Fred Starr book proposal

From Energy-Experts

Technical and Economic Issues in Moving to a Renewable Energy Scenario

Dear Dave

The idea for a book has come from the input a number of people have made in the internet Claverton Group Discussions. The format would be similar to that of the recent Earthscan book on Intermittancy. That is, chapters would be written by individual authors on they think how the UK and the rest of Europe could move towards a situation in which most of the energy was coming from renewables. I think we have take Europe into account to ensure wider sales

The chapters would have a strong emphasis on the technical issues relating to the proposed solutions, but I would like the authors to be self critical about the feasibility of the solutions. For example, as you know, I am a proponent for 700GW of wind energy, but I am concerned about whether the UK will be able to buy the materials for such an effort. There will also be a place for new thinking about the economics of investing in renewables, but here again I would ask the relevant authors to consider whether the same ideas might not be applied to the financing of conventional power generation systems.

One thing I do not want the authors to do is to spend much time on the situation at the present time. The really interesting question is how the electricity supply system will be able to work when, on average, more than 20% of the energy could come from wind, solar, wave or tidal power. This will imply that at time 50-70% of the power in some regions will be coming from wind. How can the grid then be stabilised? This leads onto the later situation when most of the energy for domestic consumption, industry and transport has to be of the renewable type.

Suggested Chapter Headings are:

· Future Energy Requirements

· Nuclear Potential

· Fossil Fuel Power Generation

· Fossil Fuel Exhaustion

· Technical Issues in Operating the Grid in a Renewable Scenario

· CHP

· Energy Saving Options

· District Heating

· Options for storage of surplus wind energy

· Hydrogen

· Wind Energy

· Photovoltaics

· Wave and Tidal Power

· Road Transport after Oil

· Power from the Sahara

· Renewable Economics

· Carbon Capture Economics

F.Starr :17th Nov2007