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10 Short Lessons in Renewable Energy
'[An] impressively comprehensive, concise introduction to the biggest challenge facing us all - how to get our act together to keep our only planet habitable, for ourselves, our descendants and the living nature we depend on.' Walt Patterson
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'"Energy" might be a short word, but it's a very big subject, and indeed one of the most important facing our world today. Understanding the ins and outs of how we make the transition to clean energy is a vital modern competence. Stephen Peake provides a top briefing. Informative, accessible and comprehensive, it is a must read for anyone interested in the future of our planet.' Tony Juniper CBE
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'The author says it all in his "Renewable energy powered our lives long before fossil fuels and will do so long after." As successive nations and corporations commit to net zero, the idea of getting our useful work done using clean non-depleting resources is of paramount importance. This witty, wide-ranging yet succinct guide provides a whistle-stop tour of the principal renewable energy technologies and places them elegantly in the contemporary economic, social and political context.' Jonathan Scurlock, Chief Adviser, Renewable Energy and Climate Change at the National Farmers' Union
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Professor Stephen Peake takes us on a guided tour of the ten most essential aspects of this timely and fast-moving science, examining the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy that lies at the heart of a brighter climate future.
Renewable energy is central to managing climate change and our transition to a sustainable energy supply for the 10 billion of us who will populate the earth by 2050. But how will we cope without fossil fuels to heat, cool and light our buildings, power our industry and run our transport systems? And are some renewables better than others? 10 Short Lessons in Renewable Energy distils the key issues of this timely subject, examining how we can harness the power of a range of groundbreaking energy technologies most effectively to achieve a sustainable energy future.
About the series : The Pocket Einstein series is a collection of essential pocket-sized guides for anyone looking to understand a little more about some of the most important and fascinating areas of science in the twenty-first century. Broken down into ten simple lessons and written by leading experts in their field, discover the ten most important takeaways from those areas of science you've always wanted to know more about.
____________
'"Energy" might be a short word, but it's a very big subject, and indeed one of the most important facing our world today. Understanding the ins and outs of how we make the transition to clean energy is a vital modern competence. Stephen Peake provides a top briefing. Informative, accessible and comprehensive, it is a must read for anyone interested in the future of our planet.' Tony Juniper CBE
____________
'The author says it all in his "Renewable energy powered our lives long before fossil fuels and will do so long after." As successive nations and corporations commit to net zero, the idea of getting our useful work done using clean non-depleting resources is of paramount importance. This witty, wide-ranging yet succinct guide provides a whistle-stop tour of the principal renewable energy technologies and places them elegantly in the contemporary economic, social and political context.' Jonathan Scurlock, Chief Adviser, Renewable Energy and Climate Change at the National Farmers' Union
-------------
Professor Stephen Peake takes us on a guided tour of the ten most essential aspects of this timely and fast-moving science, examining the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy that lies at the heart of a brighter climate future.
Renewable energy is central to managing climate change and our transition to a sustainable energy supply for the 10 billion of us who will populate the earth by 2050. But how will we cope without fossil fuels to heat, cool and light our buildings, power our industry and run our transport systems? And are some renewables better than others? 10 Short Lessons in Renewable Energy distils the key issues of this timely subject, examining how we can harness the power of a range of groundbreaking energy technologies most effectively to achieve a sustainable energy future.
About the series : The Pocket Einstein series is a collection of essential pocket-sized guides for anyone looking to understand a little more about some of the most important and fascinating areas of science in the twenty-first century. Broken down into ten simple lessons and written by leading experts in their field, discover the ten most important takeaways from those areas of science you've always wanted to know more about.
- GenresEngineering
192 pages, Hardcover
Published April 8, 2021
3 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Peake
14 books1 followerStephen Peake is senior lecturer in environmental technology at The Open University. Over the last 19 years, Stephen has worked on climate change in various interesting guises: as a researcher at the University of Cambridge, as a Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London (including a stint at the Shell International Petroleum Company), as a Fonctionnaire at the International Energy Agency within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, and as a diplomat with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bonn, Germany. Over the years, he has been called on to give evidence to various national governments and international organisations including: the Fuel Economy Panel of the American Automobile Manufacturers Association in Detroit, USA; the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment; and the UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. He is author of seven authored books and numerous articles.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 19, 2022
Remember the basic photosynthesis equation that was drilled into your heads at school? I didn’t, until I laid my hands on Stephen Peake’s “Renewable Energy: Ten Short Lessons”. A Senior Lecturer at the Open University, Senior Associate of the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, Peake in this short, but necessary book, provides a bird’s eye view of the nature, relevance, urgency and future of renewable energy as our world grapples to come to grips with the looming spectacle of climate change.
