.

In these days of rapid change in power generation technology, this book will be outdated within 10 years, though the issues raised here will not be.

Regardless, it's a great read full of great information on a subject that is important to us all. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Heath Robinson Junior edition!
I can't think of a better book for young kids who love pulleys and other mechanical gadgets. This is not just about science (though it's lurking in the wings), nor about push-button machines which seem to do everything by magic.

Each double-spread forms one scene, showing the character describing his actions, and including notes on the actions of the various mechanisms he has set up to get up, get dressed, and catapult himself to the shops...yes, the gadgets ARE the plot, and for the kids who really love this stuff, they're probably the "love interest" as well!

If your house wasn't already festooned with strange string pulleys and gadgets, it soon will be -- the illustrations are detailed and attractive, in big, clear spreads flooded with color.

The perpetrator of all this Newtonian motion is "Harry Newton", who provides a brief speech-bubble narration to accompany the pictures. He won't tell you where to find the screwdrivers though... ... Read more

Book Description

Ballonoff maintains that energy is a manufactured product and will be produced as needed with no possibility of every running out. ... Read more

Book Description

From the solitary windmill standing sentry over a rural homestead to the sleek machinery of a modern wind farm, windmills are a powerful symbol of self-reliance and human ingenuity. Once the province of backyard tinkerers and eccentric inventors, they have over the past two decades entered the mainstream to be embraced by environmentalists, venture capitalists, and policymakers alike. But reaching that point wasn't easy.

In Reaping the Wind, journalist Peter Asmus tells the fascinating and convoluted history of commercial wind power in the United States. He introduces readers to maverick scientists and technologists who labored in obscurity, to entrepreneurs and visionary capitalists who believed that a centuries-old idea could be made feasible in the modern world, and to enterprising financial advisers and investors who sought to exploit the last great tax shelter in federal history. Beginning with the early pioneers, from William Heronemus, a former U.S. Navy captain who dreamt of huge floating wind farms off the coast of New England, to the $40 million success story of Jim Dehlsen of Zond, he offers an animated narrative that profiles the colorful cast of characters involved with the development of the American wind power industry.

Reaping the Wind is both engaging and instructive, with information about the technologies and policies that drive the industry and give it promise interwoven with the human story of the struggle to develop-against great odds-reliable, clean energy from a source as unpredictable and seemingly uncontrollable as the wind. Anyone interested in renewable energy or the human and political drama behind the development of new technologies will find the book an engrossing and enlightening read. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Adequate overview of early windpower industry.
The author did a good job of explaining how the wind energy industry in America got it's start in California, the start-up troubles, and the key issues important to making wind energy a viable alternative energy source. On the downside, I thought the book included too much information, and sometimes left the reader wondering how certain sideline stories fit in with the rest of the book. There were so many people mentioned & referenced, that I couldn't keep up with who did what when.

A Blow-By-Blow Account Of Wind Engineering Pioneers
You've got to really want to know about the history of wind power to take on this book. The author does an exceptional job of chronicalling all the characters and woodsy folklore of the wind power industry for the last three decades or so. It's a narrow subject, but for anyone interested in how we got where we are in the field of renewable energy, this is it. (Why do they call it "renewable"? Forest products are renewable, but wind?). A couple of pictures would have been fun. By and large a very unique book.

How to Clean the Air and Reduce Energy Costs
Peter Asmus is a sensitive, and involved, observer of the 20-year struggle to make wind energy a valuable energy resource. This book describes the soaring victories and crashing defeats, with the personalities of the people adding more than enough color and life. Here are the words of one wind industry promoter who made the transition from dreamer to bank-financed developer without losing his pony-tail: "Kudos, and more kudos. You cut through all of our industry's bulls--t with wit and candor, and injected living, breathing humanity into a story of technology. Injecting your own personality, as well. Despite the obvious that no one can ever tell the true story as it happened, you have done a remarkable job in bringing the wind industry's evolution to life, and the future of American, no, global, society, rests in your readers' understanding of the lessons from your brilliant history of our industry." Wind energy is now harnessed with modern machines in 23 states of the US. As we teeter on the edge of another energy crisis, this books describes what some people are doing about to improve the health and security of all people. The beauty of this book is its invitation for everyone to choose the direction for the future. ... Read more

Book Description

Sustainable Assessment Method for Energy Systems providesthe reader with a new method for energy system evaluation. It iswidely recognized that future energy strategies will have to deal withenergy as a complex issue that incorporates environmental, economic,social, cultural, educational, and material resource attributes.Sustainable Assessment Method for Energy Systems offers anew methodology based on multi-criteria indicators for the evaluationof energy as a system. ... Read more

Book Description

* Empowering decision makers by setting the vision for a new approach to energy systems and providing the tools and plans to achieve these objectives

* Provides specific and actionable public policy and programme tools

* Help solve energy issues worldwide by illustrating how the lessons learned from the California energy crisis can be used to create an agile energy system for any region in a country

Due to the recent catastrophic energy system failures in California along with those in the North-Eastern US and Southern Canada, London, and Italy, the time has come to proclaim the failure of deregulation, privatization or liberalization and propose a new energy system. This book shows in the first section, how five precipitating forces led to the deregulation debacle in California: (1) major technological changes and commercialization, (2) regulatory needs mismatched to societal adjustments, (3) inadequate and flawed economic models, (4) lack of vision, goals, and planning leading to energy failures, and (5) failure and lack of economic regional development.

