Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Stillwater Public Library | 333.79 SCH | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
An 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 which will follow. The author explodes the myth that fossil fuel is cheaper and maps the road towards renewable energy that will create a genuinely sustainable global economy - and the only secure prospects for future prosperity that can be shared worldwide. Scheer's book offers an alternative programme to what he believes is the fruitless and doomed process of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and international negotations to reach a consensus with the existing fossil-fuel lobby.
Author Notes
Dr. Hermann Scheer is a Member of Parliament for the German Government, the Deutscher Bundestag. In addition, he is President of EUROSOLAR, the European Association for Renewable Energies, and General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy. He has been awarded several prizes in recognition of his work and achievements, receiving the Alternative Nobel Prize in 1999, the World Solar Prize in 1998 and the World Prize for BioEnergy in 2000
Reviews (1)
Choice Review
This is the most powerfully written book on the energy situation that this reviewer has ever read. Scheer, a member of Parliament of the German government, is completely aware of both the world energy dilemma and the seemingly helpless maneuvers being attempted to cure the disease. The problem, stated in stark terms, is that a fossil fuel future is unsustainable but that entrenched lobbies have frustrated any meaningful solutions. Scheer tracks the problems through a series of chapters with headings such as "Ensnared by Fossil Supply Chains," "The Mythology of Fossil Energy," "The Profitability of Renewable Energy and Resources," "Exploiting Solar Energy," and so forth. He is most convincing when discussing the supranational conferences and conventions, which, though sounding as if real progress were being made, are really toothless and even counterproductive when confronted with the economic power of the fossil fuel consortia. Highly recommended. All levels of readers. J. C. Comer emeritus, Northern Illinois University
Table of Contents
| List of figures and tables | p. vii |
| Foreword | p. ix |
| Acknowledgements | p. xviii |
| List of acronyms and abbreviations | p. xix |
| Scenario: From fossil fuels to solar power: transforming the global economy | p. 1 |
| The power of the pyromaniacs | p. 5 |
| Fossil resource dependency: how economic processes have come adrift from their environmental and social bases | p. 10 |
| Global competition in place of global environmental policy | p. 12 |
| The origins of the fossil-fuel economy | p. 14 |
| Accelerating change and global displacement | p. 15 |
| Business unbound: cutting loose from nature and society | p. 19 |
| Reconnecting business and society through solar resources | p. 21 |
| From the political to the economic solar manifesto | p. 25 |
| Part I Captivity or Liberation: Fossil Fuel and Solar Supply Chains Compared | |
| Chapter 1 Ensnared by fossil supply chains | p. 37 |
| Long supply chains due to limited resources: the logic of globalization | p. 37 |
| Fossil resource supply chains and industrial concentration: market destruction through market mechanisms | p. 44 |
| The spider in the web: the growing influence of Big Energy and Big Mining | p. 49 |
| The convergence of power: networking, supercartels and the disempowerment of democratic institutions | p. 56 |
| Chapter 2 Exploiting solar resources: the new political and economic freedom | p. 62 |
| The solar supply chain | p. 66 |
| The economic logic of the solar energy supply chain | p. 76 |
| Solar power: technology without technocracy | p. 82 |
| Part II The Pathological Politics of Fossil Resources | |
| Chapter 3 The 21st century writing on the wall: the political cost of fuel and resource conflict | p. 93 |
| A world in denial: the disregard for limited reserves | p. 94 |
| Dwindling reserves versus worldwide growth in demand | p. 103 |
| Arming for the resource conflict | p. 105 |
| Resource reserves, gunboat diplomacy and the moral bankruptcy of society | p. 115 |
| Chapter 4 The distorting effects of fossil supply chains | p. 120 |
| The rise and fall of the fossil city | p. 121 |
| The fossil resource trap closes on the developing world | p. 128 |
| Chapter 5 The mythology of fossil energy | p. 137 |
| Figures of fancy: the inadequacy of conventional energy statistics | p. 139 |
| The inadequacy of energy forecasts | p. 143 |
| The profligate subsidies for conventional energy systems | p. 149 |
| The feigned productivity of nuclear and fossil energy | p. 153 |
| Ideology and the physics of energy | p. 159 |
| The fear of the small scale | p. 166 |
| Part III Throwing off the fossil supply chains | |
| Chapter 6 Energy beyond the grid | p. 173 |
| Wireless power: the potential of solar stand-alone and stand-by technologies | p. 174 |
| The potential for natural and technological solar energy storage | p. 182 |
| Synergistic applications, cross-substitution and all-load micro-power plants | p. 195 |
| The solar technology revolution and the solar information society | p. 201 |
| Chapter 7 The untapped wealth of solar resources | p. 206 |
| The higher productivity of biological materials | p. 209 |
| Replacing fossil with solar resources | p. 218 |
| Solar materials: from agricultural monocultures to polycultures | p. 220 |
| The real biotechnology: materials science, not genetic engineering | p. 225 |
| Chapter 8 The profitability of renewable energy and resources | p. 231 |
| Whose costs? Why solar and fossil resources cannot be compared on the basis of economic efficiency calculations | p. 233 |
| Cost avoidance: economical application of solar resources in a nutshell | p. 237 |
| Part IV Towards a solar economy | |
| Chapter 9 Exploiting solar energy | p. 251 |
| The role of capital allowances--and their problems | p. 253 |
| Tax-exempt status for solar resources: overcoming the legitimacy crisis of environmental taxation | p. 256 |
| Possibilities and problems in the market for green electricity | p. 259 |
| Green suppliers and municipal self-sufficiency | p. 269 |
| Creative destruction in the energy industry and the transformation of the resource industry | p. 276 |
| Hard roads to soft resources | p. 280 |
| Chapter 10 Regionalization of the global economy through solar resources | p. 285 |
| Regionalization effects through solar resources | p. 288 |
| 'Own implementation' versus 'joint implementation': opportunities for the developing world | p. 292 |
| Regionalizing trade flows | p. 296 |
| The sustainable economy: global technology markets, regional commodity markets | p. 301 |
| Trade not talk: beyond the energy industry | p. 308 |
| Chapter 11 The visible hand of the sun: blueprint for a solar world | p. 312 |
| Forwards: towards the primary economy | p. 316 |
| Work and the solar economy | p. 320 |
| From the bounty of the sun to global economic prosperity | p. 323 |
| References | p. 326 |
| Index | p. 341 |
