Customer Reviews

Energy for Sustainability: Technology, Planning, Policy

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This book provides a clear, comprehensive and an excellent introduction to the technical basis, systems design, economic analysis, environmental impact and planning/policy of renewable and sustainable energy. Based partly on Prof. Masters' earlier work (Renewable and Efficient Electric Power Systems), this volume is completely redesigned and rewritten from the ground-up taking a multidisciplinary and whole life cycle approach.

Entirely new chapters are presented on:
a.energy analysis - history, future, market, economic, environmental and life-cycle analysis
b.energy theory - mechanical, thermal, chemical, nuclear, electrical, etc.
c.green buildings - cradle-to-cradle analysis of the built environment, ZEH, etc.
d.transportation - well-to-wheels analysis, PHEV, FCEV, etc.
e.land use planning - transit-oriented development, smart growth models, etc.
f.policy/planning - regulations, standards, ITC, PTC, FIT, carbon trading, RPS, etc.

The above are in addition to full chapters (with the latest updated material) on various renewables such as
a. solar (both photo-voltaic and thermal)
b. wind
c. biofuels
d. microturbines, fuel cells, CHP, etc.

The book provides most anything (nearly 800 pages) one wants to know under the clean-tech sun (at the undergraduate level prior to doing further advanced research on a specific area of interest). The book analyses each topic fairly thoroughly and explains everything very clearly. It is published by a non-profit which prolly explains the too-good-to-be-true low price. One thing to note is that the end-of-chapter problems are slated to be online and aren't in the book itself. Reading is a joy with numerous colorful graphs, tables, diagrams, flowcharts, real-world examples and actual photos. If you had to buy only one book in this space, u couldn't go wrong here - it is destined to be a classic.

This book was used as the primary texts for a graduate, yet intro-level Alternative energy class. As the class was set up in a survey-type format encompassing a wide variety of different topics from heat transfer equations to sizing wind turbines, to policies that will affect the future of renewable energy practices, this book gives the reader a great start.

PROS:

-Easy Read. The book flows fluidly and does not read like a textbook. Although being fairly long, I was able to grasp the concepts within each given chapter fairly quickly.

-Comprehensive view of the sustainable engineering practices: The book not only goes into technical details of solar panel sizing and heat loss equations, but spends some time making the reader aware with the economic and political factors that will affect the future renewable energy.

CONS:

-Few example problems of the mathematical concepts: If you are a "learn by doing allot of practice problems" type person, I suggest you supplement this book with another book.

-No specific topic is delved into extensively: As I mentioned, this is a survey-level intro textbook that encompasses the entire renewable energy sector. If you are more interested in a specific type (solar, wind, bio, etc.) you should look elsewhere.

Pretty well written book, I enjoy learning from it. The book is too large and is heavy. The authors or book company should have split the book into two separate books,(Energy for Sustainability I & Energy for Sustainability II). It a lot of weight to be carrying around.

this is a very informative textbook used for a very informative class- tons of info in it