As a society we use energy for climate control and lighting in buildings, moving people and goods form one place to another and making things. Our standard of living depends on transforming energy locked up in fossil fuels, atomic nuclei or provided free of charge by the sun and wind into a form
that we can use. This book uses simple classical physics (mechanics, thermodynamics and electromagnetism) to quantitatively review sources of energy and how we use them. It addresses key questions such as: Can renewables such as solar and wind take over from fossil fuels? How much will their use
reduce CO2 emissions?
To see what is important, numbers are used to estimate how big or small things are, but the maths is kept at the level of simple algebra and trigonometry. The aim is to give an overview of the big picture, to only worry about what really makes a difference. There's
also growing concern that CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels will change climate irreversibly in harmful ways.
Introduction
1. Energy and Society
PART I: Controlling the Indoor Environment
2. Buildings
3. Electrical Power Generation: Fossil Fuels
4. Nuclear Power Generation
5. Electrical Power Distribution
6. Electrical Power Generation: Renewables - Solar and
Wind
7. Electrical Power Generation: Hydroelectric, Tides, Pumped Storage
PART II: Moving People and Things Around
8. Transportation: Fuel Energies
9. Ground Transportation: Road and Rail
10. Air Transportation
11. Ground Transportation: Ships
PART III: Making
Stuff
12. Materials That Come From the Earth
13. Agriculture, Things That Are Grown
14. Embodied Energy and Energy Return on Investment
15. Summary: What Shoud be Done?
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Peter Rez completed his bachelors degree in Cambridge, and his PhD on Theory of Electron Scattering in Electron Microscopy, in Oxford. He has worked in industry (Kevex, VG Microscopes) on computer control and data acquisition in electron microscopy. He's been a professor at Arizona State since
1985. His interests have broadened to include general condensed matter theory as applied to batteries and strength of materials, radiation physics as applied to medical physics and radiation detectors, biomineralization and biophysics. This book came about from the author's interest in energy
policy, another area where science and policy making collide.
