Switching to Solar

Switching to Solar

Author: Bob Johnstone

Publisher: Prometheus Books

Published: 2011-11-29

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 1616142707

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The looming threat of global warming may be the greatest challenge of the present generation. Confronted by the potential of such a massive worldwide calamity, the average citizen often wonders what he or she can do.In this inspiring and optimistic story of a green revolution in the making, veteran science and technology journalist Bob Johnstone shows how the unrelenting efforts of a small band of grassroots activists have discovered ways to make solar a practical retail energy solution. The crucial driver for the adoption of solar energy has not been technology but policy. Focusing on initiatives in Germany, he describes the use of the feed-in tariff as the most successful policy mechanism yet invented to spur on widespread deployment of solar energy.Turning to California, Johnstone reviews the efforts of policy wonks to create new schemes to make solar affordable at the municipal level. Pioneers in both tree-hugging Berkeley and golf-playing Palm Desert have united in common cause, and other towns and cities are planning to follow suit. As with other emerging trends, as California goes so goes the rest of the country.Concluding with a positive view of the future, Johnstone describes the creativity of many startups fueled by venture capital. Innovation is being applied to every part of the process, from silicon production to financing and installation. The details may still be uncertain, but there's no doubt that the solar revolution is underway.Bob Johnstone (Melbourne, Australia) is the author of Brilliant!: Shuji Nakamura and the Revolution in Lighting Technology; We Were Burning: Japanese Entrepreneurs and the Forging of the Electronic Age; and Never Mind the Laptops: Kids, Computers, and the Transformation of Learning. He has also contributed numerous articles on technology to Forbes, Nature, New Scientist, MIT Technology Review, Wired, and the Far Eastern Economic Review.


Regulating to Disaster

Regulating to Disaster

Author: Diana Furchtgott-Roth

Publisher: Encounter Books

Published: 2012-09-25

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 1594036179

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What is a “green job” anyway? Few can adequately define one. Even the government isn’t sure, you will learn in these pages. Still, President Obama and environmentalist coalitions such as the BlueGreen Alliance claim the creation of green jobs can save America’s economy, and are worth taxpayers’ investment. But in Regulating to Disaster, Diana Furchtgott-Roth debunks that myth. Instead, energy prices rise dramatically and America’s economic growth and employment rate suffer — in some states much more than others — when government invests in nonviable ventures such as the bankrupted Solyndra, which the Obama Administration propped up far too long. Electric cars, solar energy, wind farms, biofuels: President Obama’s insistence on these dubious pursuits ultimately hamstrings American businesses not deemed green enough, and squeezes struggling households with regulations. Adding insult to injury: the technology subsidies Americans pay for solar panels, wind turbines, and electric batteries really help create manufacturing jobs in China and South Korea. Green jobs are the most recent reappearance of a perennial bad idea — government regulation of certain industries, designed to anoint winners and losers in the marketplace. Regulating to Disaster reveals the powerful nexus of union leaders, environmentalists, and lobbyists who dreamed up these hoaxes, and benefit politically and financially from green jobs policies. Unfortunately, there are more Solyndras on the horizon, and our economy is in no shape to absorb them.


Renewable Electricity Generation

Renewable Electricity Generation

Author: Benjamin Zycher

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 81

ISBN-13: 0844772224

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This volume examines the outlook for renewable energy in electricity generation-particularly wind and solar power-as a substitute for conventional fuels such as coal and natural gas. Economist Benjamin Zycher evaluates the central arguments in favor of policies that would make way for broader use of renewables and concludes that all are deeply problematic. "Renewable" energy sources are not superior in cost to conventional fuels; nor are they less taxing on the environment. The popular argument that increased use of renewables will create "green jobs" is likewise a fallacy-because wind and solar power are costly and inefficient, the net economic impact is a negative one. Zycher concludes that resource-use behaviors emerging from market competition are the best guides to effective, sustainable energy policies.


Renewable Energy Law

Renewable Energy Law

Author: Penelope Crossley

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-11-28

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 1107185769

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Provides the first scholarly and comprehensive book on the national renewable energy laws of every country that has them (113 countries).