Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet (Mit Press) - Softcover

Sivaram, Varun

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262537079 ISBN 13: 9780262537070

Publisher: The MIT Press, 2019

Synopsis

How solar could spark a clean-energy transition through transformative innovation—creative financing, revolutionary technologies, and flexible energy systems.

About this title

About the Author

Varun Sivaram is a physicist and Chief Technology Officer at ReNew Power Ventures, a multibillion-dollar renewable energy firm that is India's largest. He is also a senior research scholar at the Columbia University Center for Global Energy Policy and a board member for the Stanford University's energy and environment intitutes. Most recently, he was the science and technology fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he directed the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change, and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, where he taught “Clean Energy Innovation.” He has also served as senior energy advisor to the Los Angeles Mayor and New York Governor's Office, and as a consultant at McKinsey & Company. PV Magazine called him “The Hamilton of the Solar Industry,” Forbes named him one of its 30 under 30, and Grist selected him as one of the top 50 leaders in sustainability. He is the editor of the book Digital Decarbonization: Promoting Digital Innovations to Advance Clean Energy Systems. He holds a PhD in condensed matter physics from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Review

Varun Sivaram takes us inside the world of alternative energy innovation. He's an optimist, but a realistic one: he knows time is running short for the public and private sectors to join forces. Taming the Sun is a must-read look into the limitless potential of an energy source as timeless as the sun that may very well save the earth.

―John F. Kerry, 68th U.S. Secretary of State; former U.S. Senator (D-MA)

Taming the Sun makes a compelling case that not confronting climate change could have dire consequences and, at the same time, makes a powerful case for the promise of solar energy. Everyone from physicists to investors to legislators should find the book instructive. Sivaram is even-handed and non-ideological in building his argument, but as he makes clear, progress ultimately depends on the political will to act.

―Robert Rubin, 70th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury; former Co-Chairman of Goldman Sachs

Solar is the fastest-growing energy industry in the world, and it is at the heart of the clean energy revolution that is transforming technologies and economies around the world. Varun Sivaram's new book is an important primer about the global solar energy industry and the potential this energy source has to improve the lives of people and to help protect our planet and our future.

―Ed Markey, U.S. Senator (D-MA); Chair, Senate Climate Change Action Task Force

Unlike any time since 1900 the world's energy system is in play. The futures―what society wants, and what will actually happen―are hard to fathom yet vitally important. Solar power lies at the center of this drama. Elegantly written and expertly argued, Varun Sivaram's new book is a stellar guide to the technologies and policies that will determine whether solar power meets its potential.  His sober optimism is infectious.

―David Victor, Professor, School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego; Co-Chair, Brookings Institution Energy Security and Climate Initiative

If you want to understand the history and the future of solar energy―one of the most important and transformative technologies of the 21st century―Taming the Sun is the book to read. Sivaram brings to bear scientific expertise in the most exciting frontiers of solar photovoltaics and interweaves science with business insights and nonpartisan policy recommendations. The result is the authoritative, balanced, and comprehensive text that the field has been waiting for.

―Arun Majumdar, Professor and Co-Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy, Stanford University; Founding Director of ARPA-E and former U.S. Undersecretary of Energy

In Taming the Sun, Varun Sivaram makes a level-headed, yet compelling case for the role that solar energy can play in addressing climate change. His book not only introduces the solar technologies that are potentially significant, but also what is required to fully commercialize them from a scaling, funding, and policy perspective. It is an important and non-ideological contribution to discussion and decision making in a critical arena.

―Shirley Ann Jackson, President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Professor of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy; Professor of Engineering Sciences

Edition details

• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 0262537079
• ISBN 13: 9780262537070
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 390