Sustainable Energy - without the hot air: 2

For those who are looking for brief, summarised research into climate change and all related matters, this is not the book for you. It is a medium format book with 12pt text and very detailed. It is a scholarly text which will satisfy the most demanding readers. There are very few areas into which it does not look closely relating to the on-going climate change debate and, as the sub-title suggests, it a serious, scientific document. I am sure every reader will learn from it. Highly recommended. PS Out of curiosity I put the title in ChatGTP, a facility Professor MacKay, did not have at time of writing. I could not have put it better myself. 😳 “A phrase often associated with the book written by David MacKay. It is a comprehensive guide that explores realistic solutions for achieving sustainable energy without relying on misleading or emotionally charged rhetoric. The book emphasises the importance of data-driven discussions in addressing energy challenges.” PS I forgot to mention that (as a Scot interested in sustainability) I bought a used copy 😇😂 from an online bookshop listed in Amazon*. My text is covered in what look like a student’s or a passionate readers highlighting and annotations. Next to the current consumption per person 125kWh/d is MacKay’s prediction of our best 18kWh/d per person. In the margin next to a large asterisk is “Merde!” [my translation). * While Amazon is great, we also need to support bookshops.

Refreshing to see a book that isn't too afraid of putting numbers behind the arguments in a simple way that anyone with GCSE level maths can easily understand - and we certainly have plenty of A* passes at GCSE and beyond if the exam board statistics are to be believed. So there is no excuse for apologising about a simple bit of maths and science that puts some rational arguments behind the vast array of political and bandwagon 'solutions' to our environmental problems. Wind energy might work for the UK if there were storage systems available. Growing crops for transport fuel is the least efficient way of using our limited land resources. Can aeroplane travel be made much more efficient as the 3rd runway proponents would have us believe - the physics doesn't offer much hope and aero engineers nearly bankrupted themselves putting carbon fibre into jet engines all those years ago; no new engineering materials are on the horizon. A thoroughly good read with plenty of easy to digest numbers and worked examples that offer a good foundation against which to judge the politicians and lobby group knee-jerk solutions. We are left with the need for radical lifestyle changes but in a hopeful way - this is certianly not a doomsday book. If you passed GCSE maths, you'll enjoy the revision material, if you're studying A level physics this book should be on the syllabus. And how do we get politicians to read it and think about it's sober arguments before coming out with yet another unworkable but appealling solution to the pressing problems of oil shortages and environmental pollution?

How are we going to switch to sustainable energy so as to avert the negative effects of climate change? This is what the late Cambridge physicist and Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Department for Energy and Climate Change, David MacKay sets out to do in 'Sustainable Energy - without the hot air'. He does this by looking at the physical potential and limits of sustainable alternatives to powering present consumption patterns and desires, with the aid of simplifying assumptions and largely back-of-the-envelope calculations about each possible energy source and the main things that demand energy, such as transport, heating and electricity. The advantage of this transparent approach is that, as he explicitly states, readers can understand the methods behind such calculations and use these methods to do their own calculations. However, if you're happy to trust his workings and are only interested in his results, the disadvantage of course is that you have to wade through pages of calculations to find what you're after. Even so, it is worth noting his assumptions and the caveats to his workings, not least the one that the politics and economics of the energy options he explores are not considered. The TLDR summary of the book is that MacKay thinks that we can maintain present consumption levels sustainably, at least scientifically speaking. That is, there is sufficient energy from sustainable sources (defined as renewable energy or non-renewable energy sources that could be sustained for 1000 years at consumption rates growing annually by today's growth rates) globally to power a fleet of electric vehicles and sufficient technological advances to store and redirect this energy as appropriate. A key finding, indeed, is that the UK is unlikely to have enough sustainable energy to meet its needs, and so will have to import energy from other countries. I think the strengths of this book thus is its wide coverage of options and energy conundrums, transparent workings, debunking of various myths and indeed important warnings to the reader to be mindful of the 'hot air' and agendas behind the claims of some purported environmentalists. I definitely walked away feeling much better informed about the energy problems and possible sustainable solutions. The book is stuffed with interesting trivia that may be new to many readers e.g. Britain's original coalfields were comparable to Saudi Arabia's oil fields, and as a result, Britain is the country responsible for the second highest contribution to the CO2 levels in the atmosphere, historically speaking. Likewise, the finding that jetliners are four times more efficient in transporting people than ocean liners is interesting, even if sea-going freight is far more efficient than freight delivered by air. The main weakness in my view however is the inconsistent consideration of the economic or political implications of MacKay's proposals. Most of the time, MacKay ignores these considerations. For example, he says that there is sufficient sunshine in the Middle East and North Africa to meet the 2006 (when the book was written) energy needs of Europe and North Africa. But is such a setup politically and economically desirable? The concentration of oil in the Middle East has surely been a factor in the many conflicts there (and nothing emits CO2 like a war), while as of April 2017 much of North Africa is politically unstable. The political and economic options for constructing and protecting sufficient solar farms in the area are certainly not straightforward or cheap. Sometimes however, he does consider the political aspects of energy choices, notably in the five energy plans for Britain that he proposes, which illustrate how different energy choices could satisfy different desires (e.g. varying levels of domestic wind farms, nuclear power stations and imported energy). He also casually suggests that lowering consumption levels and hence demand for energy would be "unsellable", which is highly debatable in my opinion. Inevitably for a book written in 2006, its advice has dated somewhat: cheating car companies has meant that diesel has not been the 'green' solution hoped for, with an air pollution crisis in many UK cities instead. And of course, no-one in 2006 was predicting Brexit, which will occupy the UK civil service fully for the next few years at least, sapping the time available to make choices about sustainable energy. Indeed, the fact that surveys show many of those who voted for Brexit are also sceptical about climate change may result in the UK government putting off difficult decisions about energy choices, but we'll see. Nevertheless, for a purely scientific overview of the pros, cons and potential of meeting present and future demands for energy from a range of sustainable options, as well as plenty of interesting facts, historical and more recent, 'Sustainable Energy - without the hot air' is very much worth a read.

