Includes news reports that highlights spiralling energy costs, accelerating energy consumption, serious concerns over fuel security and fears that oil production may soon decline. In this title, all such reports are set against a background of the most serious threat to the world today - global warming and the devastating impact of climate change.

The comprehensive guide to engineering alternative and renewable energy systems and applications—updated for the latest trends and technologies This book was designed tohelp engineers develop new solutions for the current energy economy. To that end it provides technical discussions, along with numerous real-world examples of virtually all existing alternative energy sources, applications, systems and system components. All chapters focus on first-order engineering calculations, and consider alternative uses of existing and renewable energy resources. Just as important, the author describes how to apply these concepts to the development of new energy solutions. Since the publication of the critically acclaimed first edition of this book, the alternative, renewable and sustainable energy industries have witnessed significant evolution and growth. Hydraulic fracturing, fossil fuel reserve increases, the increasing popularity of hybrid and all-electric vehicles, and the decreasing cost of solar power already have had a significant impact on energy usage patterns worldwide. Updated and revised to reflect those and other key developments, this new edition features expanded coverage of topics covered in the first edition, as well as entirely new chapters on hydraulic fracturing and fossil fuels, hybrid and all-electric vehicles, and more. Begins with a fascinating look at the changing face of global energy economy Features chapters devoted to virtually all sources of alternative energy and energy systems Offers technical discussions of hydropower, wind, passive solar and solar-thermal, photovoltaics, fuel cells, CHP systems, geothermal, ocean energy, biomass, and nuclear Contains updated chapter review questions, homework problems, and a thoroughly revised solutions manual, available on the companion website While Alternative Energy Systems and Applications, Second Edition is an ideal textbook/reference for advanced undergraduate and graduate level engineering courses in energy-related subjects, it is also an indispensable professional resource for engineers and technicians working in areas related to the development of alternative/renewable energy systems.

"Natural Home Heating" is the first comprehensive guide to heating your home with renewable energy sources. Greg Pahl offers a well-organized, easy-to-understand tour of all available home-heating options, including traditional oil and gas furnaces, wood stoves and masonry heaters, active and passive solar systems, and heat pumps. Included is everything you need to know about the fuels, systems, technologies, costs, and advantages and disadvantages of each option. Pahl teaches homeowners how to retrofit existing heating systems and choose renewable replacements, or design an entirely new house that can be heated comfortably with minimal environmental and financial impact. Consider: - 95% of American homes are heated with fossil fuels. - Oil and gas prices are up by more than 20% as supplies dwindle and sources become less reliable. - Home heating costs could double or even triple in the event of a fuel crisis. - The fossil fuel economy is unsustainable. - There are viable, clean, healthy, and afford able home heating alternatives! Learn how to burn environmentally friendly bio-diesel fuels, not just in your car, but in your furnace. Find out how a ground-source heat pump works and why it can achieve 400% heating efficiency. Discover what it takes to make burning wood truly sustainable. Natural Home Heating explains all these details and more, making it unique in the marketplace.

The limitation of fossil fuels has challenged scientists and engineers to search for alternative energy resources that can meet future energy demand. Renewable Energy System Design is a valuable reference focusing on engineering, design, and operating principles that engineers can follow in order to successfully design more robust and efficient renewable energy systems. Written by Dr. Ziyad Salameh, an expert with over thirty years of teaching, research, and design experience, Renewable Energy System Design provides readers with the "nuts and bolts" of photovoltaic, wind energy, and hybrid wind/PV systems. It explores renewable energy storage devices with an emphasis on batteries and fuel cells and emerging sustainable technologies like biomass, geothermal power, ocean thermal energy conversion, solar thermal, and satellite power. Renewable Energy System Design is a must-have resource that provides engineers and students with a comprehensive yet practical guide to the characteristics, principles of operation, and power potential of the most prevalent renewable energy systems. - Explains and demonstrates design and operating principles for solar, wind, hybrid and emerging systems with diagrams and examples - Utilizes case studies to help engineers anticipate and overcome common design challenges - Explores renewable energy storage methods particularly batteries and fuel cells and emerging renewable technologies

With Profiting from Clean Energy, respected investment analyst Richard Asplund provides an in-depth explanation of the technology and industry structure behind various sectors of this field and in the process identifies more than 150 stocks related to clean energy. Along the way, Asplund discusses exactly what it takes to effectively invest in clean energy—whether it be through buying individual stocks, investing in green exchange-traded funds or mutual funds, or trading the biofuel and carbon credit markets.

