Inside Energy


Book Description

Informed by the authors’ extensive experience in helping organizations improve the performance of their management systems, Inside Energy: Developing and Managing an ISO 50001 Energy Management System covers how to apply each of the many requirements of the standard in a systematic and comprehensive manner. It discusses how converting an existing sub-optimal energy system into a state-of-the-art high quality one produces a demonstrably high return on investment. The book explores how to achieve energy performance targets and qualify for ISO 50001 registration. It helps you manage the skills, knowledge, and experience of the many experts who will participate in your organization’s Energy Management System (EnMS) policy, planning, and implementation. This book provides practical information for understanding and developing an ISO 50000 Energy Management System (EnMS), including clear and concise explanations of the standards and requirements. Building from chapter to chapter, it supplies comprehensive direction for developing, implementing, and managing an EnMS. The text also explains the relationship between ISO 9000 and 14000, and offers guidance for integrating EnMS concepts with existing organizational policies, processes, and procedures. It also offers additional guidance on methods available to management and energy teams when implementing the ISO 50001 requirements. The book takes readers through the steps that can transform existing energy management systems to far more effective ones that significantly reduce the costs of energy in the business’ bottom line. It includes perspectives on multinational and national energy and environment policies that will likely affect the cost of energy purchased in the world’s markets. Using the information found in this book, you can save your organization money by increasing energy efficiency and/or reducing and more effectively managing energy generation or usage. You can also reduce generation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and promote improved public relations by demonstrating that the organization is taking measurable and tangible efforts (ISO 50001) to manage energy.




Energy and Civilization


Book Description

A comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society throughout history, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. "I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next 'Star Wars' movie. In his latest book, Energy and Civilization: A History, he goes deep and broad to explain how innovations in humans' ability to turn energy into heat, light, and motion have been a driving force behind our cultural and economic progress over the past 10,000 years. —Bill Gates, Gates Notes, Best Books of the Year Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.




Managing Energy Use in Modern Buildings


Book Description

This timely volume brings together case studies that address the urgent need to manage energy use and improve thermal comfort in modern buildings while preserving their historic significance and character. This collection of ten case studies addresses the issues surrounding the improvement of energy consumption and thermal comfort in modern buildings built between 1928 and 1969 and offers valuable lessons for other structures facing similar issues. These buildings, international in scope and diverse in type, style, and size, range from the Shulman House, a small residence in Los Angeles, to the TD Bank Tower, a skyscraper complex in Toronto, and from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, a cultural venue in Lisbon, to the Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam, now an office building. Showing ingenuity and sensitivity, the case studies consider improvements to such systems as heating, cooling, lighting, ventilation, and controls. They provide examples that demonstrate best practices in conservation and show ways to reduce carbon footprints, minimize impacts to historic materials and features, and introduce renewable energy sources, in compliance with energy codes and green-building rating systems. The Conserving Modern Heritage series, launched in 2019, is written by architects, engineers, conservators, scholars, and allied professionals. The books in this series provide well-vetted case studies that address the challenges of conserving twentieth-century heritage.




Geothermal Energy


Book Description

"This book details the history, current uses, and potential future applications of geothermal energy."--




Energy Storage in Energy Markets


Book Description

Energy Storage in Energy Markets reviews the modeling, design, analysis, optimization and impact of energy storage systems in energy markets in a way that is ideal for an audience of researchers and practitioners. The book provides deep insights on potential benefits and revenues, economic evaluation, investment challenges, risk analysis, technical requirements, and the impacts of energy storage integration. Heavily referenced and easily accessible to policymakers, developers, engineer, researchers and students alike, this comprehensive resource aims to fill the gap in the role of energy storage in pool/local energy/ancillary service markets and other multi-market commerce. Chapters elaborate on energy market fundamentals, operations, energy storage fundamentals, components, and the role and impact of storage systems on energy systems from different aspects, such as environmental, technical and economics, the role of storage devices in uncertainty handling in energy systems and their contributions in resiliency and reliability improvement. - Provides integrated techno-economic analysis of energy storage systems and the energy markets - Reviews impacts of electric vehicles as moving energy storage and loads on the electricity market - Analyzes the role and impact of energy storage systems in the energy, ancillary, reserve and regulatory multi-market business - Applies advanced methods to the economic integration of large-scale energy storage systems - Develops an evaluation framework for energy market storage systems




How to Avoid a Climate Disaster


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NATIONAL BESTSELLER In this urgent, singularly authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical--and accessible--plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid an irreversible climate catastrophe. Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help and guidance of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science and finance, he has focused on exactly what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide toward certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only gathers together all the information we need to fully grasp how important it is that we work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases but also details exactly what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal. He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. He describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions; where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively; where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions--suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise. As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but by following the guidelines he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.




