The American electric utility system is quietly falling apart. Once taken for granted, the industry has become increasingly unstable, fragmented, unreliable, insecure, inefficient, expensive, and harmful to our environment and public health. According to Sovacool, the fix for this ugly array of problems lies not in nuclear power or clean coal, but in renewable energy systems that produce few harmful byproducts, relieve congestion on the transmission grid, require less maintenance, are not subject to price volatility, and enhance the security of the national energy system from natural catastrophe, terrorist attack, and dependence on supply from hostile and unstable regions of the world. Here arises The Dirty Energy Dilemma: If renewable energy systems deliver such impressive benefits, why are they languishing at the margins of the American energy portfolio? And why does the United States lag so far behind Europe, where conversion to renewable energy systems has already taken off in a big way? Corporate media parrot industry PR that renewable technologies just aren't ready for prime time. But Sovacool marshals extensive field research to show that the only barrier blocking the conversion of a significant proportion of the U.S. energy portfolio to renewables is not technological—the technology is there—but institutional. Public utility commissioners, utility managers, system operators, business owners, and ordinary consumers are hobbled by organizational conservatism, technical incompatibility, legal inertia, weak and inconsistent political incentives, ill-founded prejudices, and apathy. The author argues that significant conversion to technologically proven clean energy systems can happen only if we adopt and implement a whole new set of policies that will target and dismantle the insidious social barriers that are presently blocking decisions that would so obviously benefit society.

The American electric utility system is quietly falling apart. Once taken for granted, the industry has become increasingly unstable, fragmented, unreliable, insecure, inefficient, expensive, and harmful to our environment and public health. According to Sovacool, the fix for this ugly array of problems lies not in nuclear power or clean coal, but in renewable energy systems that produce few harmful byproducts, relieve congestion on the transmission grid, require less maintenance, are not subject to price volatility, and enhance the security of the national energy system from natural catastrophe, terrorist attack, and dependence on supply from hostile and unstable regions of the world. Here arises The Dirty Energy Dilemma: If renewable energy systems deliver such impressive benefits, why are they languishing at the margins of the American energy portfolio? And why does the United States lag so far behind Europe, where conversion to renewable energy systems has already taken off in a big way? Corporate media parrot industry PR that renewable technologies just aren't ready for prime time. But Sovacool marshals extensive field research to show that the only barrier blocking the conversion of a significant proportion of the U.S. energy portfolio to renewables is not technological—the technology is there—but institutional. Public utility commissioners, utility managers, system operators, business owners, and ordinary consumers are hobbled by organizational conservatism, technical incompatibility, legal inertia, weak and inconsistent political incentives, ill-founded prejudices, and apathy. The author argues that significant conversion to technologically proven clean energy systems can happen only if we adopt and implement a whole new set of policies that will target and dismantle the insidious social barriers that are presently blocking decisions that would so obviously benefit society.

This Handbook examines the subject of energy security: its definition, dimensions, ways to measure and index it, and the complicating factors that are often overlooked. The volume identifies varying definitions and dimensions of energy security, including those that prioritize security of supply and affordability alongside those that emphasize availability, energy efficiency, trade, environmental quality, and social and political stewardship. It also explores the various metrics that can be used to give energy security more coherence, and also to enable it to be measured, including recent attempts to measure energy security progress at the national level, with a special emphasis placed on countries within the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), countries within Asia, and industrialized countries worldwide. This Handbook: • Broadens existing discussions of energy security that center on access to fuels, including "oil security" and "coal security." • Focuses not only on the supply side of energy but also the demand, taking a hard look at energy services and politics along with technologies and infrastructure; • Investigates energy security issues such as energy poverty, equity and access, and development; • Analyzes ways to index and measure energy security progress at the national and international level. This book will be of much interest to students of energy security, energy policy, economics, environmental studies, and IR/Security Studies in general.

The inspiration for Nuclear Now, the new Oliver Stone film, co-written by Joshua Goldstein As climate change quickly approaches a series of turning points that guarantee disastrous outcomes, a solution is hiding in plain sight. Several countries have already replaced fossil fuels with low-carbon energy sources, and done so rapidly, in one to two decades. By following their methods, we could decarbonize the global economy by midcentury, replacing fossil fuels even while world energy use continues to rise. But so far we have lacked the courage to really try. In this clear-sighted and compelling book, Joshua Goldstein and Staffan Qvist explain how clean energy quickly replaced fossil fuels in such places as Sweden, France, South Korea, and Ontario. Their people enjoyed prosperity and growing energy use in harmony with the natural environment. They didn't do this through personal sacrifice, nor through 100 percent renewables, but by using them in combination with an energy source the Swedes call käkraft, hundreds of times safer and cleaner than coal. Clearly written and beautifully illustrated, yet footnoted with extensive technical references, Goldstein and Qvist's book will provide a new touchstone in discussions of climate change. It could spark a shift in world energy policy that, in the words of Steven Pinker's foreword, literally saves the world.

Follow the journey of a Canadian and Indian couple, Savannah and Sandeep, as they travel the world to capture the human side of one of the biggest energy transitions of our times - the global shift from fossil fuels to renewables. In this exciting and provocative new book, readers are taken into the homes of the coal miners who live and work in Jharia, a town in India that has been on fire for the past 100 years due to poor coal mining practices. Life in Jharia is a version of Dante's inferno - 700,000 people live in the most unimaginable conditions. Yet even though residents of Jharia say they are dying slowly every day, they also say they'll never leave. Almost 11,000 kilometres away, in the Canadian oil sands, workers and indigenous people similarly describe their complex relationship with the industry that employs them. Although fossil fuel extraction is harming the environment and impacting people's way of life in the oil sands region, a much-needed shift to renewable energy could also leave communities without their livelihoods. Written in the form of a travelogue, Total Transition provides a whirlwind look at the global growth of renewable energy - highlighting exciting developments in solar and wind energy in Canada, India, Africa and Europe, and discussing hurdles standing in the way of a total transition. Energy experts and leaders of innovative renewable energy projects share hope and optimism about the future of fossil fuel workers and their communities in an increasingly renewable world.

Develops a new theory of 'identity' ecological modernization (EM), to analyse renewable history and policy development in many of the world's states which are leading the drive to install renewable energy. 'Identity EM' concerns how an industry has arisen allied to environmental NGOs to challenge the ascendancy of conventional energy technologies.

The wind power development policy community faces a conundrum. On the one hand, as the most commercially viable form of utility-scale renewable energy, the wind power industry has experienced in excess of ten-fold growth in total installed capacity over the past decade. On the other hand, installed wind power capacity still accounts for less than 2% of global electricity-generation capacity, despite the prevalence of studies indicating that, in certain situations, wind power can be a cheaper form of electricity than most fossil fuel alternatives. Accordingly, the most puzzling aspect of wind power development policy can be summed up in the following manner: given the global imperative to facilitate an expedient transition away from CO2-intensive energy technologies and the commercial viability of wind power, what is stopping the wind power industry from capturing higher market shares around the world? In Wind Power Politics and Policy, Scott Valentine examines this question from two angles. First, it presents an analysis of social, technical, economic and political (STEP) barriers which research shows tends to stymie wind power development. Case studies which examine phlegmatic wind power development in Japan, Taiwan, Australia and Canada are presented in order to demonstrate to the reader how these barriers manifest themselves in practice. Second, the book presents an analysis of STEP catalysts which have been linked to successful growth of wind power capacity in select nations. Four more case studies that examine the successful development of wind power in Denmark, Germany, the USA and China are put forth as practical examples of how supportive factors conflate to produce conditions that are conducive to growth of wind power markets. By examining its impediments and catalysts, the book will provide policymakers with insight into the types of factors that must be effectively managed in order to maximize wind power development.