50 Energy Books

Power Loss: The Origins of Deregulation and Restructuring in the American Utility System By Richard F. Hirsh Main Points: Richard Hirsh got into energy consumption when he was working with Virginia legislators for the state. Wanted to discover the link between economic growth and electricity- do we need to build more powerplants? The power companies have been saying that growth in electricity has coincided with growth in GDP since the end of WWII. He has a masters in physics and a PhD in the History of Science. Growth in Energy Consumption was a positive trend of American culture from 10 quads in 1900 to about 70 quads in 2000. Gross national product have increased with energy consumption hand-in-hand. Economic growth was a good thing- more jobs, higher material standards, reflective superiority of a market economy. GDP/GNP became proxies for prosperity, abundance, superiority, and progress.  School of cultural anthropology arose in the 1940's from the work of Leslie Wh

Storms of My Grandchildren by James Hansen, Nasa Goddard physicist       Most famous for his 1988 Congressional testimony on climate change. History of James Hansen: Grew up as a tenant farmer and attended University of Iowa under the supervision of Professor Van Allen who built instruments for the first US satellites. There was intense microwave radiation on Venus : did this mean that Venus had an ionosphere or was Venus very hot? The Soviet Venera spacecraft was that Venus was 900 degrees Fahrenheit that was kept hot by a thick CO2 atmosphere.  Hansen became the PI of a mission to Venus that took a picture of Venus' sulfuric smog. Shortly thereafter, Hansen resigned on the Venus experiment and focused on Earth's climate change. In 1981, he published an article in Science  magazine that 0.4 degree Celsius warming was consistent with the increase in CO2. And that the increase would continue and be greater than the noise of changing weather. (" Climate Im

Megawatts and Megatons by Richard L. Garwin and Georges Charpak Main Points: Georges Charpak won the 1992 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber".  Richard L. Garwin is the author of the first hydrogen bomb design. Purpose of the book: indicate where we are and where we might be in the case of nuclear power supplying power to society. Taking into account other sources of energy and taking into account safety, economy, etc. History :  1934, Enrico Fermi found radioactivity when they investigated uranium with slow neutron capture. In 1938 they had discovered fission of uranium, with energy 30x that of regular radioactive decay. The dream of Leo Szilard of 1932 was in sight when they realized that an absorption of a neutron resulted into the emission of several neutrons. You could have a neutron chain reaction.  First application of nuclear fission was achieved in 1945 whe

From Edison to Enron: The Business of Power and What It Means for the Future of Electricity by Richard Munson Main Points: The United States electric grid currently faces several problems: deregulation vs. regulated monopolies, distributed generation vs. central generation and distribution, wastage/leakage, and political barriers to adopting new technologies. From Edison to Enron  takes us through the famous battles in the electric grid's founding: Westinghouse/Tesla vs. Edison, Samuel Insull vs. George Norris/FDR, and more.  Interesting to note that J.P. Morgan played a critical role in the leadership and control of the major initial utilities General Electric and Consolidated Edison. For General Electric, J.P. Morgan removed Thomas Edison from the company by forcing a merger between the Edison Electric company and Thomson-Houston, adopting AC current, and formally creating General Electric. In the case of Consolidated Edison, after the 1931 panic when the United Kingdo