Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air
Ratings11
Average rating4.5
Wow, what a book. A monumental work.
I admit I skimmed over some of the physics chapters.
Good to have them though.
A bit of a hard read at moments, due to details.
Still relevant after 10 years and I think it will be for a long time.
A great no-nonsense approach to energy.
Worth putting on a book shelf.
This book was recommended to me a couple years ago by a climate scientist working at the NASA Goddard Institute and I'm so glad I got around to it. Although it's been over ten years since the book was written, Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air provides an easy-to-understand guide to thinking about modern day power consumption, generation, and storage from an environmentally concious, realist perspective. MacKay does a excellent job comparing and contrasting major contributors to Britain's (and the world's) total energy consumption, from the heating in our homes to the manufacturing of “stuff”, and breaks down the ways in which we can meet this demand by discussing a plethora of sustainable energy generation methods and the practicality of implementing each on a large scale.
If you've ever you wondered what a complete sustainable energy transformation could actually look like, I'd highly recommend giving this one a read. Hint: turning off your lights isn't going to do much.