Earth Day: The Truth About Alternative Energy Sources

In honor of Earth Day we’re offering an overview of sustainable energy sources taken from Clean Energy Nation: Freeing America from the Tyranny of Fossil Fuels by Congressman Jerry McNerney, a renewable energy expert, and technology writer Martin Cheek .

SUN POWER
The sun annually provides more than 10,000 times the amount of energy we can use in a year. Currently, solar-produced electricity makes up less than 1 percent of the world’s production of power.

Exciting innovations: * A thermal technology that collects sunshine, through the strategic arrangement of hundred of flat mirrors, and re-directs it to a central receiver linked to a large solar power plant. * Commonplace applications of a technology originally developed for space exploration satellites: photovoltaic cells that absorb direct sunlight to generate electricity.

Drawbacks: The power of the sun depends on the seasonal climate and weather of a location. There’s also the obvious fact that sun power can be produced only during daylight hours. Although sunshine is free, solar energy is not yet cost competitive with fossil-fuel energy.

Outlook: To maximize the potential of sun power, scientists must develop more efficient and cost-effective energy storage systems and ways to transport power in a specific region.

WIND POWER
About 2 percent of the sun’s energy received by our planet is converted into air motion. Today, the U.S. gets a little over 1 percent of its electric power supplied by wind energy.

Exciting innovations: * State-of-the-art windmills, featuring aerodynamic turbine blades inspired by modern airplane design.

Drawbacks: Aside from the inconsistent delivery of wind, ideal wind farm sites are often far from urban areas where demand is greater, thus requiring substantial money to construct transmission lines and substations to bring the wind-generated electricity to customers. Power harvested from the wind must also overcome common misconceptions: wind turbines are noisy (not modern models) and wind turbines massacre birds that get caught in the path of the spinning blades (more birds are killed by farming pesticides and free-roaming house cats).

Outlook: As turbine technology improves and mass production reaches a critical cost-effective level, wind as an energy resource will continue to see major growth opportunities.

WATER POWER
Nearly three-quarters of our globe is covered by this versatile liquid substance. About 24 percent of the world’s electric power is currently produced by hydropower, the force of water. In America, hydropower makes up 12 percent of the generated electricity.

Exciting innovations:  *An invention for an ocean-powered energy source applying the gravitational energy from the rise and fall of the tides. * A novel technology called ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), working on the principle that the sea collects most of the sun’s energy that shines on it.

Drawbacks: The massive dam structures necessary to hold back water are expensive and time-consuming to build. They also require continuous maintenance to make sure they are safe from a calamitous failure. What’s more, dams have a severe impact on the environment, often disrupting the local plant and animal ecology.

Outlook: Innovative approaches to harvesting ocean energy are still in their pioneering stages. With enough research and development, however, they might provide an important energy resource during the coming decades.

LIFE POWER
Consider a battery that collects energy from the sun and stores it in a system that creates no pollution, costs zero dollars to build, and recharges itself. This “battery” is green vegetation, the source of all biofuels, which power human beings. Americans are increasingly looking at the biofuels ethanol (an alcohol made from crops such as sugarcane and corn) and biodiesel (a vegetable oil made from crops including canola and soybeans) to power vehicles.

Exciting innovations:  * Finding energy gold in America’s garbage: landfill sites featuring a buried web of perforated pipes that collect the methane released from decomposed vegetable matter and carry it to a power station, where it is burned to generate electricity.

Drawbacks: Many farmers are not yet using cost-effective techniques to grow biofuel crops. Money for water, fertilizer, and diesel fuel for harvesting equipment adds to the price of production and makes biofuels—especially corn-based ethanol—less competitive than fossil fuels. Also, critics warn that using fertile land to grow biofuel crops will lead to food shortages and raise prices at the supermarket.

Outlook: Overall, much more research and development needs to be done to implement the large-scale production of biofuels for our nation’s transportation needs. Yet, in the next few decades, life power will almost certainly help America gain its energy independence from fossil fuels while strengthening our nation’s agricultural economy.