Abhorring jargon and techspeak, Peake juxtaposes wit with wisdom as he lays out ten fundamental chapters dealing with various forms of renewable energy, the costs involved in harnessing them and the potential benefits expected to emanate from them. The book opens with a mesmerizing Chapter containing the imaginative heading “There’s No Such Thing As Energy”. Peake leads his readers on an expedition that travels back in time to understand man’s quest to identify and understand the concept of energy. This is the Chapter that introduces the reader to the easy, pleasing on the eye, and witty narrative employed by Peake. For instance, he informs us that the Dutch philosopher Christiaan Huygens observed a form of kinetic energy that is produced when two objects collide. While Huygens called this phenomenon calculatrix, Peake helpfully informs us that the phrase has nothing to do with a character from Asterix
Handholding an intrepid, albeit apprehensive reader, Peake strives to ally trepidations by resorting to examples and illustrations that are elementary and easy to grasp. While explaining the insidious effects of fossil fuel burning, Peake writes that what we humans are doing with our indiscriminate use of fossil fuels represents a brazen and dangerous ‘interference’ with the earth’s natural carbon cycle. Adding relatively large quantities of carbon di-oxide to the atmosphere in an abnormally short period of time, causes a veritable carbon “traffic jam” in the atmosphere. For a 100-billion tonne pulse of carbon that is emitted, carbon di-oxide levels will remain roughly 25 billion tonnes higher after a thousand years. This is because after a few decades of such emission, the oceans would have absorbed up to 60 billion tonnes and the land about 15 billion tonnes.
The world fortunately seems to be waking up to the ominous prospects of global warming. There is a frenzied rush to go solar as country after country is embarking on the establishment of gigantic solar farms capitalizing on the decreasing cost of Photovoltaic Cells. For example, the Pavagada and Bhadla Solar Farms in India are spread over 53 and 57 square kilometres respectively and are capable of generating up to 2245 MW of Solar Power.
Another potential avenue to replace the travails of traditional reliance on fossil fuels is to yoke the mighty energy released by winds. Due to extraordinary improvements in turbine technology, both offshore and onshore wind farms are sprouting up across continents. The North Sea boasts the world’s largest wind farm. Hornsea One derives enough energy to run a humongous 1 million households in the UK. Situated at a distance of 120kms from the coast of Yorkshire, the wind farm is powered by 174 × 7 MW turbines. The swept area of each blade, according to Peake, ‘is larger than the London Eye’! However as Peake enlightens his readers, the primary hurdle in utilising wind energy is a low “return on energy” ratio. The process of converting one source of energy into another itself involves expending energy. In other words energy has to be invested in order to produce energy. This is commonly known as Energy Return On Energy Invested Ratio (EROEI). The EROEI ratio for wind over two decades (lifetime) has declined from approximately 20:1 in the beginning of the millennium to as low as 15:1 of late.
Peake ends his book with a very thought provoking chapter on the need for reimagining energy. He emphasizes that all of us have a significant role to play for humanity as a whole to succeed in adhering to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s pledge on maintaining the global temperature at around 2 degree Centigrade above pre-industrial levels. In this Chapter, we read of ingenious phrases such as the ‘negawatt’. Coined by former Zayed Future Energy Prize finalist Amory Lovins, chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, negawatt represents a watt of energy that you have not used through energy conservation or the use of energy-efficient products. A chore as simple as not turning on a switch when it is absolutely not necessary might be negawatt enabling. The United States for example, wastes 61% – 86% of the energy it generates. In layman terms, the country wastes more of the energy that it generates than it actually uses. And this is completely discounting the incredible amounts of energy that is wasted in households and businesses.
The négaWatt association, an NGO think tank based in France recommends innovative solutions to reduce air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and resource depletion. It is manned by roughly twenty experts in energy issues and enjoys the patronage of more than 1,200 individuals.
