The European Union's biggest and most powerful industrial economy is making a clean break from coal, oil and nuclear energy. It is doing something most Americans would say is impossible, but already Germany is running on 25% clean energy and it is on track to reach 80 percent by 2050. Some experts say it could reach 100 percent by then.
But Germany's energiewende, or energy transformation, is really a very American story that revolves around self-reliant individuals in a responsive democracy forging a national can-do vision.
".....a riveting account of Germany’s energy revolution." The Ecologist
"This book contains a nice combination of interviews, stories, and examples of how Germany is transitioning from a fossil fuel and nuclear infrastructure to a clean, renewable one. It is an important and eye-opening analysis that should be read by anyone interested in emulating this feat in other countries."
Mark Z. Jacobson, Director, Atmosphere/Energy Program, Stanford University
In the US, we're bombarded with messages about how renewables aren't and will never be affordable or scalable. Davidson shows us how it is possible with a storyteller's flair and a wonk's eye for detail.
–Kate Sheppard, reporter, Mother Jones
Like a solar tower in a field of mirrors Osha Gray Davidson shines an intense beam of journalistic competence on perhaps the greatest challenge of our time....while renewing a practical sense of hope that it’s not too late to move towards a literally brighter future.
David Helvarg, Author of ‘The Golden Shore – California’s Love Affair with the Sea.’
“.....a remarkable new book on how Germany became the undisputed green energy leader.”
Bill McKibben, author, journalist, activist
While this is a book about policy from top to bottom, it often reads more like a travel book, a journal of discovery through a modernizing nation whose rapid progress was at times as startling to the author as it will be to you.....the Germans’ just-do-it attitude may be another key reason that their nation, so comparable to ours in living standard, industrial base, economic system and culture, has raced so far ahead in making the changes all Americans realize, in our heart of hearts, are ultimately inevitable.
Ron Meador, MinnPost
But Germany's energiewende, or energy transformation, is really a very American story that revolves around self-reliant individuals in a responsive democracy forging a national can-do vision.
".....a riveting account of Germany’s energy revolution." The Ecologist
"This book contains a nice combination of interviews, stories, and examples of how Germany is transitioning from a fossil fuel and nuclear infrastructure to a clean, renewable one. It is an important and eye-opening analysis that should be read by anyone interested in emulating this feat in other countries."
Mark Z. Jacobson, Director, Atmosphere/Energy Program, Stanford University
In the US, we're bombarded with messages about how renewables aren't and will never be affordable or scalable. Davidson shows us how it is possible with a storyteller's flair and a wonk's eye for detail.
–Kate Sheppard, reporter, Mother Jones
Like a solar tower in a field of mirrors Osha Gray Davidson shines an intense beam of journalistic competence on perhaps the greatest challenge of our time....while renewing a practical sense of hope that it’s not too late to move towards a literally brighter future.
David Helvarg, Author of ‘The Golden Shore – California’s Love Affair with the Sea.’
“.....a remarkable new book on how Germany became the undisputed green energy leader.”
Bill McKibben, author, journalist, activist
While this is a book about policy from top to bottom, it often reads more like a travel book, a journal of discovery through a modernizing nation whose rapid progress was at times as startling to the author as it will be to you.....the Germans’ just-do-it attitude may be another key reason that their nation, so comparable to ours in living standard, industrial base, economic system and culture, has raced so far ahead in making the changes all Americans realize, in our heart of hearts, are ultimately inevitable.
Ron Meador, MinnPost
