Resolving the escalating issues surrounding climate destabilization will be one of the most important environmental challenges we face this century. Dr David Sanborn Scott, one of Canada's foremost energy experts, clearly demonstrates that we have only one real choice - Hydrogen. Using literate, lay-accessible, sometimes lyrical but never trivial explanations, Smelling Land gives a clear and comprehensive examination of: The architecture of civilization's energy systems; The critical role of energy currencies and the widespred blunders when this role is not recognized; How to evaluate environmental intrusion and general principles for environmental gentility; The mechanisms and status of climate disruption; Sustainability and the REASONS for a coming Hydrogen Age; Energy source options -to identify realistic expectations and expose myths; The wonders of hydrogen systems, from airplanes, to cars, submarines, laptop computers, mobile phones and heart pacers; How fast we can get to the Hydrogen Age (if we wake up to the true severity of the climate risk), why and what it will be like. For additional reviews, further details, excerpts of the book or to check out audio and video interviews with the author, please visit Dr. Scott's website: smellingland.com
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
As unscholarly as my reaction to this book may sound, it can best be summed up with, I love it. I know of no source that gives the kind of reliable and cogent data, relevant context and reasonable interpretation that I find in Smelling Land. Professor Scott's facts are straight and his conclusions are logically based on those facts something very rare in most of today's energy/environmental publications. His unique ability to connect the dots helps clarify and illustrate how each issue relates to the wider system. Anyone with an interest in energy and environmental issues needs to read Smelling Land. Similarly, every university, corporation, and governmental body should have a copy in their library. --Ben Ball, Adjunct Professor of Management and Engineering (retired), MIT, Vice President, Strategic Planning (retired), Gulf Oil Corporation
I will feel much more optimistic about our future prospects if people everywhere are guided by the insightful vision and practical wisdom of this remarkable book. --Maurice Strong, Secretary General, United Nation Conference on Environment and Development
I will feel much more optimistic about our future prospects if people everywhere are guided by the insightful vision and practical wisdom of this remarkable book. --Maurice Strong, Secretary General, United Nation Conference on Environment and Development
In an engaging, highly readable but never trivial manner, Smelling Land sets out how our energy system really works. David Scott s credentials for doing so are impeccable. He has served at the highest levels of the international hydrogen community. The book can be read and enjoyed at several levels by science and non-science audiences. David Scott is known for his almost clairvoyant ability to see the forest (energy systems) above its trees (individual technologies) and then to explain how the trees are evolving.
Smelling Land is timely and urgent. To my mind, it gives the single comprehensive strategy that can attack climate change. I know of no other book that does this so well and none which so well equips the reader to judge new and stimulating ideas. -- A.K. (SANDY) STUART, Chair, Export Development Canada, 1993-1997, Member, Order of Canada --A.K. (SANDY) STUART, Chair, Export Development Canada, 1993-1997, Member, Order of Canada
As unscholarly as my reaction to this book may sound, it can best be summed up with, I love it. I know of no source that gives the kind of reliable and cogent data, relevant context and reasonable interpretation that I find in Smelling Land.
Professor Scott's facts are straight and his conclusions are logically based on those facts something very rare in most of today's energy/environmental publications. His unique ability to connect the dots helps clarify and illustrate how each issue relates to the wider system. Anyone with an interest in energy and environmental issues needs to read Smelling Land. Similarly, every university, corporation, and governmental body should have a copy in their library. --Ben Ball, Adjunct Professor of Management and Engineering (retired), MIT, Vice President, Strategic Planning (retired), Gulf Oil Corporation
In an engaging, highly readable but never trivial manner, Smelling Land sets out how our energy system really works. David Scott s credentials for doing so are impeccable. He has served at the highest levels of the international hydrogen community. The book can be read and enjoyed at several levels by science and non-science audiences. David Scott is known for his almost clairvoyant ability to see the forest (energy systems) above its trees (individual technologies) and then to explain how the trees are evolving.
Smelling Land is timely and urgent. To my mind, it gives the single comprehensive strategy that can attack climate change. I know of no other book that does this so well and none which so well equips the reader to judge new and stimulating ideas. --A.K. (SANDY) STUART, Chair, Export Development Canada, 1993-1997, Member, Order of Canada
About the Author
Engineer, scientist and environmentalist, David Sanborn Scott has been active in energy system analysis, design and strategies for more than three decades. He is the vice-president (for the Americas) of the International Association for Hydrogen Energy. After receiving his doctorate in mechanical engineering and aeronautical sciences from Northwestern University, he joined the University of Toronto where he subsequently served as chair of Mechanical Engineering and founded the university's Institute for Hydrogen systems. He later joined the University of Victoria to found the Institute for Integrated Energy Systems. The institute is engaged in developing fuelcells, hydrogen production and storage technologies, and in evaluating feasible ways of integrating renewable sources. Scott chaired Canada's Task Force on Hydrogen Opportunities, which produced Hydrogen: National Mission for Canada, a report now internationally recognized for its prescience.
