"Lester [Brown] has made an amazing impact on the environmental movement and has brought eco-consciousness to the world of business, politics and academia." –Satish Kumar, Editor-in-Chief of Resurgence & Ecologist magazine, on Breaking New Ground.
Additional Resources for The Great Transition
Climate, Carbon, and Stranded Assets
Atif Ansar, Ben Caldecott, and James Tilbury, Stranded Assets and the Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign: What Does Divestment Mean for the Valuation of Fossil Fuel Assets? (Oxford, U.K.: University of Oxford, 2013).
Jessica Blunden and Derek S. Arndt, eds., “State of the Climate in 2013,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, vol. 95, no. 7 (July 2014).
T. A. Boden, G. Marland, and R. J. Andres, "Global, Regional, and National CO2 Emissions," in Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change (Oak Ridge, TN: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, 2013).
Carbon Disclosure Project, at www.cdp.net.
Carbon Tracker Initiative, Unburnable Carbon, at www.carbontracker.org.
Climate Progress Blog, at thinkprogress.org/climate.
Fossil Free, at Gofossilfree.org.
Kate Gordon et al., A Climate Risk Assessment for the United States (New York: Risky Business Project, 2014), at riskybusiness.org.
Global Carbon Project, at www.globalcarbonproject.org.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Bill McKibben, “A Call to Arms: An Invitation to Demand Action on Climate Change,” Rolling Stone, 21 May 2014.
World Bank, State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2014 (Washington, DC: 2014).
World Bank, Turn Down the Heat: Confronting the New Climate Normal (Washington, DC: 2014).
Coal
Carbon Tracker Initiative, Carbon Supply Cost Curves: Evaluating Financial Risk to Coal Capital Expenditures (London: September 2014).
Yuyu Chen et al., “Evidence on the Impact of Sustained Exposure to Air Pollution on Life Expectancy from China’s Huai River Policy,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 110, no. 32 (6 August 2013), pp. 12,936–41.
Paul R. Epstein et al., “Full Cost Accounting for the Life Cycle of Coal,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 1219 (February 2011), pp. 73–98.
Lesley Fleischman et al., “Ripe for Retirement: An Economic Analysis of the U.S. Coal Fleet,” Electricity Journal, vol. 26, no. 10 (December 2013).
Christian Lelong et al., The Window for Thermal Coal Investment Is Closing (Goldman Sachs, July 2013).
Conrad Schneider and Jonathan Banks, The Toll from Coal: An Updated Assessment of Death and Disease from America’s Dirtiest Energy Source (Boston, MA: Clean Air Task Force, September 2010).
Christine Shearer et al., Boom and Bust: Tracking the Global Coal Plant Pipeline (CoalSwarm and Sierra Club: 2015).
Li Shuo and Lauri Myllyvirta, The End of China’s Coal Boom (Greenpeace East Asia, April 2014).
Sierra Club, Beyond Coal, at content.sierraclub.org/coal.
Ailun Yang and Yiyun Cui, Global Coal Risk Assessment: Data Analysis and Market Research (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 2012).
Anthony Yuen et al., The Unimaginable: Peak Coal in China (Citi Research, September 2013).
Energy Efficiency
Advanced Energy Economy, Advanced Energy Technologies for Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Washington, DC: 2014).
Sara Hayes et al., Change Is in the Air: How States Can Harness Energy Efficiency to Strengthen the Economy and Reduce Pollution (Washington, DC: American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, 2014).
International Energy Agency, Capturing the Multiple Benefits of Energy Efficiency (Paris: 2014).
International Energy Agency, Energy Efficiency Market Report (Paris: 2014).
International Energy Agency, Light’s Labour’s Lost: Policies for Energy-Efficient Lighting (Paris: 2006).
Rocky Mountain Institute, at www.rmi.org.
Geothermal
Magnus Gehringer and Victor Loksha, Geothermal Handbook: Planning and Financing Power Generation (Washington, DC: Energy Sector Management Assistance Program, June 2012).
Geothermal Energy Association, at www.geo-energy.org.
Juliana Glenn and Benjamin Matek, The Status of Geothermal Power in Emerging Economies (Washington, DC: Geothermal Energy Association, October 2014).
Roland N. Horne and Jefferson W. Tester, “Geothermal Energy: An Emerging Option for Heat and Power,” The Bridge, vol. 44, no. 1 (Spring 2014), pp. 7–15.
International Geothermal Association, at www.geothermal-energy.org.
John W. Lund and Tonya L. Boyd, “Direct Utilization of Geothermal Energy 2015 Worldwide Review,” prepared for World Geothermal Congress 2015, Melbourne, Australia, 19–25 April 2015.