The second half of the book examines how "civic market", new economic models, and planning for a sustainable economic environment counteracted these five forces to create an "agile energy system". This system is based on renewable energy generation, hybrid or combined and distributed generation technologies. Such an agile system can be a new paradigm for both energy efficiency and reliability for any region or country, in contrast to the brittle centralized energy grid systems created by deregulation. Furthermore, the book overviews how the future of energy systems rests in the emerging "clean" hydrogen economy.

* Empowering decision makers by setting the vision for a new approach to energy systems and providing the tools and plans to achieve these objectives
* Provides specific and actionable public policy and programme tools
* Helping to solve energy issues worldwide by illustrating how the lessons learned from the California energy crisis can be used to create an "agile energy system" for any region or country ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Good Orientation for Non-Engineers
Good and thorough orientation to utility planning for the non-practitioner.Decent encyclopedic review for a current or former planner.This book is a must read for the vast majority of decision makers in and around utilities that come from generation, legal, accounting, or other backgrounds.

The text is poorly edited with hundreds of typograpical and grammatical errors, and one instance of a complete paragraph printed twice.For $165 per copy, we should expect much better editing. ... Read more

Book Description

During the past year, energy prices have fluctuated wildly, from historic highs in the winter and spring to the lowest wholesale prices in decades a few short months later. As the largest user of fossil-fuel energy, the United States is the key player in the world's energy markets, and our nation's energy policy (or lack thereof) has become a subject of increasing concern.

Energy: Science, Policy, and the Pursuit of Sustainability is an essential primer on energy, society, and the environment. It offers an accessible introduction to the "energy problem" - its definition, analysis, and policy implications. Current patterns of energy use are without question unsustainable over the long term, and our dependence on fossil fuels raises crucial questions of security and self-sufficiency. This volume addresses those questions by examining the three broad dimensions of the issue: physical, human, and political-economic. Chapters consider:

• the laws of nature and the impacts of energy use on our physical and ecological life-support systems
• the psychological, social, and cultural factors that determine how we use energy
• the role of government actions in adjusting costs, influencing resource consumption, and protecting the environment
• how markets work, and the reasons and cures for market failures in responding to long-term environmental and energy problems

Book Description

* A realistic vision of economic growth without fossil fuels

* Maps the road to universal use of renewable energy

* Author awarded Alternative Nobel Prize

A powerful and comprehensive account of how the global economy can and must replace its dependence on fossil fuels with solar and renewable energy - and the enormous and multiple benefits that will follow.

The author shows how current technological change and economic growth is literally sending our future prospects up in smoke. He explodes the myth that fossil energy is "cheaper" and maps the dynamic road towards renewable energy that will create a genuinely sustainable global economy, and with it the only secure prospects for future prosperity that can be shared worldwide.

His book offers an alternative program to the fruitless and doomed process of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and international negotiations to reach a consensus with the existing fossil-fuel lobby. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK OF THE 21st CENTURY
Hermann Scheer has written the most important book of the 21st Century. Yes, that's right -- either we follow this path to a sustainable future, or it is the path not taken as we head into a cycle of civilizational decline, chaos and devastation. The #1 priority in the U.S. right now is regime change -- the Bush/Cheney Regime is dead-set against renewable energy. But in the medium term, a rapid shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, centered on solar energy, is humanity's #1 priority. Scheer has masterfully critiqued the fossil fuel status quo and outlined what needs to be done in this powerful, technically-based, yet compelling manifesto for change. This is one book on energy that will not put you to sleep!

There is far too much here to summarize, but here are a few critical points:

1) The conventional wisdom that says solar and other renewables are too expensive are systematically biased by both the current massive subsidies for fossil fuels and what is left out in calculating the cost of fossil fuels. All it will take to drive down the cost of PV (photovoltaic solar) is ramping up production. Of course massive investment in R&D is also urgently needed to realize greater efficiency. (Scheer is well-equipped for this analysis -- his Ph.D. is in economics.)