NUCLEAR POWER
Uranium, the element at the foundation of nuclear power, can be found extensively throughout the planet. It is 500 times more plentiful than gold. A modern nuclear plant produces about 1,000 megawatts of power to supply electricity to 400,000 homes.

Drawbacks: Nuclear energy is expensive to produce commercially. Nuclear reactors typically cost $3 billion or more to construct, and often face massive cost overruns. There’s  the fear of a nuclear reactor meltdown made all too real with the catastrophic incident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. There is also the dilemma of how to dispose of radioactive waste without hazard to public safety or the environment. Another problem has to do with the threats to national security we face in the post-9/11 world. A nuclear power plant could be an attractive target for a terrorist strike.

Exciting innovations:  * A special type of nuclear energy plant called a fusion reactor, which would generate power by fusing the nuclei of hydrogen atoms. If researchers can find a way to do this, safely and economically, we would have access to massive reservoirs of energy.

Future outlook: Although it holds tremendous promise for humankind, fusion power appears to be decades away. In the meantime, policymakers will continue to weigh the benefits of nuclear power against the costs and the dangers.

EARTH ENERGY
Natural hot springs, geysers, and erupting volcanoes give evidence to the tremendous energy supply kept deep within the Earth. Today, the world annually produces about 8,000 megawatts of electrical power from geothermal energy, out of which the U.S. taps 2,800 megawatts.

Exciting innovations:  * Geothermal power stations. Usually small, these plants produce low cost steam energy without any toll on the natural world.

Drawbacks: Power plants can be built only in specific regions of our planet where molten rock is near enough to the surface to heat water. What’s more, these stations might trigger seismic activity along earthquake fault lines.

Outlook: With technological advances in geothermal systems, Americans might one day soon safely and economically tap into the energy of the tremendous heat in the heart of our planet.

HYDROGEN
The most abundant element, hydrogen makes up about 75 percent of the universe’s elemental mass. In a gaseous state, hydrogen can be combusted to run turbines to generate electricity.

Exciting innovations:  * Technologies using the simplest life forms—algae and anaerobic bacteria—to split water molecules, thus releasing the hydrogen atoms from the oxygen, and to release the hydrogen contained in carbohydrates in the waste at food-manufacturing plants.

Drawbacks: A great deal of money will be needed to construct hydrogen-production plants and also to equip the world’s vehicles with fuel cells or hydrogen-burning engines. Another challenge is public concern about hydrogen’s potential volatility—fueled by horrific newsreel images of the hydrogen-filled passenger airship Hindenburg bursting into a fireball. However, hydrogen is significantly less flammable than either gasoline or natural gas.

Outlook: Despite its many benefits as natural, plentiful, nonpolluting energy medium, hydrogen has to overcome daunting financial hurdles in order to compete with fossil fuels.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Congressman Jerry McNerney, Ph.D., was elected to California’s 11th congressional district in November 2006. Reelected in 2008 and 2010, he is a member of the House Commit tee on Science, Space, and Technology, the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, and the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight. Prior to his time in Congress, he served as an energy consultant for Pacific Gas and Electric, Flow Wind, and The Electric Power Research Institute. He lives in Pleasanton,California.

Martin Cheek has worked as a journalist, specializing in science and the high-tech industry, for more than two decades. He lives in Morgan Hill, California.

Introducing AMACOM… Erika

Next in the “Introducing AMACOM” series is Copy Manager and Associate Editor Erika Spelman. She joined AMACOM in March 2001 as as an associate editor.

What are some of your responsibilities as Copy Manager and Associate Editor?

The responsibilities of an associate editor are what many publishing houses would call the duties of a production editor. I arrange for, monitor, and double-check the final stages of a book before it is published, including copyediting, proofreading, design, and composition. A great account of what I do in terms of explaining it to new authors can be found in Andy Ambraziejus’s post “A First-Time Author’s Guide to the Production Process,” and an irreverent but also accurate portrayal of additional aspects of the job can be found in Jim Bessent’s posts “A Day in the Life of a Production Editor” parts 1 and 2. As copy manager, I oversee the updating of AMACOM’s style guidelines, proofread the titles of all of our books, and serve as a resource regarding matters of grammar and style.

