Two Free Books on Energy (and Ecology) Issues

I want to introduce two amazingly well-written energy (and ecology) books that are freely available online. (Their download links and tables of contents are below.)
I didn't read them all yet. However, from my first impressions from the books, my short description is:
Girardet & Mendonça's book is newer. This book is more concentrating on social issues.
The book by Professor MacKay (pronounced mac-EYE) is covering relatively more technical issues with exhaustively selected data.

Girardet, H., & Mendonça, M. (2009). A Renewable World: Energy, Ecology, Equality - A Report for the World Future Council. Devon, UK: Green Books Ltd.
Download: http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/a_renewable_world.html

MacKay, D.J.C. (2009). Sustainable Energy - without the hot air. Cambridge, UK: UIT Cambridge Ltd.
Download: http://www.withouthotair.com/download.html

A Renewable World: Energy, Ecology, Equality - A Report for the World Future Council
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Energy Change, Climate Change  . . . . . . . . . .  25
Chapter 2: Carbon and the Biosphere   . . . . . . . . . . . .  49
Chapter 3: Renewable Energy   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  75
Chapter 4: Towards Energy Equality  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Chapter 5: Energy Suiciency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Chapter 6: The Green-Collar Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Chapter 7: Renewing the City  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Chapter 8: From Global to Local?  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Chapter 9: Problem Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Chapter 10: Going Deeper, Looking Further . . . . . . . . . . 223

Sustainable Energy - without the hot air
Table of Contents
I Numbers, not adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
        1 Motivations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
        2 The balance sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
        3 Cars  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  29
        4 Wind  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  32
        5 Planes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  35
        6 Solar   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  38
        7 Heating and cooling   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  50
        8 Hydroelectricity  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  55
        9 Light   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  57
        10 Offshore wind  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  60
        11 Gadgets  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  68
        12 Wave   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  73
        13 Food and farming   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  76
        14 Tide   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  81
        15 Stuff  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  88
        16 Geothermal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  96
        17 Public services  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
        18 Can we live on renewables? . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
II Making a difference  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
        19 Every BIG helps  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
        20 Better transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
        21 Smarter heating . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
        22 Efficient electricity use  . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
        23 Sustainable fossil fuels?  . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
        24 Nuclear? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
        25 Living on other countries’ renewables? . . . . . . 177
        26 Fluctuations and storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
        27 Five energy plans for Britain  . . . . . . . . . . 203
        28 Putting costs in perspective . . . . . . . . . . . 214
        29 What to do now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
        30 Energy plans for Europe, America, and the World  . 231
        31 The last thing we should talk about  . . . . . . . 240
        32 Saying yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
        Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
III Technical chapters  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
        A Cars II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
        B Wind II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
        C Planes II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
        D Solar II  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
        E Heating II  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
        F Waves II  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
        G Tide II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
        H Stuff II  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
IV Useful data  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
        I Quick reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
        J Populations and areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
        K UK energy history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

Rural Electrification Policies in Brazil, China, India and South Africa

This IEA report is very informative about "country-specific" problem-solving policies taken by four major emerging-economy countries: Brazil, China, India and South Africa.

Niez, A. (2010). Comparative Study on Rural Electrification Policies in Emerging Economies: Keys to Successful Policies. Paris, France: International Energy Agency.

Full-text: http://www.iea.org/papers/2010/rural_elect.pdf

Let us think of these four countries' share of world's energy consumption.

Primary Energy Consumption in 2008

Country	Million tonnes oil equivalent	Share
Brazil	228.1	2.0%
China	2,002.5	17.7%
India	433.3	3.8%
South Africa	132.3	1.2%
4-Country Total	2,796.2	24.8%
United States	2,299.0	20.4%
European Union	1,728.2	15.3%
OECD	5,508.4	48.8%
Former Soviet Union	1,028.9	9.1%
World Total	11,294.9	100.0%

Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2009

Pledges for the Copenhagen Accord and "How we can verify actual fulfillment"

Although the UNFCCC posted official documents from the Copenhagen meeting (COP-15), they didn't summarize the pledges of all the participating countries to support the Copenhagen Accord.
All I could find online is this Reuters article.

FACTBOX-Backers of Copenhagen climate deal, 2020 plans
31 Mar 2010 10:54:36 GMT

If you want to read original pledges of nations, you can find them on the UNFCCC's website at
http://unfccc.int/home/items/5262.php
Annex I countries' pledges are neatly compiled in one table.
Non-annex I party's pledges are separately collected as scanned pdf files.

At this point, we can ask, "How can we verify counties' actual commitments to their pledges?"
Here comes an interesting and informative publication from the US National Research Council.

National Research Council. (2010). Verifying Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Methods to Support International Climate Agreements. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Fulltext of its prepublication copy is avaliable at
http://cart.nap.edu/cart/deliver.cgi?record_id=12883
(You may have to provide your name and email address to access the pdf file.)

Satisfying 100% of Europe's Electricity Needs by Renewable Sources

PricewaterhouseCoopers, an international accountancy and professional services firm, published an ambitious plan for Europe's energy future. Three research institutes (PIK, IIASA and ECF) have collaborated with PwC.

