Best Alternative & Renewable Energy

But William had read about windmills, and he dreamed of building one that would bring to his small village a set of luxuries that only 2 percent of Malawians could enjoy: electricity and running water. Amazon Best of the Month, September 2009: Discarded motor parts, PVC pipe, and an old bicycle wheel may be junk to most people, but in the inspired hands of William Kamkwamba, they are instruments of opportunity.

Photovoltaic Design & Installation For Dummies gives you a comprehensive overview of the history, physics, design, installation, and operation of home-scale solar-panel systems. This hands-on, friendly guide covers the workings of residential and small commercial-sized photovoltaic systems and gives you the essentials you need to safely install a system from start to finish. Shed some light on PV systems — get the scoop on electricity basics and how the sun-earth relationship affects where a PV system will (or won't) work. Know that size matters — discover how to properly size a grid-direct system, a battery-based system, wiring, and safety devices. Safety first — follow helpful guidance for staying safe anytime you work on a PV system, from general construction and battery safety to working on ladders and roofs.

Of course, the reality is more complicated than that, yet generating electricity from sunlight alone is a powerful resource, with applications and benefits throughout the world. This best-selling, internet linked book answers all these questions and shows you how to use the power of the sun to generate electricity yourself. As well as explaining the underlying principles, it provides a step-by-step guide so that you can successfully design and install a solar energy system from scratch. He has advised the Obama Administration on the use of solar energy and regularly speaks on television and radio about renewable energy technology.Michael also develops new solar energy technology.

Timed to celebrate the 75th anniversary of his employment by the federal government, KEXP DJ Greg Vandy. takes readers inside the unusual partnership between one of America's great folk artists and the federal government, and shows how the first American folk revival of the 1930's was a response to hard times. "Greg Vandy, known for his engaging KEXP roots-music show, “The Roadhouse,” lovingly unravels that tale in this cleanly written, handsomely designed and liberally illustrated book about Guthrie’s month-plus tenure based in Portland in 1941. "Greg Vandy's 26 Songs in 30 Days examines the period in 1941 when Woody Guthrie spent a month writing a song a day about hydroelectric power, irrigation, and the Grand Coulee Dam for the Bonneville Power Administration, and is a fascinating glimpse of the musician's life as well as the social politics of the time." “One of KEXP’s most noted DJs explores the relationship between Guthrie and the Bonneville Power Administration that yielded timeless folk songs.” — Shelf Talk, The Seattle Public Library. “ 26 Songs in 30 Days... [is] the revelatory history of Guthrie’s work as a commissioned songwriter for the Pacific NW...” — Northwest Music Scene. “ 26 Songs In 30 Days plunges deeply into the historical context of the time and the progressive politics that embraced Social Democracy during an era in which the United States had been severely suffering from The Great Depression. Vandy and Person do expansive justice to their narrow subject, swerving outside their coffee table book lane and crucially, big-upping Guthrie while filleting the notion of his unassailable musical-ethical integrity. “75 years ago, America's greatest folk singer spent a month in the Northwest where he wrote some of his most famous songs. "This is a terrific read and Woody Guthrie is really part of the American traditional song book" — Nancy Guppy , ArtZone. "Context for the complex fight for public power in the Pacific Northwest...is well provided by Greg Vandy in his book" —Ben Hunter & Joe Seamons. " 26 Songs In 30 Days plunges deeply into the historical context of the transformative vision and the progressive politics that embraced social democracy during an era that led America out of the severe suffering of the Great Depression." — Bainbridge Community Podcast " 26 Songs in 30 Days is splendidly illustrated with images of Guthrie’s typed and handwritten lyrics and letters, postcards, historical photos, and marvelous BPA posters." "Authors Greg Vandy and Dan Person offer a breezy yet informative read, and there are some terrific rarely-seen photos" —. KPFK. "Greg Vandy, a Seattle author and KEXP DJ, describes Guthrie's journey to the Northwest and reveals what he calls the 'beauty of his simplicity." "To celebrate the 75th anniversary of [Guthrie's] project, Seattle author and KEXP DJ Greg Vandy has penned 26 Songs in 30 Days." —. Baja Review “Not a rehashing of Guthrie’s early life and travels, the book includes just enough biography and local folklore to keep this month of 1941 in context.” —Mark’s 365 Days of Vinyl. "Moving, inspiring, and uplifting, the songs of Woody Guthrie took the rural grassroots to the entire nation through folk music – and, as a result, warmed up their hearts and minds, respectively, in unity." “This is a never told before story of how the first American folk revival of the 1930s was a response to hard times, and how Guthrie championed a new Social Democracy in Portland.” — Hood River News "That it was all bought and paid for by Bonneville was a funny thing to discover, but it didn’t make it any less cool or discredit the songs in any way."

Of course, the reality is more complicated than that, yet generating electricity from sunlight alone is a powerful resource, with applications and benefits throughout the world. This best-selling, internet linked book answers all these questions and shows you how to use the power of the sun to generate electricity yourself. As well as explaining the underlying principles, it provides a step-by-step guide so that you can successfully design and install a solar energy system from scratch. He has advised the Obama Administration on the use of solar energy and regularly speaks on television and radio about renewable energy technology.Michael also develops new solar energy technology.

But William had read about windmills, and he dreamed of building one that would bring to his small village a set of luxuries that only 2 percent of Malawians could enjoy: electricity and running water. Amazon Best of the Month, September 2009: Discarded motor parts, PVC pipe, and an old bicycle wheel may be junk to most people, but in the inspired hands of William Kamkwamba, they are instruments of opportunity.