2) Fossil fuels of necessity require long supply chains, as they do not occur everywhere, and this entails both inefficiency and higher cost. Solar, wind, biomass and other renewables can be developed locally just about anywhere -- solar energy in principle needs no supply chain at all. The development of a decentralized renewable energy system globally will, in addition to being environmentally sustainable, ultimately be much cheaper than the current centralized fossil fuel system.

3) The battle is already on -- Scheer (an SPD Member of Parliament in Germany) and others have successfully passed legislation in Germany and elsewhere mandating that the electricity grid buy power from locally generated renewable sources. This is a revolutionary reform that has yet to be realized in the U.S., but it is coming, with wind power leading the way. (Howard Geller's "Energy Revolution" is an excellent guide to policy change in the U.S. -- see my review.) Do not believe any sweeping claim about the costs and benefits of renewable energy -- increasing numbers of us can benefit starting now, but there will clearly be losers, and that will include the powerful fossil fuel corporations that don't join the process (BP and Shell are already starting to hedge their bets). It is going to be a fight, a revolution as sweeping as any yet in human existence, comparable only to the shift to agriculture and the shift to industrial manufacturing.

What is needed is a mass movement that works on all levels to bring about the change. Hermann Scheer's "The Solar Economy" is the manifesto and guide for this movement. For the moment, Europe is clearly in the lead. We in the U.S. need to catch up quickly and start to build a new front inside the U.S. Leviathan -- planetary change will not work if the U.S., the 3rd most populous country and the largest consumer of energy and everything else, does not join the process.

With the Hubbert Peak for oil coming no later than 2020 time is short -- if we want to demonstrate that having evolved such large brains is really an advantage, we have to start using them. The future is clear -- it's either barbarism or a solar economy! ... Read more

Book Description

Our Future is Hydrogen provides evidence that we have no choice but to find an alternative to fossil fuels. The planet is running out of fossil fuels and an alternative fuel is mandatory. The burning of fossil fuels creates pollution such as carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming. If global warming continues, it will cause severe weather changes that will cause billions of dollars of damage each year.

Hydrogen provides a solution to both dilemmas. The book gives the history of hydrogen and why the auto manufacturers and oil companies realize that this will be the fuel of the future. The hydrogen infrastructure, fuel cells, safety, and practical application are also discussed along with its current status and the process on how the transition will take place. Finally, other alternative fuels are compared with hydrogen, and one can only conclude that hydrogen is the best of all the alternatives. Initially, hydrogen will be produced with the aid fossil fuels and eventually it will be produced entirely with solar means. ... Read more

Book Description

Energy Reduction Through Improved Maintenance Practices offers easy-to-read, practicalguidelines on how to reduce energy costs by improving the maintenance process.It carefully examines how ineffective maintenance practices adversely affect energy consumption and suggests practical strategies and solutions to use in overcoming these inefficiencies. Energy savings are calculated in each of the book's nine sections and supported with actual case studies.

Both practitioners and non-practitioners interested in internal cost reduction strategies will find this book an essential reference for achieving real energy cost savings through new methods of energy cost reduction and a reduction in equipment failure. This book will also appeal to energy managers and maintenance practitioners who are looking for new ways to save costs without large capital outlay. ... Read more

Book Description

Wave energy, together with other renewable energy resources is expected to provide a small but significant proportion of future energy requirements without adding to pollution and global warming.

This practical and concise reference considers alternative application methods, explains the concepts behind wave energy conversion and investigates wave power activities across the globe.

Explores the potential of using the power generated by waves as a natural energy resource

Considers the power transfer systems needed to do this, and looks at the environmental impacts ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Wave energy conversion
I would advise people to steer well clear of this book. It is a total waste of money and better reading can be obtained on the internet for free (eg. the european thematic network on wave energy conversion pdf file.). I am currently doing a project on wave enrgy conversion and i thought this book would be helpful.
The book contains poor information on the economics of wave energy conversion and very poor pictures of devices. If you buy this book you will end up returning it. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The only comprehensive guide to power plant permitting.
This book from two industry experts is a practical guide on how to successfully navigate the maze of the power plant permitting process from conception to licensing.It provides an overview of the elements required by regulatory agencies which have to be examined, researched, and studied as part of the process of building a new plant or retrofitting an existing plant.The specific details of the environmental requirements vary by locality, however, the overall scope of the process is consistent: site selection, baseline characterization, systems analysis, impacts of construction and operation, and design alternatives.Each of these steps is examined in detail, the applicable regulatory criteria summarized and permitting strategies with real life examples are presented ... Read more

Book Description

How is the future world energy demand to be met? The rates of use of the fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas — are increasing all over the world. The remaining stocks are finite and are not renewable. This important book considers the various options of renewable energy, including water energy, wind energy and biomass, solar thermal and solar photovoltaic energy. And should the nuclear option remain open? The book examines the environmental implications and economic viability of all fossil and renewable sources, introduces more distant future options of geothermal energy and nuclear fusion, and discusses a near-future energy strategy. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Oil, Gas, Coal, Wind, Waves, Solar, Nuclear, Geothermal....
Comprehensive but very readable review of World Energy Resources both old (Oil, Gas, Coal) and new (Wind, Solar, Nuclear).

