The Great Transition

May 15, 2015

Brown, esteemed global environmental issues analyst and author of 51 books, is retiring, and his Earth Policy Institute is soon to be shuttered. As his swan song, it is hard not to see in this book some quiet satisfaction in the changes Brown foresees as the shift to renewables advances. That move, he claims, is just starting and will accelerate as the costs of clean technologies fall, such that "we are looking at the prospect of a half-century's worth of change within the next decade." A chapter each is devoted to old energy sources (oil, coal, nuclear) and the reasons why they're on the way out (finite, dirty, expensive). Wind, solar, geothermal, and hydropower are discussed in terms of global adoption rates, key technological features, and likely future trends. Social attitudes toward renewables are scarcely noted. This short book reads long: the cumulative effect of paragraph after paragraph of figures (world and national rankings, monetary values, megawattage, etc.) can be stupefying--an infographic or two might have provided some relief. VERDICT Despite its density, this is a reliable discussion starter on the changing world energy economy.--Robert Eagan, Windsor P.L., Ont.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2015
Amid all the doom, gloom, and denial, here comes a book that promises some good news regarding viable energy resources in the age of climate change. Groundbreaking environmentalist and founder of the Earth Policy Institute, Brown extols the virtues and possibilities of wind and solar power, and supports his advocacy with hard facts, concrete examples, and surprising statistics. The conversion from fossil fuels and nuclear power to renewable and inexhaustible energy sources has already begun. In the U.S., states such as Iowa and South Dakota are procuring large amounts of electricity from wind farms, while others, such as Massachusetts, have a firm deadline for going off-grid. Such a transition from one source of power to another is not without precedent; after all, it was only 150 years ago that the first oil well was drilled. By carefully analyzing policies and practices already in place around the world, Brown and his team of researchers demonstrate that new energy sources will be commonplace sooner than we think.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)