Power Shift: From Fossil Energy to Dynamic Solar Power

by Robert Arthur Stayton

Overview

A detailed blueprint for a clean sustainable energy future based on solar photovoltaics. Power Shift explains to a general audience how energy works and why it determines the future of humankind. Power Shift provides historical background on how the human relationship with energy developed, and how that relationship was gradually taken over by fossil fuels, converting us all into energy consumers. Now those fossil fuels are driving global warming and ocean acidification, forcing us to reexamine our energy systems and find alternatives. After reviewing the available choices, Power Shift focuses on solar photovoltaics (PV) as our best hope for the future, and develops a detailed plan that includes worldwide deployment of PV, combined with energy storage and energy efficiency, arriving at a 100% solar future in 50 years. Power Shift acknowledges the resistance to a solar future from fossil fuel corporations, and the reluctance of politicians to take any serious action on global warming. Power Shift describes an alternative bottom-up approach where individuals bypass such resistance and install their own PV systems. Such steps are possible because solar energy is distributed and available to almost everyone. Power Shift enlarges the reader's view of the world through the lens of energy. From that new vantage point, they will see hope for the future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780990479208
Publisher:	Sandstone Publishing
Publication date:	04/22/2015
Pages:	346
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.80(d)

Editorial Reviews

04/13/2015
Stayton lays out arguments for a complete conversion to solar-based power sources in this primer on energy. He wins few points for style; repetitions abound, and his initial section, which addresses the history of humanity’s energy use, reads like a middle-school textbook. However, Stayton clearly enumerates the downsides of fossil fuel use, positioning global warming as a major problem alongside less-discussed global issues such as ocean acidification, military conflict, and rising food prices. Most of this work is devoted to well-reasoned economic and technical arguments for the inevitability of the replacement of fossil fuels by photovoltaic (PV) and other solar energy sources. Stayton employs persuasive statistics to support his assertions and devotes a chapter to explaining that because PV technology “operates at the micro-economic level” and is modular, it can be implemented by individuals and organizations locally, thus allowing for a gradual transition that can build on itself. Perhaps his strongest argument revolves around the fact that “solar power is nothing like our fossil fuel energy stores,” but is a source of “permanent power.” Stayton’s claim that the switch to solar power “will be the last energy transition that humans need to undertake” may be over-ambitious, but the material is worth serious consideration. (BookLife)

Publishers Weekly

05/01/2015
Gr 6–10—Preaching the gospel of solar, albeit at a length that may cause most readers to nod off in their pews, Stayton takes the stance that humanity has passed through the Wood Energy Epoch and the Fossil Fuel Epoch, and so it is now high time to embrace an energy source that is limitless, pollution-free, easily available to all, and getting radically cheaper by the year. Along with describing, with plenty of documentation, how our current energy practices are leading to dangerous climate change and ocean acidification, he considers and dismisses each type of energy source—including not just fossil fuels but alternatives from biofuels and nuclear reactors to geothermal power. His conclusion: "Solar is the one." Furthermore, he rightly notes that, considering the failure of the Kyoto Accords and every other international effort to rein in environmental mismanagement, change is unlikely to come through either corporate or governmental initiatives. In his view "individual action" is the only valid road to "energy freedom." The claims that humans are the only animals to use external energy sources or create food growing systems are debatable, and his call to eliminate fossil fuels completely from the energy picture and an assurance that the conversion to solar would be relatively painless are both, to say the least, naïve. However, he makes a strong case that change is both necessary and inevitable. A few drawings and charts provide additional data and some visual relief. VERDICT A suitable offering on the benefits of solar power.—John Peters, Children's Literature Consultant, New York City

School Library Journal

A detailed blueprint for a solar-powered, all-electric future.

In this bright treatise, Stayton outlines how humanity might transition from finite, carbon dioxide—emitting fossil fuels to permanent, pollution-free solar power by the end of this century. His key points are that people must curtail carbon emissions; that solar photovoltaic electricity can meet people's needs better than alternatives can; and that the exponential growth of solar installations shows that the shift has already begun. The author has a master's degree in physics, college teaching experience, and years of living off the grid. He expertly blends scientific research, historical context, personal experience, and visionary thinking in this book and relates it all in plain language. He has a gift for demystifying things, from horsepower and steam engines to gigawatts and thorium reactors. His examples are practical ("A joule is the energy needed to raise a three-quarter pound book by a foot, such as lifting a book to the next higher shelf"), and he uses concise, declarative sentences to make his points: "Every five days, the Sun delivers the energy equivalent of all the fossil fuel reserves in the world." He also avoids polemics: "Ocean acidification is the smoking gun evidence that convicts fossil fuel emissions of harming the planet. You don't need to believe in climate change to accept that fact." But although many readers may believe that the facts, and logic, make a shift to solar power inevitable, Stayton's timeline appears too optimistic, as it requires 20 percent annual growth in solar installations for decades as well as improvements in storage systems. Also shadowing his sunny scenario is a cloud of powerful interests that stand to lose billions of dollars if fossil fuels go unused. Stayton devotes only a short chapter to this opposition—confident that collective, individual choices will drive the transformation. Whatever the pace of solar adoption, however, Stayton does manage to clarify the feasibility of quitting fossil fuels. Whether readers add rooftop solar panels to their homes or just replace their incandescent bulbs after reading this book, they'll better understand how energy works, how much humans use (and waste), and why an epochal change is coming.

An energy book that's a pleasure to read and sure to win new solar converts.

Kirkus Reviews