Customer Reviews

Turning the Corner: Energy Solutions for the 21st Century

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This book is the first I have read that puts the entire energy picture together. It is quite easy to read and very engaging considering the subject matter, which is probably the most important issue the world faces. The writing is clear and appears to be well researched with lots of quotes and footnotes. The references are from both print media and the Internet, so at least some of the sources are easily available if you want to read them. The quotes by politicians and energy experts accompanying the main text were particularly interesting.

The book starts by examining the world's dependence on fossil fuels and other nonrenewable energy. The picture painted is complementary to but broader than that found in "Hubbert's Peak" by Ken Deffeyes (another excellent book I read recently).
"Turning the Corner: Energy Solutions for the 21st Century" discusses oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear power and shows that these resources are quite limited and will need to be replaced for economic stability. Then the topic moves to renewable energy and covers solar, wind, hydropower, tidal power and more. The book stresses that these clean energy systems are critical to changing away from nonrenewable power. Probably the most controversial part of the book is the third part, which talks about the broad field of research into exotic forms of energy such as cold fusion, electrogravitics and NASA's research into new forms of propulsion. The final section is focused on transition from nonrenewable energy and the problems associated with this transition. The final chapter lists things that need be done to help ensure that our children and grandchildren have the energy available to live their lives in full.

All in all, I think this an important book that everyone should read who cares about where our energy comes from and how it makes America vulnerable to Persian Gulf oil suppliers, what it does to our geopolitics, and ultimately, where do we go from here.

For the first time a book has been published on the subject of energy that honestly shows the public what really is available for the future. Section III is my favorite. It has a balanced review of cold fusion, zero point energy, electrogravitics and space propulsion, as well as new energy. This book also contains lots of annotated references at the end of each chapter for further information. It is a great book on a difficult subject with a fresh viewpoint unavailble elsewhere.

At last a book that responsibly tackles the issue of finding alternative energy sources. I require my students at San Jose State to use this well researched text to develop arguments for their debates on energy. Turning the Corner offers a balanced, no nonsense view of what we can do to alter the world's dependency on fossil fuels. My colleagues agree, this text does more to explain our current dilemma and ways to solve it than other books that only offer a one-sided view of the subject.

Sigh. On page 190 the sidebar quote says: "Science is about knowing. It's not about believing". If only life were that simple. As the authors demonstrate quite well enviroscience is also about manipulation, halftruths, and outright lies. It is sad to see other reviewers fooled by these manipulations. The issues are too many to recite, but here is a sampling of the style in which the authors present "facts":

On page 27 they state: "In Germany, acid rain is destroying the forests" without a reference (not even to the otherwise heavily quoted bastion of scientific information the Sacramento Bee). Acid rain as the cause of large-scale forest destruction was shown to be erroneous fairly shortly after it was announced with doomsday headlines in the 1980s. But it is a good example of how at least $500 million was spent by the US alone to solve a problem before it was really demonstrated to be a problem.

Footnote 11 on page 41 relating to the book "Climate of fear" tells us "the book offers a one-sided optimistic outlook on the prospects of global warming" and that it "should be read cautiously". Sounds like daddy is telling me that I am not allowed to agree with any of it if I read it. It is also symptomatic of a real problem that the word "optimistic" is used as a negative! Wow, I must immediately learn to become more pessimistic.

Later they launch into lengthy chapters on supposed future energy sources. Among the information and gibberish we find things like this sidebar quote on page 218:"As a self-organization system with energy and matter exchanging externally, excess energy can be generated due to torsion coherent with zero-point energy in the vortex state on the tips of electrodes". I have a Ph.D. in Physics and I have absolutely no clue what this means. I doubt that any reader will have any clue what it means. As a matter of fact I doubt that the authors themselves have any clue what this means, because it is not the sort of thing anybody writes to clarify a topic. It is meant to intimidate readers into believing that lots of fancy words strung together will show how stupid they are and hence how smart the authors must be.

Environmental issues are important. There is enough misinformation out there. If you want a read by people clearly on the "left" side of the debate, here it is. Just don't believe for a second that the information is somehow balanced.