Uno dei pochi libri su quest’argomento che val la pena di leggere.

Ce livre (en anglais) présente de façon très complète, et remarquablement simple et claire le problème de la consommation d'énergie auquel l'espèce humaine va être confrontée à court terme. Le problème est quantitatif (si on ne chiffre pas sérieusement le problème, on passe son temps à dire tout et n'importe quoi, ce que quantité d'autres livres font abondamment). Il faut donc aligner des chiffres. Mais l'auteur réussit l'exploit de les présenter de façon extraordinairement simple et concrète en les ramenant à une seule personne (vous !), de sorte qu'on la sensation de gérer son propre budget. Toutes les explications sont compréhensibles par tout le monde et il s'agit entre autre d'un ouvrage de vulgarisation remarquable (les détails un peu techniques sont systématiquement mis en appendices, qu'on peut tout à fait omettre mais qui sont accessibles à toute personne se souvenant de ses études scientifiques dans le secondaire). En bref une lecture indispensable pour toute personne voulant vraiment savoir quelle est la situation. Seul défaut: l'auteur examine surtout, pour être très concret, le cas du Royaume Uni, mais la situation de la France est peu différente.

Does what is says on the cover, a clear explanation of how much energy we use, how much renewables might be able to provide and the options for getting off fossil fuels. The figures concentrate on the UK (the writer was a highly regarded professor at Cambridge University) and are a few years old now, so some of the latest figures for wind and solar production and costs are not there, but overall an invaluable book for anyone wanting to get to grips with the facts in this post-truth age.

Schade eigentlich, dass dieses Buch hier bisher keine Rezension erfahren hat. Vielleicht liegt es daran, dass es das Buch (mit ein paar drucktechnischen Einbußen) auch online gibt; es muss lediglich nach 'sustainable energy' oder 'david mackay' gesucht werden. Dennoch gehört dieses Werk als gedrucktes Paperback in jeden Bücherschrank. Und sei es nur als Nachschlagewerk. Es räumt auf mit diversen (fast liebgewonnenen) Vorurteilen in der Klimadebatte; z.B. die 'schlimme' (aber irrelevante) Insektenatmung, der 'tolle' (aber untaugliche) Hybrid-PKW etc. pp. Der Autor David MacKay ist seit letztem Jahr (2009) Berater der britischen Regierung. Insofern hat das Buch einen leichten Touch aus britischer Perspektive; aber nur ganz leicht. Die Aufbereitung von Daten (z.B. der Pro-Kopf-Anteil klimarelevanter Emissionen weltweit, auch historisch kumulativ!) in überzeugenden Grafiken ist beispielhaft und unerreicht! Wie wahrhaftig dreckschleudernd sehen da auf einmal USA oder Deutschland im Vergleich mit den angeblichen Dreckschleudern China oder Indien aus...

It's best book ever to give you an idea of how to effectively use available resources specifically energy.