Quantitative, accessible, multidisciplinary and fully updated, with new coverage of energy storage, microgrids and off-grid systems.

A unique electrical engineering approach to alternative sources ofenergy Unlike other books that deal with alternative sources of energyfrom a mechanical point of view, Integration of Alternative Sourcesof Energy takes an electrical engineering perspective. Moreover,the authors examine the full spectrum of alternative and renewableenergy with the goal of developing viable methods of integratingenergy sources and storage efficiently. Readers become thoroughlyconversant with the principles, possibilities, and limits ofalternative and renewable energy. The book begins with a general introduction and then reviewsprinciples of thermodynamics. Next, the authors explore both commonand up-and-coming alternative energy sources, including hydro,wind, solar, photovoltaic, thermosolar, fuel cells, and biomass.Following that are discussions of microturbines and inductiongenerators, as well as a special chapter dedicated to energystorage systems. After setting forth the fundamentals, the authorsfocus on how to integrate the various energy sources for electricalpower production. Discussions related to system operation,maintenance, and management, as well as standards forinterconnection, are also set forth. Throughout the book, diagrams are provided to demonstrate theelectrical operation of all the systems that are presented. Inaddition, extensive use of examples helps readers better grasp howintegration of alternative energy sources can beaccomplished. The final chapter gives readers the opportunity to learn about theHOMER Micropower Optimization Model. This computer model, developedby the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), assists in thedesign of micropower systems and facilitates comparisons of powergeneration techniques. Readers can download the software from theNREL Web site. This book is a must-read for engineers, consultants, regulators,and environmentalists involved in energy production and delivery,helping them evaluate alternative energy sources and integrate theminto an efficient energy delivery system. It is also a superiortextbook for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students.

Over 90 percent of US power generation comes from large, centralized, highly polluting, nonrenewable sources of energy. It is delivered through long, brittle transmission lines, and then is squandered through inefficiency and waste. But it doesn't have to be that way. Communities can indeed produce their own local, renewable energy. Power from the People explores how homeowners, co-ops, nonprofit institutions, governments, and businesses are putting power in the hands of local communities through distributed energy programs and energy-efficiency measures. Using examples from around the nation - and occasionally from around the world - Greg Pahl explains how to plan, organize, finance, and launch community-scale energy projects that harvest energy from sun, wind, water, and earth. He also explains why community power is a necessary step on the path to energy security and community resilience - particularly as we face peak oil, cope with climate change, and address the need to transition to a more sustainable future. This book - the second in the Chelsea Green Publishing Company and Post Carbon Institute's Community Resilience Series - also profiles numerous communitywide initiatives that can be replicated elsewhere.

The availability of clean, renewable power is without question going to be the defining challenge and goal of the 21st century, and wind will lead the way. Internationally acclaimed wind energy expert Paul Gipe is as soberly critical of past energy mistakes as he is convincingly optimistic about the future. The overwhelming challenge of transforming our world from one of fossil carbon to one of clean power seems daunting at best—and paralyzingly impractical at worst. Wind Energy Basics offers a solution. Wind power can realistically not only replace the lion’s share of oil-, coal-, and naturalgas– fired electrical plants in the U.S., but also can add enough extra power capacity to allow for most of the cars in the nation to run on electricity. Gipe explains why such a startlingly straightforward solution is eminently doable and can be accomplished much sooner than previously thought—and will have the capacity to resuscitate small and regional economies. Wind Energy Basics offers a how-to for home-based wind applications, with advice on which wind turbines to choose and which to avoid. He guides wind-energy installers through considerations such as renewable investment strategies and gives cautionary tales of wind applications gone wrong. And for the activist, he suggests methods of prodding federal, state, and provincial governments to promote energy independence.