For 200 years industrial civilization has relied on the combustion of abundant and cheap carbon fuels. But continued reliance has had perilous consequences. On the one hand there is the insecurity of relying on the world's most unstable region – the Middle East – compounded by the imminence of peak oil, growing scarcity and mounting prices. On the other, the potentially cataclysmic consequences of continuing to burn fossil fuels, as the evidence of accelerating climate change shows. Yet there is a solution: to make the transition to renewable sources of energy and distributed, decentralized energy generation. It is a model that has been proven, technologically, commercially and politically, as Scheer comprehensively demonstrates here. The alternative of a return to nuclear power – again being widely advocated – he shows to be compromised and illusory. The advantages of renewable energy are so clear and so overwhelming that resistance to them needs diagnosis – which Scheer also provides, showing why and how entrenched interests and one-dimensional structures of thinking oppose the transition, and what must be done to overcome these obstacles.

The new book from the award-winning author of THE SOLAR ECONOMY and A SOLAR MANIFESTO demonstrates why the transition to renewable energy is essential and how it can be done.

About the author(s)

DR HERMANN SCHEER is a member of the German Bundestag (Parliament) and President of EUROSOLAR, the European Association for Renewable Energy. He is also General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy. In a career devoted to the replacement of nuclear and fossil fuels with environmentally sound energy sources, Dr Scheer has received numerous awards, including the World Solar Prize, the World Prize for BioEnergy, the World Wind Energy Award and the Alternative Nobel Prize. In 2002 Time Magazine recognized him as one of five 'Heroes for the Green Century'.

Contents

Introduction * Renewable Energy: The Deceptive Global Consensus * Part I: Sun or Atom: The Fundamental Conflict of the 21st Century * Part II: Blockades to Action: The Unbroken Power of One-Dimensional Thinking * Part III: Energy Autonomy: The Archimedean Point of the Breakthrough to Renewable Energy