Solar 92

Lists citations with abstracts for aerospace related reports obtained from world wide sources and announces documents that have recently been entered into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Database.

Solar energy is a substantial global industry, one that has generated trade disputes among superpowers, threatened the solvency of large energy companies, and prompted serious reconsideration of electric utility regulation rooted in the 1930s. One of the biggest payoffs from solar’s success is not the clean inexpensive electricity it can produce, but the lessons it provides for innovation in other technologies needed to address climate change. Despite the large literature on solar, including analyses of increasingly detailed datasets, the question as to how solar became inexpensive and why it took so long still remains unanswered. Drawing on developments in the US, Japan, Germany, Australia, and China, this book provides a truly comprehensive and international explanation for how solar has become inexpensive. Understanding the reasons for solar’s success enables us to take full advantage of solar’s potential. It can also teach us how to support other low-carbon technologies with analogous properties, including small modular nuclear reactors and direct air capture. However, the urgency of addressing climate change means that a key challenge in applying the solar model is in finding ways to speed up innovation. Offering suggestions and policy recommendations for accelerated innovation is another key contribution of this book. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of energy technology and innovation, climate change and energy analysis and policy, as well as practitioners and policymakers working in the existing and emerging energy industries.

In this important new primer, Dustin Mulvaney makes a passionate case for the significance of solar power energy and offers a vision for a more sustainable and just solar industry for the future. The solar energy industry has grown immensely over the past several years and now provides up to a fifth of California’s power. But despite its deservedly green reputation, solar development and deployment have potential social and environmental consequences, from poor factory labor standards to landscape impacts on wildlife. Using a wide variety of case studies and examples to trace the life cycle of photovoltaics, Mulvaney expertly outlines the state of the solar industry, exploring the ongoing conflicts between ecological concerns and climate mitigation strategies, as well as current trade disputes and the fate of toxins in solar waste products. This exceptional overview will outline the industry’s current challenges and possible future for students in environmental studies, energy policy, environmental sociology, and other aligned fields.

International Outlook 2016, an updated statistical reference with energy projections, is provided as a service to energy managers and analysts, both in government and in the private sector. The projections are used by international agencies, federal and state governments, trade associations, and other planners and decision makers. They are published pursuant to the Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977 (Public Law 95-91), Section 205(c). The report begins with a review of world trends in energy demand and the major macroeconomic assumptions used in deriving the International Energy Outlook 2016 (IEO2016) projections, along with the major sources of uncertainty in the projections, which extend through 2040. In addition to the Reference case projections, High Economic Growth and Low Economic Growth cases were developed to consider the effects of higher and lower growth paths for economic activity than are assumed in the Reference case. IEO2016 also includes a High Oil Price case and, alternatively, a Low Oil Price case. The resulting projections--and the uncertainty associated with international energy projections in general--are discussed in Chapter 1, "World energy demand and economic outlook." Projections for energy consumption and production by fuel--petroleum and other liquid fuels, natural gas, and coal--are presented in Chapters 2, 3, and 4, along with reviews of the current status of each fuel on a worldwide basis. Chapter 5 discusses the projections for world electricity markets--including nuclear power, hydropower, and other marketed renewable energy resources--and presents projections of world installed generating capacity. Chapter 6 presents a discussion of energy used in the buildings sector (residential and commercial). Chapter 7 provides a discussion of industrial sector energy use. Chapter 8 includes a detailed look at the world's transportation energy use. Finally, Chapter 9 discusses the outlook for global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. IEO 2016 focuses exclusively on marketed energy. Non-marketed energy sources,which continue to play an important role in some developiing countries, are not included in the estimates. Related products: Energy & Fuels resources collection can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/science-technology/energy-fuels More statistical references can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/statistics-data