Investing in Energy


Book Description

An energy industry researcher and investment advisor provides a fresh perspective on the economics of energy From major players in the energy industry, such as big oil, to the emerging cap-and-trade market, no other book offers a more complete overview of the energy industry, specifically its economic and financial intricacies, than Investing in Energy: A Primer on the Economics of the Energy Industry. Details how to value and invest in the four big energy sectors: oil, gas, power, and green Describes key financial considerations for the energy sectors, including credit metrics, the importance of liquidity, cash flow, and capital expenditures From Bloomberg, a leading provider of the most up-to-date business news and financial data A comprehensive guide to the economics of the energy industry, Investing in Energy will prove an invaluable resource for traditional energy investors looking to expand into new areas, as well as for eco-investors looking to better understand how energy markets function.




Energy Islands


Book Description

"Weaving together historical and ethnographic research, Catalina M. de Onâis challenges the master narratives of Puerto Rico as a tourist destination and site of 'natural' disasters. She demonstrates how fossil-fuel economies are inextricably entwined with colonial practices and policies and how local community groups in Puerto Rico have struggled against energy coloniality and energy privilege to mobilize and transform power from the ground up. This work decenters continental contexts and deconstructs damaging hierarchies that devalue and exploit disenfranchised rural, coastal communities"--




Reinventing Fire


Book Description

Imagine fuel without fear. No climate change. No oil spills, no dead coalminers, no dirty air, no devastated lands, no lost wildlife. No energy poverty. No oil-fed wars, tyrannies, or terrorists. No leaking nuclear wastes or spreading nuclear weapons. Nothing to run out. Nothing to cut off. Nothing to worry about. Just energy abundance, benign and affordable, for all, forever. That richer, fairer, cooler, safer world is possible, practical, even profitable-because saving and replacing fossil fuels now works better and costs no more than buying and burning them. Reinventing Fire shows how business-motivated by profit, supported by civil society, sped by smart policy-can get the US completely off oil and coal by 2050, and later beyond natural gas as well. Authored by a world leader on energy and innovation, the book maps a robust path for integrating real, here-and-now, comprehensive energy solutions in four industries-transportation, buildings, electricity, and manufacturing-melding radically efficient energy use with reliable, secure, renewable energy supplies.Popular in tone and rooted in applied hope, Reinventing Fire shows how smart businesses are creating a potent, global, market-driven, and explosively growing movement to defossilize fuels. It points readers to trillions in savings over the next 40 years, and trillions more in new business opportunities.Whether you care most about national security, or jobs and competitive advantage, or climate and environment, this major contribution by world leaders in energy innovation offers startling innovations will support your values, inspire your support, and transform your sense of possibility.Pragmatic citizens today are more interested in outcomes than motives. Reinventing Fire answers this trans-ideological call. Whether you care most about national security, or jobs and competitive advantage, or climate and environment, its startling innovations will support your values, inspire your support, and transform your sense of possibility.




Energy in Africa


Book Description

This open access book presents a picture of the current energy challenges on the African continent (and the Sub-Saharan region in particular) and proposes pathways to an accelerated energy transition. Starting with an analysis of the status quo and the outlook for Africa’s energy demand and energy access, it provides an account of the available resources, including hydrocarbons and renewable energy resources, which are playing an increasingly crucial role. It then moves on to analyze the level of investment required to scale-up Africa’s energy systems, shedding light on the key barriers and elaborating on potential solutions. It also provides a suggestion for improving the effectiveness of EU–Africa cooperation. While mainly intended for policymakers and academics, this book also speaks to a broader audience interested in gaining an overview of the challenges and opportunities of the African energy sector today and in the future.