Solar Power: Innovation, Sustainability, and Environmental Justice

by Dustin Mulvaney

In this important new primer, Dustin Mulvaney makes a passionate case for the significance of solar power energy and offers a vision for a more sustainable and just solar industry for the future. The solar energy industry has grown immensely over the past several years and now provides up to a fifth of California’s power. But despite its deservedly green reputation, solar development and deployment may have social and environmental consequences, from poor factory labor standards to landscape impacts on wildlife.   Using a wide variety of case studies and examples that trace the life cycle of photovoltaics, Mulvaney expertly outlines the state of the solar industry, exploring the ongoing conflicts between ecological concerns and climate mitigation strategies, current trade disputes, and the fate of toxics in solar waste products. This exceptional overview will outline the industry’s current challenges and possible futures for students in environmental studies, energy policy, environmental sociology, and other aligned fields.

Genres: Environment, Nonfiction

343 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 2, 2019

Reviews

[Sam Love · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mulvaney richly details, with technical specificity, the physical and geographical aspects of solar powered energy. Even seemingly intangible spaces have material underpinnings. and energy and power are important cases of this. He discusses the rare metals needed to produce the components of the panels, the factories where the components are made and assembled before being shipped, and the large swaths of desert landscapes that house solar farms. The “green” cities that solar energy powers cannot be seen in spatial isolation from the deserts where solar farms are located nor the places in the Global South where the necessary components are mined and produced. Many of the same lands used to produce solar energy are public lands and/or lands that belong to indigenous peoples that are offered to private solar energy developers. Mulvaney troubles many of the unquestioned promises of a "green" energy future, such as "green" jobs. I really liked his concept of energy justice. In this book, Mulvaney critically examines solar power, without being written off as simply anti-green/anti-progress/not taking climate change seriously.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent overview of the science, technology, regulatory and financial framework, ecology and sociology of solar power. It covers a lot of territory, and skims in places. But, it's hard to imagine how to go any deeper in a 250 page introduction to the field.

I'm off to order Dustin Mulvaney's next book, Sustainable Energy Transitions: Socio-Ecological Dimensions of Decarbonization.

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good look at various factors affected by the growth of utility scale solar energy, particularly in the context of biodiversity/ecosystem effects and lifecycle assessment, especially as applied to thin film vs. crystalline silicon technologies. Also provides a good synopsis of ARRA investments in solar and a more macro view of the global PV market in the past decade or so. Overall, very interesting and informative. I do wish there was more about distributed and rooftop solar and grid/transmission/distribution. (And at least in the edition I read, there was an unacceptable number of copy and other editing errors.)

[Brianna Duarte · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is phenomenal. It perfectly explains the role solar energy has with the energy transition the US is currently undergoing. Mulvaney explains topics that are not commonly introduced in energy conversations such as environmental justice. It is also evident he has a strong scientific background; he explains the physics, metals, and all the technicalities regarding solar panels very well.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched and written. An important primer.

[Adam C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome book! Only critique would be the title makes it seem like the book will be wide-ranging. However, the book mainly focuses on a series of case studies in the American Southwest funded in part by ARRA.