The author, Colorado's 41st governor, discusses ways to use clean, renewable energy to help resolve global climate change and its environmental impact, based in part on examples from Colorado.

Green will illustrate and shed new light on the gamut of issues associated with renewable energy, a topic whose importance increases exponentially with every temperature record-setting year. Jane and Michael Hoffman use their years of experience to explain the technological and economic future of this ecologically significant issue. They incisively explain its politics: what countries are doing right now and, most importantly, what the U.S. should be doing. Green will cut through the hype and polemics surrounding ecologically friendly technologies and present the unvarnished truth. It will guide the reader through the misinformation and confusion over global warming, and demonstrate the degree to which renewable energy can be part of the solution.

There is a new and exciting revolution coming. It will dramatically change our landscape, our environment, our economy, and our lives. It will provide each and every one of us with a truly unique sense of independence. It will mark the end of oil-influenced politics, and the beginning of a bright new millennium - a time in which we all will have our own unlimited sources of nonpolluting energy. However, it will not come without a struggle, as history has already shown. The Coming Energy Revolution provides us with an intriguing and insightful look at the forces behind the free-energy movement. The Coming Energy Revolution introduces us to some of the inventors, both past and present, who have insisted that we are surrounded by a sea of energy that we can tap once we have learned nature's secrets. Conventional science says that space is cold and still, and that what energy does exist cannot be put to useful work. The new-energy innovators say that conventional science is wrong, and that new-energy research is being suppressed by a combination of scientific inertia and corporate self-interest. But the suppression cannot last, as this book shows - there are simply too many inventors who are close to new-energy breakthroughs. The Coming Energy Revolution examines the technologies on which these inventors are working. There are magnets that can redirect the energy of space. There is a gentler form of nuclear energy that can take place on a table top. There is hydrogen, a clean, abundant fuel that can be produced wherever needed. There is a form of hydropower that does not rely on massive dams. And there are other forms of new energy. The Coming Energy Revolution looks at them all, and at thekinds of changes that will be needed to overcome the roadblocks between our old-energy present and our new-energy future.

"By far the most helpful, entertaining, up-to-date and accessible treatment of the energy-economy-environment problematique available."

We need a global energy revolution. In developed nations we are wasting massive quantities of energy providing heat and light to our homes and businesses while one and a half billion people have no access to electricity at all. The existing central-power-station model is based on old technology that spews carbon, energy, and money straight up the chimney. Energy Revolution shows us how we can change all of this. Telling stories from around the world of the change that's already happening and drawing on two decades of his own unique experience, Howard Johns demonstrates how we can develop our own renewable-energy projects to provide local energy and create a new fleet of businesses. He shows us how communities can build local energy solutions--renewable-power stations that will be a new form of building society where we come together to develop, finance, and construct the infrastructure that we and future generations so desperately need. Howard Johns explains how to design, set up, and fund community energy systems, citing examples from countries that already have cut the amount of energy they use and supply their needs from renewable energy. These new systems will create new jobs and businesses, reduce energy imports, and create new local-investment models. This handbook contains the map we need to change the system from the bottom up and make the next great leap forward to achieving clean, affordable energy. It covers everything needed to structure your community power company--the technology, site assessment, legal and business planning, fundraising and financial modeling, and putting people at the heart of your strategy. It's time to take control, re-localize, reduce costs and carbon emissions, and join the energy revolution.

Energy can be neither created nor destroyed—but it can be wasted. The United States wastes two-thirds of its energy, including 80 percent of the energy used in transportation. So the nation has a tremendous opportunity to develop a sensible energy policy based on benefits and costs. But to do that we need facts—not hyperbole, not wishful thinking. Mara Prentiss presents and interprets political and technical information from government reports and press releases, as well as fundamental scientific laws, to advance a bold claim: wind and solar power could generate 100 percent of the United States’ average total energy demand for the foreseeable future, even without waste reduction. To meet the actual rather than the average demand, significant technological and political hurdles must be overcome. Still, a U.S. energy economy based entirely on wind, solar, hydroelectricity, and biofuels is within reach. The transition to renewables will benefit from new technologies that decrease energy consumption without lifestyle sacrifices, including energy optimization from interconnected smart devices and waste reduction from use of LED lights, regenerative brakes, and electric cars. Many countries cannot obtain sufficient renewable energy within their borders, Prentiss notes, but U.S. conversion to a 100 percent renewable energy economy would, by itself, significantly reduce the global impact of fossil fuel consumption. Enhanced by full-color visualizations of key concepts and data, Energy Revolution answers one of the century’s most crucial questions: How can we get smarter about producing and distributing, using and conserving, energy?