Joseph N. Moore and Stuart F. Simmons, “More Power from Below,” Science, vol. 340, no. 6,135 (24 May 2013), pp. 933–34.
Árni Ragnarsson, “Geothermal Development in Iceland 2005–2009,” presented at World Geothermal Congress 2010, Bali, Indonesia, 25–29 April 2010.
Jefferson Tester et al., The Future of Geothermal Energy: Impact of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) on the United States in the 21st Century (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006).
ThinkGeoEnergy, at thinkgeoenergy.com.
U.S. Department of Energy, Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE), at energy.gov/eere/forge.
Hydropower
American Rivers, at www.americanrivers.org.
Atif Ansar et al., “Should We Build More Large Dams? The Actual Costs of Hydropower Megaproject Development,” Energy Policy, vol. 69, no. 2 (June 2014), pp. 43–56.
International Commission on Large Dams, at www.icold-cigb.org.
International Energy Agency, Hydropower Technology Roadmap 2012 (Paris: 2012).
International Rivers, State of the World’s Rivers (Berkeley, CA: 2014), at www.internationalrivers.org.
Ruud Kempener and Frank Neumann, Tidal Energy Technology Brief and Wave Energy Technology Brief (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates: International Renewable Energy Agency, 2014).
Heng Liu, Lara Esser, and Diego Masera, eds., World Small Hydropower Development Report 2013 (Vienna and Hangzhou, China: United Nations Industrial Development Organization and International Center on Small Hydro Power, 2013).
Andreas Maeck, “Sediment Trapping by Dams Creates Methane Emission Hot Spots,” Environmental Science and Technology, vol. 47, no. 15 (25 June 2013), pp. 8,130–37.
U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “Hydropower Explained,” at www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=hydropower_home.
Christiane Zarfl et al., “A Global Boom in Hydropower Dam Construction” Aquatic Sciences, vol. 77, no. 1 (1 January 2015), pp. 161–70.
Nuclear
Mark Cooper, Public Risk, Private Profit; Ratepayer Cost, Utility Imprudence (South Royalton, VT: Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School, March 2013).
Henry Fountain, “Chernobyl: Capping a Catastrophe,” New York Times, 27 April 2014.
International Atomic Energy Agency, Power Reactor Information System, database at www.iaea.org/pris.
Amory B. Lovins, “The Economics of a U.S. Civilian Nuclear Phase-out,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 69, no. 2 (March/April 2013).
Oliver Morton, “Special Report: Nuclear Energy—The Dream That Failed,” The Economist, 10 March 2012.
Mycle Schneider and Antony Froggatt, The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2014 (Washington, DC: July 2014), at www.worldnuclearreport.org.
Union of Concerned Scientists, “Nuclear Power,” at www.ucsusa.org/our-work/nuclear-power.
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “Backgrounder on Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Accident,” “Backgrounder on Nuclear Insurance and Disaster Relief,” and “Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident,” at www.nrc.gov.
World Nuclear Association, at www.world-nuclear.org.
Oil and Natural Gas
Concerned Health Professionals of New York, Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking (Unconventional Gas And Oil Extraction) (New York: 2014).
Food and Water Watch, “The Anti-Fracking Movement,” at www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/fracking/anti-fracking-map.
Russell Gold, The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014).
Robert W. Howarth, “A Bridge to Nowhere: Methane Emissions and the Greenhouse Gas Footprint of Natural Gas,” Energy Science and Engineering, vol. 2, no. 2 (June 2014), pp. 47–60.
Mason Inman, “How to Measure the True Cost of Fossil Fuels,” Scientific American, vol. 308, no. 4 (April 2013).
Michael Klare, The Race for What's Left: The Global Scramble for the World's Last Resources (London: Picador, 2012).
Renewable Energy—General
Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Multilateral Investment Fund, U.K. Department for International Development, and Power Africa, Climatescope 2014: Mapping the Global Frontiers for Clean Energy Investment (London: 2014), at global-climatescope.org/en.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance, United Nations Environment Programme, and Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2014 (Frankfurt, Germany: 2014).
Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency, at www.dsireusa.org.
Mark A. Delucchi and Mark Z. Jacobson, “Providing All Global Energy with Wind, Water, and Solar Power, Part II: Reliability, System and Transmission Costs, and Policies,” Energy Policy, vol. 29 (2011).
Justin Gillis, “Sun and Wind Alter Global Landscape, Leaving Utilities Behind,” New York Times, 13 September 2014.
Greentech Media, at www.greentechmedia.com.
International Energy Agency, Energy Technology Perspectives 2014 (Paris: 2014).
