book Reviews – Page 2

I bristled when Vaughn Nelson contacted me for help with his new book Innovative Wind Turbines. Not that it was Vaughn. He’s my mentor and the founder of West Texas A&M University’s Alternative Energy Institute (AEI). Vaughn first taught me the importance of swept area and how to quickly cut through the hype that often surrounds new wind turbines. He’s the physicist I turn to when I have a wind question. And no it wasn’t that he was asking for some photos I’d taken decades ago of obscure wind turbines. It was simply the word “innovative.”

Ok, I am a windmill geek, have been for decades now. I work with modern wind energy, but my interest in the subject has led off in many directions, including traditional or “Dutch” windmills. I have a hefty collection of books on Dutch, German, French, and, yes, on English windmills.

Martyn Taylor has made a wonderful video about the development and preservation of the English windmill. Sales of the video will go to preservation efforts.

Martin Frey’s wonderful little guidebook to the Energiewende in Germany is now available in English. Germany – Renewable Energy Experience Baedeker Guides. Frey’s book is highly recommended for students of renewable energy traveling in Germany.

Confessions Of A Rogue Nuclear Regulator 9781476755762 Lg Jpg

Gregory Jaczko was an outsider. He wasn’t from the industry. But somehow he was appointed to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, eventually becoming its Chair. His 2019 book, Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator, exposes the decision- making processes used in regulating the most toxic substance on earth. It is scary stuff.

There are some books that simply bring a smile to your face–even to someone as jaded as I. This is one of them. There is a joy in discovering what the future may hold that comes across in Ulrich Mertens’ Wind in Sicht: Landscape in Transition.

Hans-Detlef Feddersen sent me a copy of a little picture book celebrating the 25th anniversary of Bürger-Windpark Lübke-Koog. He included a DVD video of interviews with the founders of the community-owned wind farm, the first of its kind in Germany and model for the thousands of projects to come.

Benny Christensen knows his windmills. An early anti-nuclear activist and proponent of 100% renewable energy—a photo of him appears in Steven Borish’s Land of the Living—Christensen has now turned his attention to documenting the country’s long history of working with the wind.

The title, Störfall mit Charme, is a playful thumbing of the nose in German at the critics of a movement by citizens in a small village in the deepest reaches of Germany’s Schwarzwald or Black Forest to dump nuclear power and build a renewable energy future.

Geothermal energy is one of the dark horses of renewable energy. Few “renewable energy advocates” know much—if anything—about it. They don’t know what geothermal contributes today and have no clue what its role could be in a 100% renewable energy future. This is a grave mistake.