Powering the dream : the history and promise of green technology

Madrigal, Alexis 1982- (Author).

Summary: "This book looks at the history of alternative energy (solar, wind)"--Provided by publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9780306818851 (hardback)
ISBN: 030681885X (hardback)
Physical Description: print
xiv, 365 p., [14] p. of plates : ill ; 24 cm.
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : Da Capo Press, c2011.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

1: The dream of a more perfect power -- Profit, salvation -- The first green-technology futurist -- The utopia commercial -- Prescribing for the globe itself -- 2: What was -- Steam-powered America -- The wind and the West -- The parable of Petrolia -- Wave motors and airplanes -- Compressed air and electricity -- 3: What might have been -- The National Electric Transportation System that almost was -- Solar hot water, day and night -- The solar home of the 1950s -- The Solar Energy Research Institute -- The meaning of Luz -- How to burn a biological library -- 4: Lessons from the Great Energy Rethink -- What happens when an energy system breaks -- Thermodynamics -- Transcendentalism -- Tools -- Technology -- 5: Innovation and the future -- Google's RE < C challenge -- The first megawatt and failing smart -- What green tech can learn from nuclear power's rise and fall -- The 5-cent turbine and the siren call of the breakthrough -- Energy storage and the return of compressed air -- "Throw software at the problem" -- Rehumanizing environmentalism.