Renewable Energy: A Concise Guide to Green Alternatives

Library Journal

Renewable energy (i.e., solar power, wind energy, geothermal energy, hydroelectricity, etc.) is presently a hot topic of concern, and the authors of these new references are well qualified to present information on it. The appropriately named Carless, a California environmentalist, is author of Taking Out the Trash: A No-Nonsense Guide to Recycling ( LJ 7/92); Golob, an international consultant and publisher, is an editor and author, along with Brus, of several environmental publications. Both books are well written and present the current status, future prospects, environmental considerations, and cost of various types of renewable energy. Golob and Brus's work is more international in scope and more thoroughly illustrated; it also contains a very useful 90-page appendix of tables. It offers the more detailed index, while Carless's less expensive book has a more extensive bibliography. Both titles are recommended for public and academic libraries, especially those emphasizing the environment or energy. If you must choose between them, let your budget be the guide.-- Eugenia C. Adams, Univ. of Houston-Downtown Lib.

Booknews

Chapters cover major alternative, renewable energy resources: solar power, hydropower, wind energy, geothermal, biomass, and renewable auto fuels such as methanol. For each, the author explains the history, current status, environmental issues, costs, applications, technology, benefits, and future potential. Includes many examples and applications. Contains a list of sources for information and a bibliography. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

George Hampton

Nearly 70 percent of our energy needs could be satisfied through renewable technologies, Carless says; that is, by using technologies that draw energy from solar, wind, hydraulic, geothermal, and biomass sources. Noteworthy in Carless' approach to her subject is a historical precis of each energy source and a candid appraisal of both its advantages and its disadvantages; e.g., biomass technology can harm the environment, and geothermal energy costs are all at the start-up end. Carless also touches, at lesser length, upon less well known technologies involving tidal energy, heat recovery from magma chambers, solar cooking, and the reuse of farm wastes; and while noting that alternative transportation fuels are in their infancy, she features the automobile in a chapter devoted to such alternative fuels as natural gas, ethanol, methanol, etc. Future advances, she concludes, depend upon both technological improvements and smarter use of available resources.