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Cool energy: The renewable solution to global warming
Book reviews
are strong and positive. They show children working hard in bad situations, brave and cheerful as children everywhere are, even when times are dreadful. This book can be used for second-year and university courses, and would make a good gift to an intelligent, enquiring adult who can get past the cover illustration, It is hoped that Timberlake and Thomas
are given attention when money is allocated by government ministries, but this is a faint hope in these stringent and condemnatory times.
R~newabi~ energy sources COOL ENERGY: THE RENEWABLE SOLUTION TO GLOBAL WARMING by Michael Brewer Union of Concerned Scientists, Cambridge, MA, 1990, 89 pp, $4.95 In keeping with the title, the author first discusses the environmental problems inherent in our current reliance on fossil fuels. The principal causes of global warming are outlined, followed by a brief discussion of possible strategies to slow the process, including energy efficiency, use of nuclear power, and renewable energy sources. The bulk of this short text is devoted to a discussion of four renewable energy sources: solar, wind, biomass, and hydroelectric power. For each source, the author provides an easy-to-understand description of the technical aspects, as well as a systematic analysis of its potential for exploitation, and the stumbling blocks impeding its more rapid development. Under separate headings, the technologies, economics, environmental impacts, and near-term prospects of each source are elaborated. A concluding chapter draws together the threads of the basic treatise that renewable energy sources have great potential, but suffer from market barriers, in&ding the current adverse economic climate, and lack of federal support. Several policy recommendations focusing on improving government support of renewable energy sources are presented in the conclusion. These recommendations include: a revenueneutral package of federal renewable GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENTAL
energy tax credits; taxes on fossil-fuel ~ons~lm~tion to fund research and development of renewable sources; modification of electric utility regulations to factor in social and environmental costs of energy technologies; government purchase of renewable energy technologies for its own facilities; and expansion of government efforts to encourage exports. The author takes an optimistic view of the role renewable energy sources could play in reducing the negative impacts of fossil-fuel use. While the negatives of renewable energy sources are outlined, the pervasive impression is one of a positive renewable future.
In this, the author expounds the highest potential of these sources, rather than the likely level of their adoption. The text is well written, and liberally sprinkled with statistics. It packs a great deal of information into a small space. The discussion is supplemented with well designed tables and figures, though these could benefit from further discussion, and better placement of the reference in the text. Overall, this book would be an excellent first reader or text on renewable energy. It touches on most of the basic technological, economic, and environmental aspects of the four sources discussed, and interweaves the policy issues inherent in the development of each. The globaf warming issue, played up in the title, is not equally supported by the book’s content. Unfortunately, this could lead to disappointment fur those seeking global warming material, and oversight by those interested in the basics of renewable energy sources.
Susan Macey Department of Geography and ~je~#~ng S~fb~esf Texas State ~~j~ers~fy San Marcos, TX, USA
Encyclopaedia for world
WORLD RESOURCES, 1990-91 A Report by The World Resources Institute, in collaboration with The United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations development Programme (Editor in Chief, Dr Allen L. Hammond)
This remarkable, encyclopaedic volume, of close to 400 000 words and numbers, is the work of several hundred experts in the broad fietd of the world environment, covering many disciplines. It is itself a world resource
CHANGE
December
1991
in the field of human knowledge, and will be an ~ndispensabie asset to anyone working on global problems. This volume has a special focus on climate change, and on Latin America, but it still covers the whole world very effectively. It carries a powerful message of alarm about the magnitude and especially the rapidity of the changes that the human race is imposing on its planet, but it is also carries a message of hope, and gives many examples of human activity directed towards the resolution of the environmental problems. The book opens with a succinct introductory chapter on the world environment a&look, followed by two 417
are strong and positive. They show children working hard in bad situations, brave and cheerful as children everywhere are, even when times are dreadful. This book can be used for second-year and university courses, and would make a good gift to an intelligent, enquiring adult who can get past the cover illustration, It is hoped that Timberlake and Thomas
are given attention when money is allocated by government ministries, but this is a faint hope in these stringent and condemnatory times.
R~newabi~ energy sources COOL ENERGY: THE RENEWABLE SOLUTION TO GLOBAL WARMING by Michael Brewer Union of Concerned Scientists, Cambridge, MA, 1990, 89 pp, $4.95 In keeping with the title, the author first discusses the environmental problems inherent in our current reliance on fossil fuels. The principal causes of global warming are outlined, followed by a brief discussion of possible strategies to slow the process, including energy efficiency, use of nuclear power, and renewable energy sources. The bulk of this short text is devoted to a discussion of four renewable energy sources: solar, wind, biomass, and hydroelectric power. For each source, the author provides an easy-to-understand description of the technical aspects, as well as a systematic analysis of its potential for exploitation, and the stumbling blocks impeding its more rapid development. Under separate headings, the technologies, economics, environmental impacts, and near-term prospects of each source are elaborated. A concluding chapter draws together the threads of the basic treatise that renewable energy sources have great potential, but suffer from market barriers, in&ding the current adverse economic climate, and lack of federal support. Several policy recommendations focusing on improving government support of renewable energy sources are presented in the conclusion. These recommendations include: a revenueneutral package of federal renewable GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENTAL
energy tax credits; taxes on fossil-fuel ~ons~lm~tion to fund research and development of renewable sources; modification of electric utility regulations to factor in social and environmental costs of energy technologies; government purchase of renewable energy technologies for its own facilities; and expansion of government efforts to encourage exports. The author takes an optimistic view of the role renewable energy sources could play in reducing the negative impacts of fossil-fuel use. While the negatives of renewable energy sources are outlined, the pervasive impression is one of a positive renewable future.
In this, the author expounds the highest potential of these sources, rather than the likely level of their adoption. The text is well written, and liberally sprinkled with statistics. It packs a great deal of information into a small space. The discussion is supplemented with well designed tables and figures, though these could benefit from further discussion, and better placement of the reference in the text. Overall, this book would be an excellent first reader or text on renewable energy. It touches on most of the basic technological, economic, and environmental aspects of the four sources discussed, and interweaves the policy issues inherent in the development of each. The globaf warming issue, played up in the title, is not equally supported by the book’s content. Unfortunately, this could lead to disappointment fur those seeking global warming material, and oversight by those interested in the basics of renewable energy sources.
Susan Macey Department of Geography and ~je~#~ng S~fb~esf Texas State ~~j~ers~fy San Marcos, TX, USA
Encyclopaedia for world
WORLD RESOURCES, 1990-91 A Report by The World Resources Institute, in collaboration with The United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations development Programme (Editor in Chief, Dr Allen L. Hammond)
This remarkable, encyclopaedic volume, of close to 400 000 words and numbers, is the work of several hundred experts in the broad fietd of the world environment, covering many disciplines. It is itself a world resource
CHANGE
December
1991
in the field of human knowledge, and will be an ~ndispensabie asset to anyone working on global problems. This volume has a special focus on climate change, and on Latin America, but it still covers the whole world very effectively. It carries a powerful message of alarm about the magnitude and especially the rapidity of the changes that the human race is imposing on its planet, but it is also carries a message of hope, and gives many examples of human activity directed towards the resolution of the environmental problems. The book opens with a succinct introductory chapter on the world environment a&look, followed by two 417