Vol. 31 No. 1
January-February 2009

Future Energy—Improved, Sustainable, and Clean Options for Our Planet

Trevor M. Letcher (editor)
Elsevier, 2008 (ISBN-13: 978-0-08-054808-1)

The book Future Energy was produced to enable readers to make reasonable, logical, and correct decisions on our future energy as a result of two of the most serious problems that the civilized world has had to face: the looming shortage of oil (which supplies most of our transport fuel) and the alarming rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 50 years, which threatens to change the world’s climate through global warming.

Future Energy focuses on all the types of energy available to us. It is unique in the genre of books of a similar title currently on sale since each chapter has been written by an expert, scientist, or engineer, working in the field.
The book is divided into four parts:

• Fossil Fuel and Nuclear Energy
• Renewable Energy
• Potentially Important New Types of Energy
• New Aspects to Future Energy

Each chapter highlights the basic theory, implementation, scope, problems, and costs associated with a particular type of energy. The traditional fuels are included because they will be with us for decades to come—but, we hope, in a cleaner form. The renewable energy types include wind power, wave power, tidal energy, two forms of solar energy, biomass, hydroelectricity, and geothermal energy. Potentially important new types of energy include pebble bed nuclear reactors, nuclear fusion, methane hydrates, and recent developments in fuel cells and batteries. In conclusion, the final section highlights new aspects of future energy usage with chapters on carbon dioxide capture and storage, smart houses of the future. The book ends with a chapter on possible scenarios for electricity production and transport fuels to the year 2050.

Looking at the whole spectrum of options in the book, the reader will gain a good understanding of the options that best suit us now and in the future.

www.iupac.org/web/ins/2007-015-2-100