Reading Amory Lovins’ Classic Soft Energy Paths

If you think or write about alternative energy now, there is no doubt that you’ve got some Amory Lovins in your DNA. He’s like the Genghis Khan of the alt energy tribe; almost every one of us is sort of a descendent. Hell, he even got made into a comic book character (above) in the [...]

Utopianism, Etzler, and Technology’s Impact on Democracy

I’m increasingly convinced, as any good biographer should be, that J.A. Etzler was a prophet, a futurist par excellence in a time when futurists were not employed by Nokia. He foresaw, to greater or lesser degrees, plastics, concrete, solar thermal power, synthetic fibers for clothing, apartments with elevators, and pumped storage to smooth out renewable [...]

Renewable Energy Cost Curves – 1980-2020

From: NREL Energy Analysis Office

An Introduction to the Largest Interconnected Machine on Earth

The Department of Energy released a new, by-way-of-introduction report on The Grid, which as you can read below, can “appropriately” be called “an ecosystem.”
Our century-old power grid is the largest interconnected machine on Earth, so massively complex and inextricably linked to human involvement and endeavor that it has alternately (and appropriately) been called an ecosystem. [...]

Wind Power Fiction from the 1911 New York Times

The April 30, 1911 edition of The New York Times featured a wonderful piece on the creation of J.G. Childs’ “wind turbine electrical plant,” which tells a delightful fairy tale about what wind power would do for the rural farm:
“Here are some of its possibilities on a farm,” we read:
It pumps all the water used [...]

The Paradise Within the Reach of All Men, Without Labour, by Powers of Nature and Machinery

Now, friends, this is what I call an economic stimulus plan! John Adolphus Etzler, writing in 1836 , recommended a strict diet of solar, tidal, and wind power — and if we followed his recommendations, we’d end up with, well, you know, utopia:
I promise to show the means for creating a paradise within ten years, [...]

he who unites the paranormal and the solar

Charles Greeley Abbott wasn’t any ordinary head of the Smithsonian Insitute. One of the world’s preeminent astrophysicists and a specialist in all things sun,  he invented one of the first solar cookers, seen above. And he happened to believe in paranormal phenomenon. All around, he must have been a pretty interesting guy, particularly after a [...]

the scholarly history of american energy and the corporate futures of Big Oil

Trolling for resources on the first oil boom/bust, I came across a class historian of technology, Peter Shulman (now at Case Western), taught at MIT called “Energy and Environment in America: 1750-2005.”
The syllabus is a brilliant resource for history of energy and industrialization fans. Here are the books are articles I culled from the list:

The [...]