“Renewable Energy – Ten Short Lessons”, a timely and appropriate peek into the methods that may ultimately protect our Planet.
And yes, before I end the formula for Photosynthesis is : 6CO2 + 6H2O + light energy = C6H12O6 + 6O2 (Six carbon dioxide molecules and six water molecules react to produce one glucose molecule and six oxygen molecules).
Abhorring jargon and techspeak, Peake juxtaposes wit with wisdom as he lays out ten fundamental chapters dealing with various forms of renewable energy, the costs involved in harnessing them and the potential benefits expected to emanate from them. The book opens with a mesmerizing Chapter containing the imaginative heading “There’s No Such Thing As Energy”. Peake leads his readers on an expedition that travels back in time to understand man’s quest to identify and understand the concept of energy. This is the Chapter that introduces the reader to the easy, pleasing on the eye, and witty narrative employed by Peake. For instance, he informs us that the Dutch philosopher Christiaan Huygens observed a form of kinetic energy that is produced when two objects collide. While Huygens called this phenomenon calculatrix, Peake helpfully informs us that the phrase has nothing to do with a character from Asterix
Handholding an intrepid, albeit apprehensive reader, Peake strives to ally trepidations by resorting to examples and illustrations that are elementary and easy to grasp. While explaining the insidious effects of fossil fuel burning, Peake writes that what we humans are doing with our indiscriminate use of fossil fuels represents a brazen and dangerous ‘interference’ with the earth’s natural carbon cycle. Adding relatively large quantities of carbon di-oxide to the atmosphere in an abnormally short period of time, causes a veritable carbon “traffic jam” in the atmosphere. For a 100-billion tonne pulse of carbon that is emitted, carbon di-oxide levels will remain roughly 25 billion tonnes higher after a thousand years. This is because after a few decades of such emission, the oceans would have absorbed up to 60 billion tonnes and the land about 15 billion tonnes.
The world fortunately seems to be waking up to the ominous prospects of global warming. There is a frenzied rush to go solar as country after country is embarking on the establishment of gigantic solar farms capitalizing on the decreasing cost of Photovoltaic Cells. For example, the Pavagada and Bhadla Solar Farms in India are spread over 53 and 57 square kilometres respectively and are capable of generating up to 2245 MW of Solar Power.
Another potential avenue to replace the travails of traditional reliance on fossil fuels is to yoke the mighty energy released by winds. Due to extraordinary improvements in turbine technology, both offshore and onshore wind farms are sprouting up across continents. The North Sea boasts the world’s largest wind farm. Hornsea One derives enough energy to run a humongous 1 million households in the UK. Situated at a distance of 120kms from the coast of Yorkshire, the wind farm is powered by 174 × 7 MW turbines. The swept area of each blade, according to Peake, ‘is larger than the London Eye’! However as Peake enlightens his readers, the primary hurdle in utilising wind energy is a low “return on energy” ratio. The process of converting one source of energy into another itself involves expending energy. In other words energy has to be invested in order to produce energy. This is commonly known as Energy Return On Energy Invested Ratio (EROEI). The EROEI ratio for wind over two decades (lifetime) has declined from approximately 20:1 in the beginning of the millennium to as low as 15:1 of late.
Peake ends his book with a very thought provoking chapter on the need for reimagining energy. He emphasizes that all of us have a significant role to play for humanity as a whole to succeed in adhering to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s pledge on maintaining the global temperature at around 2 degree Centigrade above pre-industrial levels. In this Chapter, we read of ingenious phrases such as the ‘negawatt’. Coined by former Zayed Future Energy Prize finalist Amory Lovins, chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, negawatt represents a watt of energy that you have not used through energy conservation or the use of energy-efficient products. A chore as simple as not turning on a switch when it is absolutely not necessary might be negawatt enabling. The United States for example, wastes 61% – 86% of the energy it generates. In layman terms, the country wastes more of the energy that it generates than it actually uses. And this is completely discounting the incredible amounts of energy that is wasted in households and businesses.
The négaWatt association, an NGO think tank based in France recommends innovative solutions to reduce air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and resource depletion. It is manned by roughly twenty experts in energy issues and enjoys the patronage of more than 1,200 individuals.
“Renewable Energy – Ten Short Lessons”, a timely and appropriate peek into the methods that may ultimately protect our Planet.