What were you doing before you joined AMACOM?

Prior to joining AMACOM I was a principal manuscript editor at West Group, a legal publisher. I copyedited and proofread legal treatises and their updates and, in the latter half of my tenure there, worked with SGML coding in electronic manuscripts and had various other responsibilities.

What are some of the challenges of your job?

A production editor’s workflow is different from that of a manuscript editor. As a principal manuscript editor, I helped set and monitor schedules as a production editor does, but I generally worked on one task for one particular title at a time for a period of several days to a couple of weeks. As a production editor, I farm out many of the tasks I used to perform myself and keep track of the schedules of many books at once, working on aspects of several of them within the course of the same day.

What AMACOM book are you really excited about right now?

Clean Energy Nation by Congressman Jerry McNerney and journalist Martin Cheek offers straight talk about the consequences of remaining dependent on fossil fuels. In an era in which many simply do not want to believe these consequences are possible because believing makes things complicated for business in the short term, I hope people will sit up and take notice of the long-term positive effects these experts say would go along with loosening the grip these kinds of fuels have on the United States—including environmental, job-creation, and national-security benefits.

Another AMACOM book I find noteworthy is Managing Online Forums. When I perform a Web search for information, I am often directed to threads in forums where people have posted questions and answers on topics in which I am interested. Author Patrick O’Keefe gives a fascinating look at the inner workings of these kinds of forums along with admirable advice on how to deal professionally with difficult situations involving users and staff. I would think this would be a much-needed book, albeit on a very specialized topic.

What book are you reading at the moment?

Right now I am studiously putting off reading The Wild Rose by Jennifer Donnelly. It is the third in a series, the first two of which are The Tea Rose and The Winter Rose. I enjoyed the first two so much that I was having trouble managing my schoolwork (I am in a master’s degree program), so even though I have downloaded The Wild Rose to my Nook, I have exercised a great deal of restraint in not beginning it.

These books are set at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and are reminiscent of Dickens (one of my favorite authors) in terms of having intricately connected threads and coincidences that require a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. Donnelly has also written a couple of great novels for young adults.

Which book do you want everyone to discover?

My favorite book from the time I first read it and one that still resonates with me today is Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. The language in this book is rich and poetic, and as one reviewer said, is not to be read quickly but to be savored. Consider the following quote:

To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know anything so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing—the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one’s hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again. Though we dream and hardly know it, longing, like an angel, fosters us, smoothes our hair, and brings us wild strawberries. —Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980), pp. 152-153.

After reading it, I watched for a new book by Robinson for a long time, and when one finally came out, it was a nonfiction book called Mother Country about the improper disposal of nuclear waste in Great Britain. Although the subject would not necessarily have grabbed my interest, of course I read it, and I was again captivated by the language. It also forever changed the way I thought the history of socialism in Britain. Somewhere in Mother Country Robinson says that her passionate concern for this problem was so great that writing fiction seemed like a frivolous pursuit, and I mourned to think she would not write another novel. She eventually did, however, and a subsequent book, Gilead, won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize.

What would you be doing if you weren’t an associate editor and copy manager at AMACOM?

I would love to be a full-time student. I went back to school a couple of years ago and liked it so much that I didn’t want to stop. Going back as an adult feels very different from the way I felt in college right out of high school—my learning is much more self-directed and satisfying.

Final words?

AMACOM is a great place to work. It seems that over the years I have worked here we have become more and more of an integrated team, working out kinks between departments and respecting one another’s needs, all in the name of getting the job done well. I’m glad to be part of that team.

Thank you Erika! Read more “Introducing AMACOM” posts here.

Clean Energy Nation Now Available on NetGalley

Our upcoming book, Clean Energy Nation: Freeing America from the Tyranny of Fossil Fuels by U.S. Congressman Jerry McNerney, Ph.D., and Martin Cheek, is now available for review on NetGalley. Click HERE to submit your request.