Gets you up to speed on one of the most important issues of the 21st century - the dwindling resources and increasing demand for Fuel and Energy.

Oil, Gas, Coal, Wind, Waves, Solar, Nuclear, Geothermal....
Energy Studies (W. Shepherd and D.W. Shepherd) is a
>>Comprehensive and very readable<< review of the state of WORLD ENERGY RESOURCES,
both old (Oil, Natural Gas, Coal)
and new (Solar, Nuclear, etc).

Did you know:
- Britain could supply 15% of all energy needs with Windfarms?
- The USA will run out of oil in 8 yrs if it stops importing?
- Australia holds the world's greatest Uranium deposits?
- They've been trying for 50 years to build a Fusion reactor?
-

Get up to speed with probably THE most important issue of the 21st Century, the decreasing supply and increasing demand for Energy Resources. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Revoking the Implied Consent
Jeane Manning does an excellent job of bringing technically esoteric material to within reach of the average person. That has always been Jeane's genius. ... There are serious problems in our energy sector but none of those lie with the inventors.

Since the formation of the monopolies the energy innovation socket interface capabilities have atrophied so as to be non-existent. The energy innovation pipeline has been plugged for some 80 years and courageous journalists like Jeane Manning are doing the dirty job of unplugging it. The public has been duped and consequently affords these special interests an implied consent. Its time to revoke that implied consent and move on to our clean and cheap energy birthright.

The Hilary Burtons would have us believe that the Enron's of the world are doing what's best for us all and the environment.

Martin J. Burger...

Great Book!!
If I could give more then 5 stars I would. I loved this book. All those other people who gave this book less then 5 stars are crazy!! What planet are you from?? Cause here on Mars this book is a great hit. I just wanted all you Earthlings to know that!

Informative
Great book! I've researched "free energy" for more than 22 years myself and this was the 1st book I could give to friends to explain the whole scene to them. It gives the history, like Tesla, Moray, Reich, Schauberger, and it shows you how big (and growing fast) the New Energy field is today. It also gives enough information for the researcher to direct his or her interests to the inventor that they wish to focus and further their attention on. This would save the researcher alot of time, as Jeane Manning has done all of the foot work for you in this book.

sucks -- seen too many x-files episodes
too many conspiracy theories and not enough on why the "pioneers" of the new-energy field haven't had their experiments reproduced.

i had high hopes for this book, but it turned out to be downright annoying to read. in the latest incarnation of the "energy crisis", a solid book on the next big thing in energy is needed -- this one ain't it.

Ms. Manning has overlooked someone....
Having read Ms. Manning's book, it is obvious that she has somehow managed to overlook perhaps the most important pioneer and innovator of what she calls the "free energy" movement:

JOSEPH W. NEWMAN

It is incredible to me that she could write such a book without including Joseph Newman's long struggle to bring forth his revolutionary technology. Writing such a book without featuring the work of Joseph Newman is as ridiculous as writing a book about the history of aviation and omitting any reference to the Wright Brothers.

I would suggest that she view his website videos at:... and perhaps she would discover the essential nature of his successful and innovative technology.

Gary ... Read more

Book Description

In the decade since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the response of the world's governments and authorities to the threats to the global environment has been to enforce the reduction of energy consumption and harmful emissions -- solutions primarily based around conventional energy resources and conventional thinking. The question is, though, whether this strategy is radical enough to address the key challenges now facing the environment, and whether it can be effective in avoiding catastrophe on a global scale. For Herman Scheer, the answer is a definite no. In this fully updated edition, he once more attacks the lack of political will to find answers outside of the conventional frame of reference. Climate change, pollution, deforestation, destruction of the ozone layer, poverty and the population explosion are all problems created or exacerbated by the use of conventional energy. A decade after the first edition of this book, answers are now more urgently required than ever, as current policies serve merely to alleviate the escalating symptoms rather than find a cure for what could become a terminal affliction.Herman Scheer shows that this crisis may yet be reversed – but that this can only happen through a fundamental change in political and economic strategies, paving the way towards a global solar energy economy sustained by new social principles. This book champions the replacement of fossil and nuclear fuels with solar energy as a real solution to the threat to the environment and associated social consequences. Scheer constructs a radical yet innovative political and economic model and argues the case with passion and conviction for the global solar economy as the route to a sustainable environment. ... Read more