50 Energy Books

Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air by David MacKay Read the book for free here . Main Points: Society has an addiction to fossil fuels, as the developed world gets 80-90% of our energy from fossil fuels. Why is this not sustainable? Three reasons. Easily accessible fossil fuels is a finite resource, consuming them creates massive carbon dioxide emissions, and our security is determined by our dependence on others for fossil fuels.  Understanding sustainable energy in terms of comprehensible and comparable quantities is rather simple: 1 kWh is one lightbulb for 24 hours. We consume 3kWh/day of food. Our bath is 5 kWh. A liter of petroleum is 10 kWh. If you drive 100 km you use 80 kWh. If you fl then you may use 10,000 kWh.  How fast we use energy? We use 80kWh/day by running a standard North American house.  The average European spends 125 kWh/day The average American spends 250 kWh/day 1 kWh/day ~ 40 Watts Switching off a phone charger for an entire day is the

Consider a Spherical Cow: A Course in Environmental Problem Solving by John Harte Main Points: What is the "spherical cow" joke ? The phrase comes from a joke about theoreticians I first heard as a graduate student. Milk production at a dairy farm was low so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking help from academia. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. Shortly thereafter the farmer received the write-up and opened it to read on the first line: "Consider a spherical cow..." The Approach : The spherical cow approach to problem solving involves the stripping away of unnecessary detail, so that only the essentials remain. Of course, approaching the complex world from the spherical cow perspective