Contents:
Botkin objectively assesses the true prospects, limitations, costs, risks, dangers, and tradeoffs associated with every leading and emerging source of energy, including oil, natural gas, coal, hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, solar, ocean power, and biofuels.
Next, Botkin addresses the energy distribution system, outlining how it currently works, identifying its inefficiencies, and reviewing options for improving it. Finally, Botkin turns to solutions, offering a realistic, scientifically and economically viable path to a sustainable, energy-independent future: one that can improve the quality of life for Americans and for people around the world.
His research includes creating the first successful computer simulation in ecology; studies of wilderness and natural parks ecosystems--from the Serengeti Plains of Africa to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area of Minnesota and Isle Royale National Park; threatened and endangered species--whooping cranes, salmon, bowhead and sperm whales, and African elephants. He has published op-ed pieces in many major newspapers concerning global warming, biological diversity, and energy, and more than scientific papers. His recent awards include the Astor Annual Lectureship for Oxford University ; annual distinguished visiting scholar for Green Mountain College, Vermont ; and the Long Beach Aquarium, Long Beach, California, has appointed him its first-ever distinguished visiting scientist for November His degrees are B.
Physics; University of Rochester , M. Literature, University of Wisconsin , and Ph.
Biology, Rutgers University. See All Customer Reviews. Shop Books. Add to Wishlist.
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The Future of Fossil Fuels What can we realistically expect from oil, gas, and coal? About the Author Daniel B. Show More. Average Review. Write a Review.
Arjun Cherevotan received his B. However, researchers have now found a new microbial species that sits between the two branches of life, and which appears to be a living descendent of the last common ancestor of both the simple microbial life-forms and the complex life we see all around us. The first manned space flights were made in early , first by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and then by American astronaut Alan Shepard. USD Courts of appeals District courts Supreme Court. Correspondence to Rakesh Agrawal.
Related Searches. Adobe Acrobat 8 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual. With the rise of the Greek civilization, people heated their homes in the mild winters with charcoal in heaters that were not especially efficient. The charcoal was made from wood, just as it is today. As Greek civilization rose to its heights, energy use increased greatly, both at a per-capita level and for the entire civilization.
By the 5th century B. Early on in ancient Greece, the old and no longer productive trees in olive groves provided much of the firewood, but as standards of living increased and the population grew, demand outstripped this supply.
By the 4th century B. Previously obtained locally, firewood became an important and valuable import. Not surprisingly, around that same time, the Greeks began to build houses that faced south and were designed to capture as much solar energy as possible in the winter but to avoid that much sunlight in the summer.
Because the winter sun was lower in the sky, houses could be designed to absorb and store the energy from the sun when it was at a lower angle but less so from the sun at a higher angle. Trees and shrubs helped. The same thing happened later in ancient Rome, but technology had advanced to the point that homes of the wealthy were centrally heated, and each burned about pounds of wood every hour that the heating system ran.
At first they used wood from local forests and groves, but soon the Romans, like the Greeks before them, were importing firewood.
Buy Powering the Future: A Scientist's Guide to Energy Independence (FT Press Science) on giuliettasprint.konfer.eu ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders. Editorial Reviews. Review. Botkin gathered his calculations and analyses and checked them Powering the Future: A Scientist's Guide to Energy Independence (FT Press Science) 1st Edition, Kindle Edition. by .. This book is well written, and easy to read for those who fear science-based topics. I wish the author would.
And again like the Greeks before them, they eventually turned to the sun. By then, once again, the technology was better; they even had glass windows, which, as we all know, makes it warmer inside by stopping the wind and by trapping heat energy through the greenhouse effect. Some argue today that we should become energy minimalists and energy misers, that it is sinful and an act against nature to use any more than the absolute minimum amount of energy necessary for bare survival. But looking back, it is relatively straightforward to make the case that civilizations rise when energy is abundant and fall when it becomes scarce.
It is possible although on thinner evidence to argue that in the few times that democracy has flourished in human civilizations, it has done so only when energy was so abundant as to be easily available to most or all citizens. As a result, in this book I argue for changes in where and how we get and use energy, but I do not argue that we should become energy minimalists or energy misers. On the contrary, I think we need to learn how to use as much energy as we can find in ways that do not destroy our environment, do not deplete our energy sources, and do not make it unlikely that our civilization will continue and flourish in the future.