Climate Change and Global Energy Security: Technology and Policy Options (Mit Press)

An exploration of commercially available technologies that can enhance energy security and address climate change and public policy options crucial to their adoption.

Tackling climate change and improving energy security are two of the twenty-first century's greatest challenges. In this book, Marilyn Brown and Benjamin Sovacool offer detailed assessments of the most advanced commercially available technologies for strengthening global energy security, mitigating the effects of climate change, and enhancing resilience through adaptation and geo-engineering. They also evaluate the barriers to the deployment of these technologies and critically review public policy options crucial to their adoption.

Arguing that society has all the technologies necessary for the task, Brown and Sovacool discuss an array of options available today, including high-efficiency transportation, renewable energy, carbon sequestration, and demand-side management. They offer eight case studies from around the world that document successful approaches to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and improving energy security. These include the Danish approach to energy policy and wind power, Brazil's ethanol program, China's improved cookstove program; and the U.S. Toxics Release Inventory. Brown and Sovacool argue that meeting the twin challenges of climate change and energy security will allow us to provide energy, maintain economic growth, and preserve the natural environment—without forcing tradeoffs among them.

Marilyn A. Brown is Professor of Energy Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Visiting Distinguished Scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority. In 2007, she was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her coauthorship of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change Working Group III Assessment Report on Mitigation of Climate Change.

Benjamin K. Sovacool is Assistant Professor in the Lew Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of The Dirty Energy Dilemma: What's Blocking Clean Power in the United States and other books.