It is no secret that the United States' dependence on oil -- mostly foreign -- puts the country in a precarious position. The United States needs innovative ways not only to power millions of automobiles on its highways but also to secure sustainable sources of fuel for the future. This book presents the latest facts and figures about alternative energy to any physicist, engineer, policymaker, or concerned citizen who needs a reliable source of information on the nation's looming energy crisis. Philip G. Gallman focuses especially on green vehicles and the interrelationship between their design and various energy sources. He explains simply and clearly the complex energy and automotive engineering issues involved in developing green vehicles, measures their likely effect on energy resource demand, and considers what they might mean for national energy strategy. Addressing problems associated with renewable resources often overlooked or ignored in the popular press, Gallman explains what replacing oil with alternative sources of energy realistically entails. Can the nation satisfy its energy demands with wind turbines, solar power, hydroelectric power, or geothermal power? Is biodiesel or electricity the answer to our gas-guzzling ways? Organized logically and with an accessible narrative, Green Alternatives and National Energy Strategy guides readers through the essential questions and hurdles the United States must answer and overcome to transition from a petroleum-dependent nation to one that runs on sustainable, renewable energy.

Energy is crucial to the functioning of any human society and central to understanding East Asia’s ‘economic miracle’. The region’s rapid development over the last few decades has been inherently energy-intensive and the impact on global energy security, climate change and the twenty-first-century global system generally is now very significant and will become more so over foreseeable years and decades to come. The region is already the world’s largest energy consumer and greenhouse gas emitter, so establishing cleaner energy systems in East Asia is both a regional and global challenge, and renewable energy has a critically important part to play in meeting it. This book presents a comprehensive study of renewable energy development in East Asia. It begins by examining renewable energy development in global and historic contexts, and situates East Asia’s position in the recent worldwide expansion of renewables. This same approach is applied on sector-specific chapter studies on wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, ocean (wave and tidal) and bioenergy, and to general trends in renewable energy policy. Governments play a critical role in promoting renewables and their contribution to tackling climate change and other environmental challenges. Christopher M. Dent argues this is particularly relevant to East Asia, where state capacity practice has been increasingly allied to ecological modernisation thinking to form what he calls ‘new developmentalism’, the principal foundation on which renewables have developed in the region as well as how East Asia’s low carbon development is being generally promoted. Renewable Energy in East Asia will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Asian studies, economics, political economy, energy studies, business, development, international relations and environmental studies. It will also appeal to researchers working on the subject matter in government, business, international organisations, think tanks and civil society organisations.

A series of roundtable meetings on U.S. energy policy were held around the nation, Aug. 2, 1994-Jan. 13, 1995. Participants sought public input on energy topics. Here are summaries of the roundtable meetings, including questions from their audiences.