If you are a book reviewer, journalist, librarian, professor, bookseller, and blogger, or other book professional, we invite you to download an e-galley of the book today.

Dangerous CO2 emissions, massive oil spills, dwindling supplies—the problems with fossil fuels are driving a long-overdue reassessment of our nation’s energy policies. U.S. Congressman Jerry McNerney, a renewable energy engineer and the first representative with expertise in energy independence, leads the way to change. In Clean Energy Nation, he and journalist Martin Cheek make an impassioned argument for drastically reducing dependency on fossil fuels and developing sustainable, readily available energy sources—solar, wind, biofuel, geothermal, and hydrogen-based power.

Bringing together a rare combination of scientific knowledge, political savvy, and insightful journalism, the authors reveal the pros and cons of alternative energy sources and examine how our nation became addicted to fossil fuels in the first place. The book reads like the dramatic story it is, complete with dire projections about peak oil and grim scenarios of rising oceans…keen insights into policies and players that have stalled progress on climate change and favored big oil…and astute recommendations for building a clean energy economy and a prosperous, stable future.

CONGRESSMAN JERRY McNERNEY, PH.D., was elected to California’s 11th Congressional District in November 2006. He is a member of the House Select Committee on Global Warming and Energy Independence and the House Committee on Science and Technology. Prior to serving in Congress, he was an energy consultant for Pacific Gas and Electric, FlowWind, and the Electric Power Research Institute. MARTIN CHEEK has worked as a journalist for more than two decades, specializing in science and high-tech industry.

Click HERE to submit your request for a copy of Clean Energy Nation.

NetGalley is a service for people who read and recommend books, such as book reviewers, journalists, librarians, professors, booksellers, and bloggers.

There are a number of different reading options for this e-galley:

• Quick Browse. Preview the galley using NetGalley’s web-based reader.
• Download Galley. Read a Protected (DRM) galley on your computer, Sony Reader, B&N’s Nook, Kobo Reader, or other device. You’ll need Adobe Digital Editions (free software). You can also read on your iPad or iPhone via the Bluefire Reader app.
• Kindle. Send a NetGalley file to your Kindle device, using your @Kindle.com or @free.Kindle.com email address. Make sure to follow the instructions here. Note:The Kindle button works for Kindle devices only. By pressing the orange Kindle button for a NetGalley title, you can send the file to your Kindle device. You will not be able to share that file with any Kindle apps (like Kindle for PC or iPhone).
• Email Publisher. This button will allow you to email the publisher directly to request a reading option not currently enabled.

You can find all of AMACOM’s e-galleys on NetGalley HERE.

After Fukushima What is the Future of Nuclear Energy

The following is a guest post by Martin Cheek co-author of Clean Energy Nation: Freeing America from the Tyranny of Fossil Fuels.

President Obama’s ambitious plan to resurrect nuclear power in America might have literally been hit by a tsunami. In his 2011 State of the Union address, Obama proposed committing our nation to providing $36 billion in federal loan guarantees to promote the construction of new nuclear reactors. Facing the fallout of Fukushima, his plan might now be dead in the coolant water.

The world is now watching with anxious eyes Japan’s ongoing nuclear nightmare following the 9.0 earthquake and the resulting massive wave that swept the island nation on March 11, 2011. Leaders in Europe – especially German Chancellor Angela Merkel – are reevaluating their nuclear strategies as brave engineers at Fukushima attempt to regain control of the nuclear power plant hit hard by the recent natural disaster. Depending on what happens in the on-going radiation calamity over the next several months, the political and social fallout from Fukushima might terminate America’s nascent “nuclear renaissance.”

Even before Fukushima, the resurgence in building new nuclear power plants in America faced great uncertainty. Our nation’s leaders still need to decide where to permanently store spent nuclear fuel after Obama put the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository project in Nevada in political limbo in 2010. Fukushima also is a wake-up call to the dangers America faces by keeping tens of thousands of metric tons of nuclear fuel in water-cooled storage pools that are potentially vulnerable to natural disaster or terrorist attack.