And yes, before I end the formula for Photosynthesis is : 6CO2 + 6H2O + light energy = C6H12O6 + 6O2 (Six carbon dioxide molecules and six water molecules react to produce one glucose molecule and six oxygen molecules).
March 7, 2024
I’m interested in renewable technology, and who, nowadays, isn’t? A scientist friend lent me, a non-scientist, this little book.
I imagine that Peake has been pretty comprehensive. His opening three chapters are about the generalities of energy and the climate, and following chapters focus on sunlight, wind, plants and water, and geothermal technologies. He then discusses electricity as the major energy resource of the future, ‘negative energy’ (which seemed to me to mean use less and waste less) and the need for imagination in designing a future that is based on systems and technologies as yet undeveloped or undiscovered.
Sound thinking. And scientifically serious. If you want to get a grip on exajoules and the Worldwatt, the difference between BECCS and CCS, the meaning of EROEI, GHI and GTI, this is as good a place to find out as any – and, let’s face it, some kind of energy literacy is going to be pretty crucial in the future. (In a society where some people think it’s okay to keep your thermostat at 23C in winter and wear a t-shirt inside, wonder why their electricity bill is so high, and then react with amazement if they are told they could turn the thermostat down to 17C and put on a few more clothes, such education is pretty much non-optional.)
Nevertheless, it’s a densely written text and I found it hard to read and, often, to understand. It’s a book to have as one to refer to frequently until it sticks and begins to make sense. I found Chris Goodall’s ’10 Technologies to Save the Planet’ easier because not so scientific. The comforting thing about both Peake’s and Goodall’s books, however, and I daresay hundreds of others, is that there are serious minds on the problem of energy and climate change.
Would that the politicians and the energy companies were as serious. And I should not forget that I could manage a degree less in the house in winter.
I imagine that Peake has been pretty comprehensive. His opening three chapters are about the generalities of energy and the climate, and following chapters focus on sunlight, wind, plants and water, and geothermal technologies. He then discusses electricity as the major energy resource of the future, ‘negative energy’ (which seemed to me to mean use less and waste less) and the need for imagination in designing a future that is based on systems and technologies as yet undeveloped or undiscovered.
Sound thinking. And scientifically serious. If you want to get a grip on exajoules and the Worldwatt, the difference between BECCS and CCS, the meaning of EROEI, GHI and GTI, this is as good a place to find out as any – and, let’s face it, some kind of energy literacy is going to be pretty crucial in the future. (In a society where some people think it’s okay to keep your thermostat at 23C in winter and wear a t-shirt inside, wonder why their electricity bill is so high, and then react with amazement if they are told they could turn the thermostat down to 17C and put on a few more clothes, such education is pretty much non-optional.)
Nevertheless, it’s a densely written text and I found it hard to read and, often, to understand. It’s a book to have as one to refer to frequently until it sticks and begins to make sense. I found Chris Goodall’s ’10 Technologies to Save the Planet’ easier because not so scientific. The comforting thing about both Peake’s and Goodall’s books, however, and I daresay hundreds of others, is that there are serious minds on the problem of energy and climate change.
Would that the politicians and the energy companies were as serious. And I should not forget that I could manage a degree less in the house in winter.
April 30, 2023
An interesting and detailed, albeit superficial, look at issues surrounding renewable energy. It provides some insights into the challenges we face globally. It also offers some hope, but only if we engage with this quickly.
Comment on the edition - this was an audiobook and gave a far too literal reading of the... erm... reading; repeating all the measurements in metric and imperial was unnecessary, and reading out the tables didn't work at all.
Comment on the edition - this was an audiobook and gave a far too literal reading of the... erm... reading; repeating all the measurements in metric and imperial was unnecessary, and reading out the tables didn't work at all.
December 31, 2023
A very quick overview of the role of renewable energy in our future and the move away from fossil fuels. This would be a good intro for people looking to learn more about the types of renewable energy. Given the goal of net zero in many countries the synopsis provided is somewhat helpful and provides some intriguing case studies.
February 2, 2024
It's okay for the layperson but not a book that I recommend for those who want a bit more depth, as well as to understand any counter points.
There are many other books about renewables to pick over this. Only read if its close at hand.
There are many other books about renewables to pick over this. Only read if its close at hand.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews