Harness the Sun: America's Quest for a Solar-Powered Future

by Philip Warburg

Overview

Going from the inner city to the open desert, a seasoned environmental advocate looks at solar energy’s remarkable ascent and its promise for America’s future
 
Solar power was once the domain of futurists and environmentally minded suburbanites. Today it is part of mainstream America. Scan the skyline of downtown neighborhoods, check out the rooftop of the nearest Walmart, and take a close look at your local sports arena. Chances are you’ll find solar panels in those and many other unexpected places.
 
In Harness the Sun, Philip Warburg takes readers on a far-flung journey that explores America’s solar revolution. Beginning with his solar-powered home in New England, he introduces readers to the pioneers who are spearheading our move toward a clean energy economy. We meet the CEOs who are propelling solar power to prominence and the intrepid construction workers who scale our rooftops installing panels. We encounter the engineers who are building giant utility-scale projects in prime solar states like Nevada, Arizona, and California, and the biologists who make sure wildlife is protected at those sites.
 
Warburg shows how solar energy has won surprising support across the political spectrum. Prominent conservatives embrace solar power as an emblem of market freedom, while environmental advocates see it as a way to reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, economic-justice activists celebrate solar’s potential to lift up low-income communities, and Native American leaders welcome the income and jobs that the industry will bring to their communities.
 
Yet solar energy has its downsides and detractors too. Conservationists worry about the impact of large solar farms on protected animal species, and some local citizens groups resent the encroachment of solar projects on farmland and open spaces. Warburg gives voice to those at the epicenter of these conflicts and points the way to constructive solutions.
 
Harness the Sun offers a grounded, persuasive vision of America’s energy future. It is a future fueled by clean, renewable sources of power, with solar at center stage.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807054321
Publisher:	Beacon Press
Publication date:	09/06/2016
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Philip Warburg is the author of Harvest the Wind: America’s Journey to Jobs, Energy Independence, and Climate Stability. He was president of the Conservation Law Foundation, New England's leading environmental advocacy group, from 2003 to 2009. Previously, he directed the Israel Union for Environmental Defense in Tel Aviv and was an attorney at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, DC.

Table of Contents

Note on Terminology vii

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Our House, Your House 10

Chapter 2 Ballfields and Boxtops 31

Chapter 3 Local Communities Capture the Sun 51

Chapter 4 Wastelands Redeemed 71

Chapter 5 The Desert's Harvest 88

Chapter 6 Tribal Sun 109

Chapter 7 Focusing on Tonopah 123

Chapter 8 Cradle to Grave 142

Chapter 9 Building a Robust Solar Economy 158

Chapter 10 Disrupting the Utility Status Quo 174

Epilogue: Our Solar Future 187

Acknowledgments 193

Notes 196

Selected Bibliography 220

Index 227

Editorial Reviews

Smoothly edifying.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Warburg’s graceful, diverse, wide-ranging, and well-balanced storytelling...[is] a valuable service to a society rife with solar myths, many deliberately manufactured...An important and timely contribution to the public understanding of solar power.”
—Amory Lovins, Science

“Harness the Sun eloquently details the role that solar can—and must—play in our clean-energy future.”
—Peter Lehner, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council

“Harness the Sun is an indispensable guide to the technologies that undergird an emerging solar revolution. It describes the businesses that will profit from it, the interests that will be disrupted by it, and the policies that could accelerate it. Phil Warburg does all this by wandering across the land, talking with workers and consumers and CEOs, and asking them exactly the questions that every intelligent, open-minded reader would want to have answered. If you are intrigued by solar energy in concept but think it is a just a futuristic option, read this book today.”
—Denis Hayes, national coordinator of the first Earth Day and former director of the Solar Energy Research Institute
 
“As an environmental scientist with more than thirty years’ experience, I applaud Philip Warburg for shining much-needed light on the renewable energy potential of contaminated lands. These sites can help expand our clean-energy capacity in places where industry has left a lot more than rust behind.”
—Deborah Sawyer, founder and CEO, Environmental Design International, Inc.

“Phil Warburg has invented a new literary genre: the clean energy travelogue. His trips to the places and characters behind the solar energy boom are brilliantly entertaining and informative. He has written the definitive guide to America’s solar transformation.”
—U.S. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (ret.), former chair, House Energy and Commerce Committee

From the Publisher