Time and taxpayer dollars are two other factors Americans are now taking into account in deciding whether to go forward with America’s nuclear renaissance. Even before the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, the nuclear industry’s record of long construction delays and massive escalation of costs made investors apprehensive and forced utility companies to cancel reactor construction projects.

The next-generation reactors will most likely exceed $10 billion each to build if cost overruns occur and if the Fukushima disaster forces politicians to demand more expensive safety measures. And 20 years from now when new American reactors might come online at a time when the world’s commercial-grade uranium supplies are starting to peak, the nuclear industry might not be able to financially compete against the cost of producing energy from wind and solar resources, now steadily dropping as technology improves and mass production ramps up. Unused reactors might stand as the ruins of a dream of folly.

Wall Street remains tepid about nuclear power. Based on past performance from the nuclear industry, many investors are wary of the risks – even when the government promises taxpayer dollars to hedge the bet. The many billions of yen Japan will pay to clean up the Fukushima catastrophe will make American investors even more averse to putting nuclear power in their portfolios.

For more than four decades, Americans dreamed that the energy from uranium atoms would live up to its promise of reducing our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels. As Congressman Jerry McNerney and I show in our new book Clean Energy Nation: Freeing America from the Tyranny of Fossil Fuels building a revitalized American economy on renewable resources and with the “less is more” benefits of modern efficiency technologies is a much safer and more solid hope for gaining our fuel freedom.

Martin Cheek has worked as a journalist for more than two decades, specializing in science and high-tech industry. He is the co-author of Clean Energy Nation: Freeing America From the Tyranny of Fossil Fuels which will be publishing in August 2011.

Green Your AMACOM Library for Earth Day

This post originally appeared on April 22, 2009.

AMACOM has been publishing books in the environmental field, so today is a great day to highlight some of our eco-friendly titles on the blog!

GREEN YOUR BUSINESS

Investing in a Sustainable World: Why Green is the New Color of Money by Matthew J. Kiernan, Ph.D.

“Matthew Kiernan has successfully scaled the Green Wall that often separates those working in the financial and sustainability domains. His latest book demystifies the concept of sustainable investment and provides a compelling rationale for Wall Street to consider environmental and social criteria, not as afterthoughts but rather as core considerations in our investment decision-making framework.” –Abyd Karmali, Managing Director, Global Head of Carbon Markets, Merrill Lynch

“If you’re a long-term investor, you have to care about sustainability, because it also equates to the ultimate sustainability of corporate earnings. As a Fund that invests across multiple generations, seeking short term gains at the expense of our planet and mankind, will ultimately prove too costly to long-term corporate earnings and therefore reduce our overall return. We at CalSTRS take this book’s messages very much to heart.” –Christopher Ailman, Chief Investment Officer CalSTRS

The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook: When it All Comes Together edited by Jeana Wirtenberg, Ph.D., William G. Russell, David Lipsky, Ph.D.

“this book offers a compilation of excellent, practical resources for developing a sustainable enterprise.” –Choice

“A very user-friendly and practical book on sustainability. It is well written and comprehensive, very clear, and concise in its explanations and applicable examples.” –People & Strategy

Green Tech: How to Plan and Implement Sustainable IT Solutions by Lawrence Webber and Michael Wallace

With today’s electronic systems consuming massive amounts of energy, and improper disposal of old equipment threatening to release dangerous toxicity into the atmosphere, any company whose IT department isn’t actively working to shrink its carbon footprint isn’t just hurting the environment…it is also probably wasting money. Green Tech provides readers with practical, easily implemented strategies for sustainable computing. Filled with realistic, cost-efficient ideas, this book shows that going green isn’t just the right thing to do, but also a good business strategy.

