Mode of access: World Wide Web.

System requirements: Adobe Acrobat reader.

Part of: Synthesis digital library of engineering and computer science.

Series from website.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 183-195) and index.

Introduction -- The end of cheap oil -- Global oil peak production, when? -- Alternative schools of thought to alternatives -- Neocon insight -- The market will signal -- Switch to alternatives -- Carbon, too much of a good thing -- Climate change parallels tobacco industry science -- What is wrong with 5 degrees Fahrenheit? -- Carbonless energy options -- Energy efficiency -- Energy efficiency in vehicles -- Energy efficiency in buildings -- Residential and small business buildings -- Large commercial and industrial buildings -- Combining building sector measures -- Energy efficiency in the industrial sector -- Energy efficiency savings -- Electric utility cost of energy savings -- Natural gas cost of energy savings -- Petroleum cost of energy savings -- Overall energy efficiency savings -- Renewable energy options -- Wind power -- Concentrated solar power -- Photovoltaics -- Geothermal -- Biomass power -- Biomass resource -- Biomass electricity -- Carbon sequestration -- Biofuels -- National transmission system -- Summary of carbonless energy options -- Carbon emission reduction -- Cost of carbonless energy options -- Green jobs -- Conventional energy -- Clean coal -- Tons of coal -- How dirty is dirty? -- New coal plant designs -- Integrated gasified combined cycle -- Oxygen-fired pulverized coal combustion -- Sequestration -- Clean coal strategy -- Acceptable nuclear -- How expensive is expensive? -- How risky is risky? -- New reactor designs to the rescue -- How long is long enough? -- Making electricity generation into a nuclear weapon -- The NRC as risk -- What is acceptable? -- Policy for whom? -- Tilted playing field -- Unique difficulties with climate change -- A start -- Energy tribes -- Basis for stable policy -- Cap and trade -- Revenue-neutral carbon dumping fee -- Parallel policies -- Research investment -- National electric transmission grid -- Energy efficiency market failure -- Energy structure blocks renewables -- Conservation: green spirituality or common sense -- What to do with coal plants -- Call to arms.

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Hitting the Wall examines the combination of two intractable energy problems of our age: the peaking of global oil production and the overloading of the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. Both emerge from the overconsumption of fossil fuels and solving one problem helps solve the other. The misinformation campaign about climate change is discussed as is the role that noncarbon energy solutions can play. There are nine major components in the proposed noncarbon strategy including energy efficiency and renewable energy. Economics and realistic restraints are considered and the total carbon reduction by 2030 is evaluated, and the results show that this strategy will reduce the carbon emission in the United States to be on track to an 80% reduction in 2050. The prospects for "clean" coal and "acceptable" nuclear are considered, and there is some hope that they would be used in an interim role. Although there are significant technical challenges to assembling these new energy systems, the primary difficulty lies in the political arena. A multigenerational strategy is needed to guide our actions over the next century. Garnering long-term multiadministration coherent policies to put the elements of any proposed strategy in place, is a relatively rare occurrence in the United States. More common is the reversal of one policy by the next administration with counterproductive results. A framework for politically stable action is developed using the framework of "energy tribes" where all the disparate voices in the energy debate are included and considered in a "messy process." This book provides hope that our descendants in the next century will live in a world that would be familiar to us. This can only be achieved if the United States plays an active leadership role in maintaining climatic balance.

Also available in print.

Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on December 10, 2008).