Future Energy: Improved, Sustainable and Clean Options for our Planet - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0080548083 ISBN 13: 9780080548081

Publisher: Elsevier Science, 2008

Synopsis

Future Energy will allow us to make reasonable, logical and correct decisions on our future energy as a result of two of the most serious problems that the civilized world has to face; the looming shortage of oil (which supplies most of our transport fuel) and the alarming rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 50 years (resulting from the burning of oil, gas and coal and the loss of forests) that threatens to change the world’s climate through global warming.

Future Energy focuses on all the types of energy available to us, taking into account a future involving a reduction in oil and gas production and the rapidly increasing amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. It is unique in the genre of books of similar title in that each chapter has been written by a scientist or engineer who is an expert in his or her field. The book is divided into four sections:

• Traditional Fossil Fuel and Nuclear Energy
• Renewable Energy
• Potentially Important New Types of Energy
• New Aspects to Future Energy Usage

Each chapter highlights the basic theory and implementation, scope, problems and costs associated with a particular type of energy. The traditional fuels are included because they will be with us for decades to come - but, we hope, in a cleaner form. The renewable energy types includes wind power, wave power, tidal energy, two forms of solar energy, bio-mass, hydroelectricity, geothermal and the hydrogen economy. Potentially important new types of energy include: pebble bed nuclear reactors, nuclear fusion, methane hydrates and recent developments in fuel cells and batteries.

• Written by experts in the key future energy disciplines from around the globe
• Details of all possible forms of energy that are and will be available globally in the next two decades
• Puts each type of available energy into perspective with realistic, future options

About this title

About the Author:

Trevor M. Letcher is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is a past Director of the International Association of Chemical Thermodynamics and his research involves the thermodynamics of liquid mixtures and energy from landfill. He was awarded the South African Chemical Institute’s Gold medal in 1999 and in 2000 he was awarded the South African Gold medal by the South African Association for the Advancement of Science. He has published over 250 papers in peer review journals and has edited, co-edited and written eleven books in his research and related fields. His latest books include Unraveling Environmental Disasters (2012), Materials for a Sustainable Future (2012), Waste (2011), Heat Capacities (2010), Climate Change (2009) and Future Energy (2008).

About this edition

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0080548083
• ISBN 13: 9780080548081
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400
• Editor: Letcher Trevor