Ten Technologies to Save the Planet - Softcover

Christian Goodhall

Softcover

ISBN 10: 184668868X ISBN 13: 9781846688683

Publisher: Green Profile, 2008

Synopsis

Everyone agrees we need to slash global greenhouse emissions. But how do we actually achieve that? Politicians can set targets and consumers can try to live greener lives. But the world will only avoid runaway global warming with the help of technological breakthroughs. In this fascinating book, Chris Goodall profiles ten technologies to watch, explaining how they work and telling the stories of the inventors and entrepreneurs driving them forward. Some of Goodall's selections, such as the electric car, are familiar. Others are more surprising. Algae, for example, can soak up carbon dioxide and produce fuel, while charcoal made from waste vegetable and forestry matter can lock carbon into soils and reduce the need for fertilizers. Cutting-edge and accessible, this is popular science at its most crucial.

About this title

About the Author

Chris Goodall is a world-leading expert on climate change solutions. He writes an environment column in the Independent on Sunday and regularly features on Newsnight and other television shows. His book, How to Live a Low-carbon Life, won the 2007 Clarion award for non-fiction, and he publishes Carbon Commentary, a website providing incisive appraisal of climate issues.

From Publishers Weekly

Goodall, a columnist for the U.K. Sunday Independent, (How to Live a Low-Carbon Life) offers a welcome breath of fresh air that lands somewhere between technophiles who optimistically believed free-market would create technologies to combat global warming, and pessimists who hold a more catastrophic view. While he steps on the toes of some environmentalists, his solutions seem realistic, if initially costly. In his view there is no one-size-fits-all solution for the energy crisis. Britain, he argues, has "awesome wave and tidal energy" that can be captured by water mills, but is too cloudy to depend on solar energy. He gives an appraisal of the possibilities for making solar energy more efficient and less costly by using nontechnology to "precisely arrange the atoms on the printed semiconductor surface," a process developed in the UK and being marketed in Germany. Also discussed are the benefits of large off shore wind-turbine farms, capturing carbon from coal powered utilities, and Biofuels. None of the technologies he considers are yet competitive with fossil fuels, but with sufficient start-up capital from private and public sources, and large enough markets to allow economies of scale, they could be. His straightforward evaluation of green technologies should interest technology buffs or investors and he raises a number of questions that merit serious debate.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Green Profile
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 184668868X
• ISBN 13: 9781846688683
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 224