Scott consults for US and Canadian corporations and national laboratories. In 2006, he became the first Canadian awarded the internationally prestigious Jules Verne Award, for 'Outstanding Contributions to Hydrogen Physics, and Hydrogen Energy Sociology and Philosophy.' A year later, he received the inaugural D.Sc. (honorary) from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A welcome positive addition to the energy debate,
By
This review is from: Smelling Land: The Hydrogen Defense Against Climate Catastrophe (Paperback)
I just finished the book Smelling Land. I strongly suggest it for anyone with an interest in energy and public policy. The author, David Sanborn Scott, covers all of the hot topics today: global warming, the end of oil, nuclear power and the way forward.Let's start at the beginning, the core reason to discuss this subject is catastrophic climate change. The author briefly goes over the well known evidence: CO2 levels are at the highest for thousands of years, climate models, ice core samples, recent climate trends, etc. However, he adds another element that I've only rarely heard. The concept of meta-stability. This is vital for understanding why humanity hasn't faced a greater climate change yet. Our planet can absorb the atmospheric addition of CO2, but only to a point. After that point, the climate will change to find a new stability. The only problem is, we don't know what that will be. The most damning part of this book is the myth-busting. The author holds no bars as dismantles our fears of the end of oil. One dramatic diagram shows how humanity has never projected more than a 40 year supply of oil. The diagram goes back 100 years though! Another myth popped is nuclear energy. There is much to fear in an invisible force that has the power to mutate our very DNA. However, there are many baseless fears that are now accepted. Things like the danger of terrorists with "nuclear material" stolen from reactors, the danger of another Chernobyl and the general fear that man can not control this nuclear energy. The author, while acknowledging realistic concerns, manages to show how minor they really are. Lastly, Scott shows a possible answer. This is my favorite part of the book, because the press and popular media are very good at describing crisis, but horrible at prescribing solutions. The author shows how through the use of non-fossil sources can be used to solve all of our energy needs through hydrogen. These non-fossil sources are hydraulic, nuclear, wind and solar. The author argues that we should use reliable sources, like nuclear and hydraulic to supply our electricity needs. The unreliable (in other words, not necessarily there when you need it), solar and wind, should be used to generate hydrogen. The advantage is that hydrogen can be stored to produce electricity later, or can be transported. And by transportation, I mean in cars, buses, trains and planes, as well as pipelines. The only bad part of this book is the needless interlude in the middle of the book. It was a completely self-indulgent chapter that distracted from the otherwise finely crafted argument of the author. I almost stopped reading the book it was so unreadable and boring. So my advice to others is, skip that chapter but keep reading! It's worth it!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Compulsory Reading for all Delegates to COP17 and beyond,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Smelling Land: The Hydrogen Defense Against Climate Catastrophe - Enhanced Edition (Paperback)
This must be the most important book written on THE ONLY ANSWER to Climate Change.Pity about the Title. The Sub-Title would have been enough. And yet there is an important analogy here. The Cabin Boy had the temerity to approach the Admiral of the sailing fleet, not once but twice telling him that he could SMELL LAND - that the storm was blowing the fleet onto the rocks. First he was rebuffed and the second time hung from the yardarm. How similar the concern of the public and how deaf the international authorities. Nero fiddles while Rome burns. For this is not an issue to be left to the market to solve but one that requires at least the effort that the USA, shocked by Pearl Harbour, put into the Manhatten Project to end the Second World War. The book was published in 2007. If shocked awake, the author reckons that it would take two decades for us to get to the HYDROGEN AGE. Eight years down the line and where are we? Liquid hydrogen took us to the Moon in 1969. It is the only energy currency that will drive aeroplanes without carbon dioxide as an exhaust product. Scott coins the word "Hydricity" for the reversible reactions of electrcity through water produces hydrogen and hydrogen through fuel cells produces electricity on any scale from operating your mobile phone to driving heavy transport. He writes clearly choosing the right words. It should be compulsory reading for all delegates to the Conference of Parties of which COP17 has just ended in Durban. The emphasis at these conferences should not be on legally binding agreements to reduce greenhouse gases within a certain time frame, but the bottom up approach of how each country can contribute to an element of the Master Plan to reach the Hydrogen Age as soon as possible.
5.0 out of 5 stars
H2? OH! Hydrogen Now!,
By Steven J. Wamback, Editor "SJW" (Western New York) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Smelling Land: The Hydrogen Defense Against Climate Catastrophe - Enhanced Edition (Paperback)
H2? OH! Hydrogen Now!My cousin Bryan, a mining geologist in Canada, recommended Dr. David Sanborn Scott's latest book to me. I immediately purchased my copy at Amazon.com. Since reading "Smelling Land: The Hydrogen Defense Against Climate Catastrophe - Enhanced Edition" I have made "Hydrogen NOW!" my mantra. So, I ask again, H2? OH! Hydrogen is the answer to many of our largest world problems... even some wars! This book is very well written and it is easy to understand the economic principles to which I had not been previously exposed. The science presented as well as our need to embrace and advance Hydrogen technology were very clearly conveyed. This book is a must for everyone. I would recommend this book to teachers, scientists, government employees, innovators, investors, economists, students, voters, and anyone who cares about energy, the environment, the economy, or global warming. Please buy this book for someone you care about today. Respectfully yours, Steven J. Wamback, Biologist, Geologist, and Environmental Scientist Related topics include: Hydrogen, environmentalism, science, environmental collapse, environmental science, al gore, global warming, ecology and nature, energy, david sanborn scott, economy, chemistry, physics, government and politics are all concepts related to this book: "Smelling Land: The Hydrogen Defense Against Climate Catastrophe - Enhanced Edition" by Dr. David Sanborn Scott
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