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Energy: A Beginner's Guide Beginner's Guides
. Oneworld Publications. Whether you're after insight or dinner table conversation, Energy: A Beginner's Guide will amaze and inform, uncovering the science behind one of the most important concepts in our universe. In this engaging introduction, renowned author and scientist Vaclav Smil covers a wide range of topics, from the inner workings of the human body to the race for more efficient and eco-friendly fuels.
It is everywhere; it is everything.
Energy and Civilization: A History The MIT Press
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. 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. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History 1994. 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. Mit. In his latest book, light, he goes deep and broad to explain how innovations in humans' ability to turn energy into heat, and motion have been a driving force behind our cultural and economic progress over the past 10, Energy and Civilization: A History, 000 years.
Energy and Civilization: A History The MIT Press
I wait for new smil books the way some people wait for the next 'Star Wars' movie. Oneworld Publications. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History 1994. Life on earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, transportation, weapons, quality of life, economics, urbanization, communication, politics, industry, and the environment.
In his latest book, energy and civilization: a history, and motion have been a driving force behind our cultural and economic progress over the past 10, he goes deep and broad to explain how innovations in humans' ability to turn energy into heat, light, 000 years. Bill gates, gates notes, best books of the YearEnergy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done.
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.
Power Density: A Key to Understanding Energy Sources and Uses The MIT Press
Smil shows that careful quantification, and revealing comparisons of power densities make possible a deeper understanding of the ways we harness, critical appraisals, convert, and use energies. The first systematic, quantitative appraisal of power density, offering detailed reviews of power densities of renewable energy flows, fossil fuels, and all common energy uses.
There's no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil. Bill gatesin this book, vaclav Smil argues that power density is a key determinant of the nature and dynamics of energy systems. Oneworld Publications. Conscientious assessment of power densities, he argues, proves particularly revealing when contrasting the fossil fuel–based energy system with renewable energy conversions.
He argues that our inevitable and desirable move to new energy arrangements involving conversions of lower-density renewable energy sources will require our society―currently dominated by megacities and concentrated industrial production―to undergo a profound spatial restructuring of its energy system.
Mit Press. Smil explains that modern civilization has evolved as a direct expression of the high power densities of fossil fuel extraction.
Natural Gas: Fuel for the 21st Century
Mit Press. The unfolding diversification of sources, particularly hydraulic fracturing, and the role of natural gas in national and global energy transitions are described. With its vast supplies of conventional resources and nonconventional stores, the extension of long-distance gas pipelines and the recent expansion of liquefied natural gas trade, a truly global market has been created for this clean fuel.
Vaclav smil presents a systematic survey of the qualities, followed by a detailed appraisal of its many preferred, extraction, processing and transportation of natural gas, traditional and potential uses, origins, and the recent emergence of the fuel as a globally traded commodity. The book concludes with a discussion on the advantages, if not dominant, benefits and costs of natural gas as a leading, risks, fuel of the 21st century.
Mit. Natural gas is the world’s cleanest fossil fuel; it generates less air pollution and releases less CO2 per unit of useful energy than liquid fuels or coals. Natural gas: fuel for the 21st Century discusses the place and prospects of natural gas in modern high-energy societies.
Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing The MIT Press
Mit. Oneworld Publications. He describes american manufacturing's rapid rise at the end of the nineteenth century, its consolidation and modernization between the two world wars, its role as an enabler of mass consumption after 1945, and its recent decline. Smil argues that no advanced economy can prosper without a strong, innovative manufacturing sector and the jobs it creates.
Some economists argue that shipping low-value jobs overseas matters little because the high-value work remains in the United States. Will america act to preserve and reinvigorate its manufacturing? It is crucial to our social and economic well-being; but, Smil warns, the odds are no better than even. Mit Press.
Mit. Smil explains how manufacturing became a fundamental force behind America's economic, strategic, and social dominance. An argument that america's economy needs a strong and innovative manufacturing sector and the jobs it creates. There's no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil.
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power
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Making the Modern World - Materials and Dematerialization
This interdisciplinary text provides useful perspectives for readers with backgrounds including resource economics, mineral geology, industrial organization, energy analysis, environmental studies, manufacturing and material science. Free Press. This book explores the costs of this dependence and the potential for substantial dematerialization of modern economies.
Making the modern world: materials and dematerialization considers the principal materials used throughout history, plastics and silicon, alloys, through to metals, from wood and stone, describing their extraction and production as well as their dominant applications. Oneworld Publications. Over the course of time, the modern world has become dependent on unprecedented flows of materials.
The book concludes with an outlook for the future, discussing the prospects for dematerialization and potential constrains on materials. John Wiley Sons.
Energy: A Human History
John Wiley Sons. Mit Press. Oneworld Publications. Human beings have confronted the problem of how to draw life from raw material since the beginning of time. He addresses how we learned from such challenges, mastered their transitions, and capitalized on their opportunities. Rockefeller, and Henry Ford. Free Press.
In rhodes’s singular style, Energy details how this knowledge of our history can inform our way tomorrow. Mit. Each invention, each discovery, each adaptation brought further challenges, and through such transformations, we arrived at where we are today. Ultimately, the history of these challenges tells the story of humanity itself.
Pulitzer prize- and national book award-winning author Richard Rhodes reveals the fascinating history behind energy transitions over time—wood to coal to oil to electricity and beyond. People have lived and died, and nations have risen to world power and declined, businesses have prospered and failed, all over energy challenges.
The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters
John Wiley Sons. A lively, exciting, and definitely thought-provoking book. Booklistthings looked grim for american energy in 2006, but a handful of wildcatters were determined to tap massive deposits of oil and gas that giants like Exxon and Chevron had ignored. His exclusive access drives this dramatic narrative, which stretches from North Dakota to Texas to Wall Street.
Mit Press. They risked everything on a new process called fracking.