Their analysis for the plan asserts a pan-European, cross-Mediterranean grid (dubbed SuperSmart Grid) will enable Europe to meet their electricity needs 100% from renewable electricity.

If this kind of geographically optimized power mix is achievable thanks to a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission system, the same is possible in North America.

Fulltext: http://www.pwc.co.uk/pdf/100_percent_renewable_electricity.pdf
Citation: PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC), Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), & European Climate Forum (ECF). (2010). 100% Renewable Electricity: A Roadmap to 2050 for Europe and North Africa. London, UK: PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

G-20 countries' clean energy investments in 2009

G-20's clean energy investments in 2009 were ranked by country as below.
(G-20: 19 major countries + the European Union)

Rank		Country	Investment ($ billion)
1		China	34.60
2		United States	18.60
3		United Kingdom	11.20
4		Rest of EU-27	10.80
5		Spain	10.40
6		Brazil	7.40
7		Germany	4.30
8		Canada	3.30
9		Italy	2.60
10		India	2.30
11		Mexico	2.10
12		France	1.80
13		Turkey	1.60
14		Australia	1.00
15		Japan	0.80
16		Indonesia	0.35
17		South Africa	0.13
18		Argentina	0.08
19		South Korea	0.02

Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts. (2010). Who’s Winning the Clean Energy Race? Growth, Competition and Opportunity in the World’s Largest Economies. Washington, DC: The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Full-text: http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/Global_warming/G-20%20Report.pdf

IEA. (2010). Projected Costs of Generating Electricity - 2010 Edition

Today, the International Energy Agency (IEA) published its latest estimation of the levelised costs of generating electricity (LCOE).
In every region in the world, nuclear power is computed to be the cheapest source of electricity, when the discount rate is 5%. The 10% discount rate just increases the costs of onshore wind electricity, while nuclear powered electricity still demands the lowest costs in North America and Asia Pacific regions.
This kind of analysis not new. Nuclear electricity always tops the electricity from renewable sources in terms of costs. When numbers are out, governments cannot ignore them.
How can renewable energy sources compete with non-renewable (and possibly dangerous) ones?
I want to find the answer!!!!!

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International Energy Agency. (2010). Projected Costs of Generating Electricity - 2010 Edition.

You can access its full text here (http://j.mp/IEA2010LCOE).

Below is its table of contents.

Table of contents
Part I Methodology and Data on Levelised Costs for Generating Electricity
Chapter 1 Introduction and context ............................. 29
Chapter 2 Methodology, conventions and key assumptions.......... 33
2.1 The notion of levelised costs of electricity (LCOE)......... 33
2.2 The EGC spreadsheet model for calculating LCOE ............. 37
2.3 Methodological conventions and key assumptions for calculating
LCOE with the EGC spreadsheet model ...................... 41
Conclusions .................................................... 45
Chapter 3 Technology overview .................................. 47
3.1 Presentation of different power technologies ............... 47
3.2 Technology-by-technology data on electricity generating costs ...... 59
Chapter 4 Country-by-country data on electricity generating costs for different technologies ...................................... 65
4.1 Country-by-country data on electricity generating costs (bar graphs) .. 65
4.2 Country-by-country data on electricity generating costs
(numerical tables) .................................... 89
Part II Sensitivity analyses and boundary isues
Chapter 5 Median case ......................................... 101
Chapter 6 Sensitivity analyses ................................ 105
6.1 Multi-dimensional sensitivity analysis .................... 106
6.2 Summary results of the sensitivity analyses for different parameters .. 112
6.3 Qualitative discussion of different variables affecting the LCOE ...... 123
Chapter 7 System integration aspects of variable renewable power generation ....... 141
7.1 Introduction .............................................. 141
7.2 Variability................................................ 142
7.3 Flexibility................................................ 145
7.4 Costing variable renewable integration..................... 146
7.5 Power system adequacy...................................... 149
Chapter 8 Financing issues .................................... 151
8.1 Social resource cost and private investment cost: the difference
is uncertainty ..................................... 151
8.2 The role of corporate taxes and the coherence of fiscal and
energy policy ....................................... 155
8.3 The impact of the financial and economic crisis ........... 158
8.4 Options for improving investment conditions in the power sector .... 160
Chapter 9 Levelised costs and the working of actual power markets .............. 163
9.1 Use and limitations of LCOE ............................... 164
9.2 Power market functioning and electricity pricing in
competitive markets .................................. 168
9.3 Qualitative assessment of major risks associated with generation
technologies ....................................... 172
9.4 Policy considerations ..................................... 174
Chapter 10 Carbon capture and storage ......................... 177
10.1 Introduction ............................................. 177
10.2 Role of CCS in CO2 mitigation ............................ 178
10.3 CO2 capture and storage in power generation .............. 181
10.4 Demonstration and deployment of CCS ...................... 187
Chapter 11 Synthesis report on other studies of the levelised cost of electricity........ 189
11.1 Introduction ............................................. 189
11.2 Common lessons ........................................... 196

Solar power market is half of wind power market

Last year, global solar power market ($30.7 billion) was less than half of world's wind power market ($63.5 billion).
Source: http://www.cleanedge.com/reports/reports-trends2010.php