The Solar Fraud: Why Solar Energy Won't Run the World

by Howard C. Hayden and Howard C. Heyden

Book Overview

Solar energy has its uses many of them but running the world isnt one of them. Solar energy has always and will always provide some fraction of the worlds energy budget. The question is how much? By... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0971484546
• ISBN13: 9780971484542
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Vales Lake Publishing
• Length: 281 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Age Range: 18 years and up

Customer Reviews

Hard Science, Clearly Delivered

This book is much the best introduction to solar energy's prospects and possibilities. It makes the science easy, and puts the politics of solar energy firmly in the context of the physics of the possible. A highly recommended guide for anyone considering a solar project, and also a superb guide for those who seek to influence or to understand energy policy.

Well worth a read

This is a very good book.The author makes a few economic points, but the bulk of his argument rests on physics. Hayden explains clearly and thoroughly all the methods of generating power from renewable sources, including hydropower and PV. (As he notes, all these sources are ultimately fueled by the sun.) He explains the physical limitations of each source in basic science that the reader can verify in any elementary college physics textbook. He addresses important issues such as energy storage and transmission, giving a complete picture of what is needed to keep our industrial nation running. He also discusses quality of electric power, which is sadly often omitted from discussions of renewables, despite the fact that our computers need an extremely clean signal in order to run! All this is an extremely useful addition to anyone concerned about our future sources of energy. This information is quite verifiable, and far less controversial than, say, The Skeptical Environmentalist, to which this book has been loosely compared.Hayden also draws attention to some of the misrepresentation frequently used in discussions of renewables. In particular, he notes that the figure given for a wind farm is usually its nameplate power, the maximum amount of power it can generate if the windspeed is ideal, rather than its average power. And the power output of a wind farm is highly variable, in contrast to conventional and nuclear plants. As he notes, the average journalist doesn't dig deep enough into these things.The author also makes the interesting argument that environmentalists themselves will be in opposition to these renewables. I'm sure there will be exceptions to that, but like Hayden, I find it difficult to imagine the Sierra Club seriously favoring paving over many, many square miles of nature with PV cells. Anyway, this is just an interesting irony that the author is apparently fond of, and not central to his argument.The tone of this book will undoubtedly put off some of the people who are in most urgent need of understanding the facts in it. Hayden is outraged, as a taxpayer, at some of the outlays we have made that benefit only a very few of us. I share that outrage but wish he had been more neutral.So what then do we do? The negative reviewers below complain that Hayden has a "lack of context." For my part, with my own degree in physics, I don't see any "context" that would affect the basic arguments in this book. The basic laws of thermodynamics are completely indifferent to global warming, voter awareness, and the human race in general. If you take it for granted that fossil fuels will run out (or become far too expensive to dig up) and/or that global warming is a real, human-caused phenomenon, we are left only with solar... and nuclear. Every single one of the negative reviewers below has apparently dismissed nuclear power without a mention, quite as if it weren't already providing us with a significant amount of reliable, sheik-free power.

True facts and and an obvious distaste for hype

The Solar Fraud was an excellent book for me to read early on in my interest in solar energy. Clearly, solar energy system will never supply all our energy needs. This book outlines the potential energy to be gained through solar energy systems and describes all of the limiting factors/efficiencies that impact/control solar energy systems. This book was a necessary balance to the other books I read that are outright advocates of solar energy. I found the energy supply figures per square meter especially informative. Mr. Hayden correctly points out that wind, solar, and hydro all deliver low energy per meter, but neglects to point out that the same area can be used to gather wind and photovoltaic energy, and even collect direct solar heat. The author is clear in stating that under today's market conditions, most solar energy systems don't make sense if you are already connected to the grid. For those who aren't connected, Mr. Hayden admits that these system often make sense to install. Mr. Hayden only partially addresses life-cycle cost analysis of petroleum based energy. While a recent pretroleum institute study stated that there is no case where the US spends defense dollars solely to defend oil extraction industry around the world, I beg to differ. We are clearly spending a load of money in the middle east and south america to defend oil production facilities (and soon enough the trans-afghan pipeline will be complete and will need to be defended). Were these costs included in the price of oil/gas, we would see much higher oil and gas prices. The author notes that there are, for arguement purposes, 100 million homes in the US. He notes that if all of these homes had 150 square meters roofs and were all covered with photovoltaic panels, they would not supply the energy needs of the nation. True enough, but this is not to say that a home cannot supply all its energy needs through home supplied power. It can. An medium sized energy efficient home can be supplied with all its power needs for the price of an mid-range SUV. One of the bottom line messages I took away from this book is that the best dollar to spend as an investment in energy is on increasing the energy efficiency of my home: insulation, compact flourescent lights, low E windows, programmable thermostats, efficient appliances. After spending this money, investment in energy production systems(windwill, photovoltaic, etc) only makes sense over very long periods of time (20+ years). This is too long for a return on investment for most of us. There are other reasons to invest in these systems besides ROI. Chief among them is having a power system that should be immune to rolling black outs, power outages, etc. For those people who experience frequent blackouts or power outages in their grid connections, these systems may make sense.

The Solar Fraud

For those of us without an advanced degree in engineering or physics, and the suspicion that most of what we read in the popular press on "alternative" energy is pure hype, "The Solar Fraud" provides answers. By the way, as used in this book, "solar" includes not only the familiar solar-electric panels, but wind, bio-mass and hydroelectric power. Although the author is a physicist, you won't see pages of equations. However, the ideas presented are backed up with numerical data, tables, conversion factors, and references. Best of all, the way in which the book is organized, allows easy access to specific facts and figures to fact check the more outrageous claims of the alternative energy hucksters.

Outstanding - Must read if you want facts and not hype

I have long been one of those people who wondered why solar energy didn't take off. Now I know.This book is an excellent primer on the realities of energy, and energy conversion. This was ther first book I have read on the subject that took the time to convert units of energy into common terms so I could compare wind energy to a gasoline engine. It is amazing how the facts become evident when the vocabulary (read units of measurement) is consistent.