GREEN YOUR HOME

Your Eco-Friendly Home: Buying, Building, and Remodeling Green by Sid Davis

“…easy to understand book for both readers who are interested in making small changes, or who want a completely sustainable home.” –ForeWord

“For anyone with questions about ways to buy, build or remodel a home so that it meets more environmentally friendly standards, this book provides the answers.” –Long Island Newsday

“…addresses practical considerations of how to find and finance eco-friendly real estate as well as use environmentally sound materials and techniques to make homes more efficient.” –Home Maintenance Club

“This guide gives you all the general home building, buying or renovating information you need…but Your Eco-Friendly Home then takes you a step further, explaining how to make your home as green as possible while keeping your budgetary and other individual needs in mind…this no-nonsense book…points to a wealth of resources and green websites to help you towards your eco-friendly journey.” –LowImpactLiving.com, review by Green LA Girl

“I can certainly see myself referring back to the book as a resource and a launch point to help weigh my options. I like this book because when I finished it, I left knowing more than when I started, but also feeling a little more realistic in both my home buying and my green home aspirations.” –Treehugger.com

“Davis’s latest book guides buyers who are searching for eco-friendly real estate down the right path in a market that offers little or no resources…The book is a must-buy for those home buyers or owners wishing to go-green” –Gay Real Estate USA

“Clear, understandable language brings readers up to speed on green real estate concepts that could otherwise be tricky for beginners.” — The Sierra Club’s Green Life Blog

GREEN YOUR MIND

Food Fray: Inside the Controversy over Genetically Modified Food by Lisa Weasel, Ph.D.

2009 Green Book Festival Competition Winner in the Scientific category

“The well-written and well-researched book combines interviews with scientists, activists, farmers, and consumers with scientific insights into this contemporary controversy.” — SciTech Book News

“An intelligent synthesis of solid research, firsthand reporting, and comprehendible analysis that manages to stay objective while critically examining the issues at hand.” –World Future Review

“A riveting and disturbing reality check, Food Fray is a crucial reminder that it’s time to be informed, not passive. Weasel’s is a compelling voice affirming that the desire to know more about GM foods before eating them and to allay concerns about safety and environmental impacts, isn’t at all anti-science. It’s a decidedly pro-human stance.” –The Miami Herald

“Weasel asks and answers important questions about the world’s food supply.” –The Oregonian

“Dr. Weasel masterfully navigates the complicated and multi-faceted history of the storied GM debate, giving equal treatment to the various sides and ultimately entrusting the readers to come to their own conclusions. The end result is required reading for anyone curious about GM technologies, past, present and future.” — Common Ground Magazine

Nuclear Nebraska: The Remarkable Story of the Little County That Couldn’t Be Bought by Susan Cragin

“This inspiring story teaches a wonderful lesson of democracy in action.” –ALA Booklist

Where We Stand: A Surprising Look at the Real State of Our Planet by Seymour Garte, Ph.D.

“Garte’s reasoned discussion[…]a valuable tool for increasing science literacy with regards to the important environmental issues of the day” –Publishers Weekly

“For people who are put off by all the talk of global warming these days, a new book, ‘Where We Stand: A Surprising Look at the Real State of Our Planet’ by Seymour Garte, Ph.D., gives a balanced and in many ways positive view of the state of the planet. Garte, a professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, goes over both the critical issues still facing man, as well as the often-forgotten progress and positive developments. Perusing the book, I find the author’s messages to be more insightful than I would have expected with a level of optimism that’s refreshing.” — Green World Blog, BostonHerald.com

“Where We Stand, is an antidote for an overly pessimistic view of the future of the environment…He presents an authoritative and compelling argument for the role of technology and scientific discovery — an unusual stance in the ecological worldview.” —HealthNet Media

“Dr. Garte does a very good job of spelling out where we’re doing well, how we’ve failed, and what we can continue to do to improve. This book is a testament to the academics and good attitude of Dr. Garte, a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health. Hopefully, by reading it, everyone can learn something, whatever your personal or political views on the subject. I highly recommend this book!” –MilitantLibertarian.org

Happy Earth Day everyone! Keep making the world a better place to live!