In this New York Times bestselling investigation, Ted Koppel reveals that a major cyberattack on America’s power grid is not only possible but likely, that it would be devastating, and that the United States is shockingly unprepared. Among the nation’s estimated three million “preppers,” we meet one whose doomsday retreat includes a newly excavated three-acre lake, stocked with fish, and a Wyoming homesteader so self-sufficient that he crafted the thousands of adobe bricks in his house by hand. We also see the unrivaled disaster preparedness of the Mormon church, with its enormous storehouses, high-tech dairies, orchards, and proprietary trucking company – the fruits of a long tradition of anticipating the worst. With urgency and authority, one of our most renowned journalists examines a threat unique to our time and evaluates potential ways to prepare for a catastrophe that is all but inevitable. "[Koppel's] suggestion that the United States look back to the era of mass civil defense as a model for how we might start to make preparations is provocative and sobering at the same time." " Lights Out is a timely warning about the vulnerability of America to a massive cyberattack that would cripple all we take for granted – electricity, communication, transportation. Koppel explores how cyberwarfare threatens all of us, assesses the risks, criticizes the lack of government action, and finds praise for the Mormon way of disaster preparedness. “As readers would expect from Ted Koppel, Lights Out is dramatic but not hyped, tied to today’s news of shaky infrastructure and cyber attacks but also forward looking. “In Lights Out , Ted Koppel uses his profound journalistic talents to raise pressing questions about our nation’s aging electrical grid. "Try to imagine what a malevolent government, armed with the latest computer sophistication, could do to another nation's complex and entirely digital-dependent economy and social infrastructure. “A bold enumeration of the challenges posed by the digital age; an appeal to safeguard new instruments of human flourishing by studying the ways in which they could be exploited.”. — HENRY A. KISSINGER.

Mahaffey, a long-time advocate of continued nuclear research and nuclear energy, looks at each incident in turn and analyzes what happened and why, often discovering where scientists went wrong when analyzing past meltdowns. Although his latest work focuses mostly on radioactivity’s dark side, from its discovery in 1896 to its role in the recent Fukushima meltdown, Mahaffey nonetheless does argue persuasively that, by closely investigating its shortcomings, nuclear power can be made safer. Mahaffey guides us through more than a century of atomic research, includingmisadventures with radioactive elixirs ("The radium water worked fine until hisjaw came off," reads a 1932 headline) and long-forgotten accidents atenrichment plants...The compelling tales unravel like slow-motion horror stories,spiraling towards disasters we know are coming.PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (Starred Review) - 13 January 2014. Mahaffey, a former senior researchscientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, employs his extensiveknowledge of nuclear engineering to produce a volume that is by turns alarming,thought-provoking, humorous, and always fascinating.KIRKUS (Starred Review) - 6 February 2014.

Expanded AFCI and GFCI protection in homes New approaches to ensure the safety of photovoltaic (PV) electrical systems New methods to distribute low voltage power New DC provisions designed to save energy lost in conversion from AC Updated to the 2014 NEC (current through 2017). He covers all the basics from idiot-proof advice on how to keep track of your tools ― cart them in bins in a little red wagon ― to the highly technical aspects of wiring, and tried-and-true industry tips. A master electrician, building inspector, and licensed general contractor, Cauldwell shows how to properly use electricity in this revision of his 1996 text. Proceeding through the house, Cauldwell demonstrates how to wire both new construction and renovations and to install receptacles, switches, fixtures, and wired-in appliances.

“I have been metal detecting for over 5 years and this great metal detecting guide book taught me plenty of new tips and tricks.” - Mike in Texas. While this metal detecting book may be geared towards the novice treasure hunter, there are plenty of choice tips that even experienced treasure hunters can pick up. Mark Smith reveals some of his best guarded metal detecting secrets in this metal detecting guide that puts more treasure in your find's pouch. Learn how to find more treasure by: understanding common metal detecting terminology, understanding which metal detectors work the best and where, understanding how and why a metal detector works, other equipment you will need, proper etiquette, what you can expect to find, why you should never throw anything away, how to identify your finds, how to identify jewelry, how to tell if it is real gold, how to metal detect with children, which recovery tools work the best, how to recover treasure, how to metal detect private property, how to identify unknown metal detecting finds, metal detecting creeks, rivers and lakes, pinpointing, making weak targets stronger, cleaning your finds, the best places to use your metal detector, selling your finds and more! Find out how you can maximize your treasure with this informative metal detecting book today.

Deemed "the best history of oil ever written" by Business Week and with more than 300,000 copies in print, Daniel Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize–winning account of the global pursuit of oil, money, and power has been extensively updated to address the current energy crisis. The Prize portrays the interweaving of national and corporate interests, the conflicts and stratagems, the miscalculations, the follies, and the ironies." "Impassioned and riveting...only in the great epics of Homer will readers regularly run into a comparable string of larger-than-life swashbucklers and statesmen, heroes and villains."

-- The Economist Phenomenal reviews and sales greeted the hardcover publication of The Big Rich, New York Times bestselling author Bryan Burrough's spellbinding chronicle of Texas oil. The fortunes of the Big Four swelled during the Second World War, when the United States was the world�s leading producer of crude, but by the nineteen-eighties Middle Eastern oil was ascendant, and the barons� legacies had �dissolved into a sordid litany of debauchery, family feuds, scandals, and murder.� Burrough brings each of his outsized subjects brilliantly to life, pitching their individual epics against a grand narrative of rise and decline.