Download or read book Transition to Renewable Energy Systems written by Detlef Stolten and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 882 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this ready reference, top academic researchers, industry players and government officers join forces to develop commercial concepts for the transition from current nuclear or fossil fuel-based energy to renewable energy systems within a limited time span. They take into account the latest science and technology, including an analysis of the feasibility and impact on the environment, economy and society. In so doing, they discuss such complex topics as electrical and gas grids, fossil power plants and energy storage technologies. The contributions also include robust, conceivable and breakthrough technologies that will be viable and implementable by 2020.

Download or read book The Material Basis of Energy Transitions written by Alena Bleicher and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2020-08-05 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Material Basis of Energy Transitions explores the intersection between critical raw material provision and the energy system. Chapters draw on examples and case studies involving energy technologies (e.g., electric power, transport) and raw material provision (e.g., mining, recycling), and consider these in their regional and global contexts. The book critically discusses issues such as the notion of criticality in the context of a circular economy, approaches for estimating the need for raw materials, certification schemes for raw materials, the role of consumers, and the impact of renewable energy development on resource conflicts. Each chapter deals with a specific issue that characterizes the interdependency between critical raw materials and renewable energies by examining case studies from a particular conceptual perspective. The book is a resource for students and researchers from the social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering, as well as interdisciplinary scholars interested in the field of renewable energies, the circular economy, recycling, transport, and mining. The book is also of interest to policymakers in the fields of renewable energy, recycling, and mining, professionals from the energy and resource industries, as well as energy experts and consultants looking for an interdisciplinary assessment of critical materials. Provides a comprehensive overview of key issues related to the nexus between renewable energy and critical raw materials Explores interdisciplinary perspectives from the natural sciences, engineering, and social sciences Discusses critical strategies to address the nexus from a practitioner's perspective

Download or read book Revolutionary Power written by Shalanda Baker and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2021-01-14 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 2017, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, completely upending the energy grid of the small island. The nearly year-long power outage that followed vividly shows how the new climate reality intersects with race and access to energy. The island is home to brown and black US citizens who lack the political power of those living in the continental US. As the world continues to warm and storms like Maria become more commonplace, it is critical that we rethink our current energy system to enable reliable, locally produced, and locally controlled energy without replicating the current structures of power and control. In Revolutionary Power, Shalanda Baker arms those made most vulnerable by our current energy system with the tools they need to remake the system in the service of their humanity. She argues that people of color, poor people, and indigenous people must engage in the creation of the new energy system in order to upend the unequal power dynamics of the current system. Revolutionary Power is a playbook for the energy transformation complete with a step-by-step analysis of the key energy policy areas that are ripe for intervention. Baker tells the stories of those who have been left behind in our current system and those who are working to be architects of a more just system. She draws from her experience as an energy-justice advocate, a lawyer, and a queer woman of color to inspire activists working to build our new energy system. Climate change will force us to rethink the way we generate and distribute energy and regulate the system. But how much are we willing to change the system? This unique moment in history provides an unprecedented opening for a deeper transformation of the energy system, and thus, an opportunity to transform society. Revolutionary Power shows us how.

Download or read book Technological Learning in the Transition to a Low Carbon Energy System written by Martin Junginger and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2019-11-22 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Technological Learning in the Transition to a Low-Carbon Energy System: Conceptual Issues, Empirical Findings, and Use in Energy Modeling quantifies key trends and drivers of energy technologies deployed in the energy transition. It uses the experience curve tool to show how future cost reductions and cumulative deployment of these technologies may shape the future mix of the electricity, heat and transport sectors. The book explores experience curves in detail, including possible pitfalls, and demonstrates how to quantify the 'quality' of experience curves. It discusses how this tool is implemented in models and addresses methodological challenges and solutions. For each technology, current market trends, past cost reductions and underlying drivers, available experience curves, and future prospects are considered. Electricity, heat and transport sector models are explored in-depth to show how the future deployment of these technologies--and their associated costs--determine whether ambitious decarbonization climate targets can be reached - and at what costs. The book also addresses lessons and recommendations for policymakers, industry and academics, including key technologies requiring further policy support, and what scientific knowledge gaps remain for future research. Provides a comprehensive overview of trends and drivers for major energy technologies expected to play a role in the energy transition Delivers data on cost trends, helping readers gain insights on how competitive energy technologies may become, and why Reviews the use of learning curves in environmental impacts for lifecycle assessments and energy modeling Features social learning for cost modeling and technology diffusion, including where consumer preferences play a major role

Download or read book Energy 2050 written by Jim Skea and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-06-25 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United Kingdom is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by at least eighty per cent by 2050, a target that will only be achieved by transforming the way that energy is supplied and used. At the same time there are anxieties about the security of energy provision in terms of European dependency on natural gas and the reliability of electricity supply. This book explores in detail those factors which could help or hinder the attainment of the UK's climate change targets, and how these factors interact with the parallel objective of maintaining a robust and secure energy system. The book is the result of a major national energy research effort by the UK Energy Research Centre, which includes some of the UK's leading energy experts. The results and recommendations are essential reading for policymakers, professionals, researchers, and anyone concerned with achieving large-scale reductions in carbon emissions, both from the UK and internationally. Energy 2050 begins by exploring the evolution of the UK energy system over recent decades: the trends, technologies and environmental impacts related to energy use, and the structures and institutions of governance that have influenced this evolution. It then moves on to changes in energy policy to emphasise decarbonization and resilience, and introduce the approach to scenarios and modelling used in the rest of the book. Later chapters explore different aspects of the uncertainties that may enable or constrain the creation of a low-carbon, resilient UK energy system, related to accelerated technology development, the creation of an infrastructure to support de-centralized energy and microgeneration, to lifestyle and behaviour change, and to public attitudes to wider environmental impacts associated with energy system change.

Download or read book Sustainable Energy Transitions written by Dustin Mulvaney and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-12-03 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook introduces the key concepts that underpin sustainable energy transitions. Starting with the basic biophysical principles, current sources and environmental consequences of existing energy resource use, the book takes readers through the key questions and topics needed to understand, prescribe, and advocate just and sustainable energy solutions. The interdisciplinary nature of the book aims to build bridges across the social and natural sciences and humanities, bringing together perspectives, ideas and concepts from engineering, economics, and life cycle assessment to sociology, political science, anthropology, policy studies, the humanities, arts, and some interdisciplinary thinkers that defy categories. This accessible approach fills the gap for a textbook that integrates sustainability science and engineering studies with strong empirical social science and it will be a useful tool to anyone interested in the socio-ecological dimensions of energy system transitions.

Download or read book Energy Transitions written by Vaclav Smil and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-05-26 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bold and controversial argument shows why energy transitions are inherently complex and prolonged affairs, and how ignoring this fact raises unrealistic expectations that the United States and other global economies can be weaned quickly from a primary dependency on fossil fuels. Energy transitions are fundamental processes behind the evolution of human societies: they both drive and are driven by technical, economic, and social changes. In a bold and provocative argument, Energy Transitions: History, Requirements, Prospects describes the history of modern society's dependence on fossil fuels and the prospects for the transition to a nonfossil world. Vaclav Smil, who has published more on various aspects of energy than any working scientist, makes it clear that this transition will not be accomplished easily, and that it cannot be accomplished within the timetables established by the Obama administration. The book begins with a survey of the basic properties of modern energy systems. It then offers detailed explanations of universal patterns of energy transitions, the peculiarities of changing energy use in the world's leading economies, and the coming shifts from fossil fuels to renewable conversions. Specific cases of these transitions are analyzed for eight of the world's leading energy consumers. The author closes with perspectives on the nature and pace of the coming energy transition to renewable conversions.

Download or read book Governing the Energy Transition written by Geert Verbong and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-03-29 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Energy Transition, the inevitable shift away from cheap, centralized, largely fossil-based energy systems, is one of the core challenges of our time. This book provides a coherent and novel insight into the nature of this challenge and possible strategies to accelerate and guide such transitions. It brings together prominent European scholars and practitioners from the fields of energy transition research and governance to draw attention to the current complex dynamics in the energy domain, and offer elegant and provocative explanations for current crises and lock-ins. They identify multiple energy transition pathways that emerge and increasingly compete, and emphasize the need and possibilities for novel governance. By analysing the complexity of energy transition processes and the difficulties in shifting to sustainable pathways, this text questions the extent to which actually governing energy transitions is already reality, just an illusion, or a bare necessity.

Download or read book Complex Systems and Social Practices in Energy Transitions written by Nicola Labanca and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an interdisciplinary discussion of the fundamental issues concerning policies for sustainable transition to renewable energies from the perspectives of sociologists, physicists, engineers, economists, anthropologists, biologists, ecologists and policy analysts. Adopting a combined approach, these are analysed taking both complex systems and social practice theories into consideration to provide deeper insights into the evolution of energy systems. The book then draws a series of important conclusions and makes recommendations for the research community and policy makers involved in the design and implementation of policies for sustainable energy transitions.

Download or read book Shaping an Inclusive Energy Transition written by Margot P. C. Weijnen and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-06-24 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book makes a case for a socially inclusive energy transition and illustrates how engineering and public policy professionals can contribute to shaping an inclusive energy transition, building on a socio-technical systems engineering approach. Accomplishing a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions economy in 2050 is a daunting challenge. This book explores the challenges of the energy transition from the perspectives of technological innovation, public policy, social values and ethics. It elaborates on two particular gaps in the design of public policy interventions focused on decarbonization of the energy system and discusses how both could be remedied. First, the siloed organization of public administration fails to account for the many interdependencies between the energy sector, the mobility system, digital infrastructure and the built environment. Cross-sector coordination of policies and policy instruments is needed to avoid potentially adverse effects upon society and the economy, which may hamper the energy transition rather than accelerate it. Second, energy and climate policies pay insufficient attention to the social values at stake in the energy transition. In addressing these gaps, this book intends to inspire decision makers engaged in the energy transition to embrace the transition as an opportunity to bring a more inclusive society into being.

Download or read book The Geopolitics of the Global Energy Transition written by Manfred Hafner and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world is currently undergoing an historic energy transition, driven by increasingly stringent decarbonisation policies and rapid advances in low-carbon technologies. The large-scale shift to low-carbon energy is disrupting the global energy system, impacting whole economies, and changing the political dynamics within and between countries. This open access book, written by leading energy scholars, examines the economic and geopolitical implications of the global energy transition, from both regional and thematic perspectives. The first part of the book addresses the geopolitical implications in the world’s main energy-producing and energy-consuming regions, while the second presents in-depth case studies on selected issues, ranging from the geopolitics of renewable energy, to the mineral foundations of the global energy transformation, to governance issues in connection with the changing global energy order. Given its scope, the book will appeal to researchers in energy, climate change and international relations, as well as to professionals working in the energy industry.

Download or read book Renewables written by Michael Aklin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-03-23 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive political analysis of the rapid growth in renewable wind and solar power, mapping an energy transition through theory, case studies, and policy. Wind and solar are the most dynamic components of the global power sector. How did this happen? After the 1973 oil crisis, the limitations of an energy system based on fossil fuels created an urgent need to experiment with alternatives, and some pioneering governments reaped political gains by investing heavily in alternative energy such as wind or solar power. Public policy enabled growth over time, and economies of scale brought down costs dramatically. In this book, Michaël Aklin and Johannes Urpelainen offer a comprehensive political analysis of the rapid growth in renewable wind and solar power, mapping an energy transition through theory, case studies, and policy analysis. Aklin and Urpelainen argue that, because the fossil fuel energy system and political support for it are so entrenched, only an external shock—an abrupt rise in oil prices, or a nuclear power accident, for example—allows renewable energy to grow. They analyze the key factors that enable renewable energy to withstand political backlash, andt they draw on this analyisis to explain and predict the development of renewable energy in different countries over time. They examine the pioneering efforts in the United States, Germany, and Denmark after the 1973 oil crisis and other shocks; explain why the United States surrendered its leadership role in renewable energy; and trace the recent rapid growth of modern renewables in electricity generation, describing, among other things, the return of wind and solar to the United States. Finally, they apply the lessons of their analysis to contemporary energy policy issues.

Download or read book Understanding the Energy Transition written by Natalia Magnani and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-11-22 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The transformation of the dominant model of centralized energy production from fossil fuels to renewable energies is at the center of the public and scientific debate, as well as the subject of national and European policies, as it is connected to highly topical issues such as climate change, emissions reduction and natural disasters, security of supply and sustainability of the current economic development model. Up to now this topic has been mainly addressed by the economic and engineering sciences, with a research focus on the hardware rather than on the human and social software. However, energy systems, and the possibilities of change, are not only economic or technological but involve also patterns of social life, representations, organizational models and relational structures. In order to generate the social preconditions for the transition to a low-emission society, focused on a growing production of energy from renewable sources and on a greater sustainability of consumption, it is therefore urgent to reaffirm the centrality of a sociological approach to energy. This book focused on three core research areas which are crucial to understand what is at stake with the energy transition: conflicts over the construction and location of renewable energy production plants; collective action on renewable sources that promote a new model of energy system in which consumers are also producers; and the social-territorial impact of energy policies.

Download or read book Energy Systems Transition written by Vahid Vahidinasab and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-02-17 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Energy Systems Transition: Digitalization, Decarbonization, Decentralization, and Democratization provides a thorough multidisciplinary overview of the operation of modern green energy systems and examines the role of 4D energy transition in global decarbonization mitigation efforts for meeting long-term climate goals. Contributions present practical aspects and approaches with evidence from applications to real-world energy systems, offering in-depth technical discussions, case studies, and examples to help readers understand the methods, current challenges, and future directions. A hands-on reference to energy distribution systems, it is suitable for researchers and industry practitioners from different branches of engineering, energy, data science, economics, and operation research.

Download or read book The Political Economy of Clean Energy Transitions written by Douglas Jay Arent and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 631 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A volume on the political economy of clean energy transition in developed and developing regions, with a focus on the issues that different countries face as they transition from fossil fuels to lower carbon technologies.

Download or read book Germany s Energy Transition written by Carol Hager and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-09-26 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes Germany's path-breaking Energiewende, the country's transition from an energy system based on fossil and nuclear fuels to a sustainable energy system based on renewables. The authors explain Germany's commitment to a renewable energy transition on multiple levels of governance, from the local to the European, focusing on the sources of institutional change that made the transition possible. They then place the German case in international context through comparative case studies of energy transitions in the USA, China, and Japan. These chapters highlight the multifaceted challenges, and the enormous potential, in different paths to a sustainable energy future. Taken together, they tell the story of one of the most important political, economic, and social undertakings of our time.

Download or read book Managing the Transition to Renewable Energy written by Jeroen C. J. M. van den Bergh and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2008-03-31 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited work studies the transition to renewable energy. It offers perspectives from a wide range of disciplines, addressing macro, regional and local scales. Important lessons are also drawn from historical transitions.