50 Energy Books

Wind Power: Renewable Energy for Home, Farm, and Business by Paul Gipe Main Points: Wind power ultimately depends upon three key things: wind velocity, rotor length, and air density. Due to the lapse rate, temperature drops by 6.5 degrees Celsius for every kilometer of elevation thus making the pressure decrease, and hence why the air is less dense at higher elevations. The wind velocities mainly an exponential function of height, where the exponent is the shear factor and is 0.14 (1/7) for standard applications, higher for rougher terrain, and lower for smoother terrain. Normally if height increases by 5x, then the power increases by 2x- this is the case behind the company Makani Power (see below). Rotor length is the key consideration as this controls the swept area of the wind turbine. Power is proportional to the square of the turbine blade length, hence why 0.5m turbine blades produce 100 Watts, while 20 meter long blades can produce 3 megawatts. The two most common type...

Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy By Seth Fletcher :Main Points A majority of the world reserves of lithium can be found in South America in Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. Here, the "Lithium Triangle" is home to a large number of salt flats that are rich with lithium- Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia), Salar de Atacama (Chile), and Salar del Hombre Puerto (Argentina). Estimated global lithium reserves and resources are 29.9 million tons and the current  world lithium demand is 16,000 metric tons. Nevada has lithium rich clay residing under more than 80% of the state's federal land. The McDermitt Caldera is one such example of an ancient volcano that collapsed on itself and is home to plenty of  lithium, gallium, uranium, gold, etc. Western Lithium mines heavily here. The future of batteries for electric cars is exciting. The threshold that the US Advanced Battery  Consortium set was $200/kWh for a battery to...

Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era by Amory B. Lovins, founder of Rocky Mountain Institute Main Points: Rocky Mountain Institute is a 501(c) tax-exempt nonprofit whose primary mission is to drive energy efficiency and proper use of material resources. Their $13 million/yr revenue comes from partnerships with private-sector to employ energy efficient standards/integrative design to existing spaces. Reinventing Fire is their thesis to reduce use, modulate demand, and optimize supply of energy to the world before 2050. It focuses on advances in transportation, buildings, industry, and electricity that can help us reduce emissions by 80% and generate $5 trillion in value for the U.S. economy. Transportation: A major point in this book is on the use of single-person auto's. Currently 77% of Americans drive to work in a single-person auto, more than 10x all of the Americans who carpool.  Additionally, trains are 2x cost effective and 5x more fuel e...

Designing Climate Solutions- A Policy Guide to Low Carbon Energy By Hal Harvey, CEO of Energy Innovation (SF based energy-environmental policy firm) with Robbie Orvis and Jeffrey Rissman " Most people in the energy space fall in love. They fall in love with a certain technology- they love nuclear, or they love solar, or they love coal. And they also fall in love with certain types of policy- for example a carbon tax will solve everything, or carbon cap is an evil scheme or what have you. I think falling in love makes you a bad judge, I should know."- H. Harvey Main Points: Hal Harvey is the founder of Climate Works foundation, program director at the Hewlett foundation, and the president and founder of the Energy Foundation. He is also a Heinz award winner for his work with the environment.   Triage- the minimum number of things you have to do to win. How to design energy policy. Most energy policy is decorative policy- it just doesn't make a difference. ...

Energy for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines by Richard A. Muller Main Points: The major energy catastrophes like Fukushima-Daichi and BP Oil Spill have not and should not impact world energy markets/decisions. Fukushima resulted in areas affected with 0.1-2 rem (unit for radiation damage). An area with 25 rem has a 1% chance of developing cancer. Hence 2,500 rem-person is the threshold for danger. By these estimates Fukushima will result in 100-1500 deaths caused by radiation, which is less than deaths caused by the tsunami. Additionally, the BP oil spill resulted in light hydrocarbons evaporating, heavy hydrocarbons (tars) sinking and being consumed by bacteria. The Energy Landscape shapes two key problems for the United States and world: (1) energy security - heavy dependence on liquid energy like oil and (2) global warming- caused by heavy reliance on coal. Incentives for utilities to use strategies like "decoupling plus"- offer subsidies to cu...

The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World By Daniel Yergin Main Points: The book is split up into 5 sections detailing Modern Oil Market, Maintaining the Supply, the Age of Electricity, Climate Change, and the Rebirth of Renewables. The Modern Oil Markets center around developments of the key choke points for world oil supply: the Bosporus, the Malacca Strait, the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Canal, the Strait of Bab El-Mandeb, and the Danish Straits. A significant amount of attention is placed up on the New Great Game between the United States and Russia over control of key oil regions in Central Asia. Yergin notably talks about the Baku oil fields and the Kashagan fields of Kazakhstan and the roles that both US/Russia play in negotiating pipelines to move both west to the Black Sea/Mediterranean Sea or north to Moscow. The Age of Electricity talks about two key innovations that were critical to the development of the modern grid. First was the establish...

The Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified World by Phillip F Schewe Main Points: The development of the American grid follows the stories of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Samuel Insull, and David Lilienthal. Edison pioneered direct current, while Tesla promoted alternate current with his polyphase induction motor. The companies they spurred (General Electric and Westinghouse) became major utilities that shaped our landscape. Samuel Insull was one of the founders of Commonwealth Edison and built one of the largest empires from Chicago to the East Coast. David Lilienthal was the founder of the Tennessee Valley Authority, a New Deal welfare program turned utility, that was unique by design and provided electricity access to the Tennessee region.  The book also explores the impact of deregulation on the electricity markets through a case study of the California deregulatory acts of the 1990's and early 2000's. This puts into play the counteracting and sometim...