International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2014 (Paris: 2014).
International Renewable Energy Agency, REthinking Energy 2014 (Abu Dhabi: 2014).
Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi, “Providing All Global Energy with Wind, Water, and Solar Power, Part I: Technologies, Energy Resources, Quantities and Areas of Infrastructure and Materials,” Energy Policy, vol. 29 (2011).
Lazard, Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis (New York: 2014).
Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute, Reinventing Fire, at www.rmi.org/reinventingfire.
REN21, Renewables 2014 Global Status Report (Paris: 2014).
Sven Teske et al., Greenpeace, Energy [R]evolution: A Sustainable U.S.A. Energy Outlook (Washington, DC, and Brussels: Greenpeace and Global Wind Energy Council, 2014).
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Green Power Partnership," at www.epa.gov/greenpower.
Ethan Zindler et al., 2014 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook (Bloomberg New Energy Finance, 2014).
Solar
David Biello, “Solar Wars,” Scientific American, vol. 311 (November 2014).
European Photovoltaic Industry Association, Global Market Outlook for Photovoltaics 2014–2018 (Brussels: May 2014).
GTM Research and Solar Energy Industries Association, U.S. Solar Market Insight, quarterly and annual reports at www.seia.org/research-resources/us-solar-market-insight.
Franz Mauthner and Werner Weiss, Solar Heat Worldwide: Markets and Contribution to the Energy Supply 2012 (Gleisdorf, Austria: International Energy Agency, Solar Heating & Cooling Programme, June 2014).
John Perlin, Let It Shine: The 6,000-Year Story of Solar Energy (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2013).
David Roberts, “Utilities for Dummies” series, at grist.org/series/utilities-for-dummies.
Vishal Shah, Jerimiah Booream-Phelps, and Susie Min, 2014 Outlook: Let the Second Gold Rush Begin (New York: Deutsche Bank Markets Research, January 2014).
Solar Energy Industries Association, at www.seia.org.
UBS Ltd., "Will Solar, Batteries and Electric Cars Re-shape the Electricity System?" (Zurich: 20 August 2014).
U.S. Department of Energy, “2014: The Year of Concentrating Solar Power,” fact sheet (Washington, DC: May 2014).
U.S. Department of Energy, SunShot Initiative, at energy.gov/eere/sunshot.
Transportation and Cities
Bike Share World Map, at www.bikesharingworld.com.
Benjamin Davis and Phineas Baxandall, Transportation in Transition (Boston: U.S. PIRG and Frontier Group, December 2013).
Tony Dutzik and Phineas Baxandall, A New Direction: Our Changing Relationship with Driving and the Implications for America’s Future (Boston: U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group, 2013).
Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, at www.itdp.org.
International Energy Agency, “Transport,” at www.iea.org/topics/transport.
Janet Larsen, “Bike-Sharing Programs Hit the Streets in Over 500 Cities Worldwide,” Plan B Update (Washington, DC: Earth Policy Institute, 25 April 2013).
National Complete Streets Coalition, at www.smartgrowthamerica.org/complete-streets.
John Pucher and Ralph Buehler, eds., City Cycling (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2012).
Susan Shaheen and Adam Cohen, Innovative Mobility Carsharing Outlook (Berkeley, CA: Transportation Sustainability Research Center–University of California, Berkeley, Summer 2014).
Michael Sivak, Has Motorization in the U.S. Peaked? (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, 2014).
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Light-Duty Automotive Technology, Carbon Dioxide Emissions, and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 through 2014 (Washington, DC: December 2014).
Wind
American Wind Energy Association, at www.awea.org.
Cristina L. Archer and Mark Z. Jacobson, “Supplying Baseload Power and Reducing Transmission Requirements by Interconnecting Wind Farms,” Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, vol. 46 (November 2007), pp. 1,701–17.
Global Wind Energy Council, Global Wind Report: Annual Market Update 2013 (Brussels: 2014), at www.gwec.net.
Xi Lu, Michael B. McElroy, and Juha Kiviluoma, “Global Potential for Wind-Generated Electricity,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 106, no. 27 (7 July 2009), pp. 10,933–38.
Navigant Consulting, Inc., Offshore Wind Market and Economic Analysis: 2014 Annual Market Assessment (Burlington, MA: September 2014).
Christian von Hirschhausen, “The German 'Energiewende'—An Introduction,” Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, vol. 3, no. 2 (2014), pp. 1–12.
Ryan Wiser and Mark Bolinger, 2013 Wind Technologies Market Report (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, August 2014).
Justin Wu, “BNEF University: How Innovation is Driving System Change,” presentation at The Future of Energy Summit 2014, New York, 7 April 2014.