Energy, Heat and Power

This book is about the politics, power and science surrounding the use of biodiesel to replace a substantial portion of our petroleum based diesel and home heating fuel oils. Even though it is not a “how to” book, if your passion is biofuels, you should read this one.

This is more of a survey type of book than a “how-to” kind of book. It will introduce you to a number of options and help you make decisions about what things you can do to lower the energy bills on your existing home, or to plan a new home with a minimal carbon footprint. Covers space and hot water heating as well as power generation.

This is a scaled-down version of Gipe’s Wind Power book, tailored for the home RE system. Coupled with some of the latest manufacturers’ spec sheets from your local RE dealer, this book should provide you with what you need to know for purchasing and installing a small wind system, but if you are serious about wind power, you should spring the bucks for Gipe’s comprehensive Wind Power: Renewable Energy for Home, Farm and Business.

This is still the bible for small to mid-size wind power applications, and it has been completely revised and updated. Very detailed and comprehensive, it has excellent engineering and educational information on all aspects of wind energy, plus numerous case examples of wind systems in all sizes. Includes information on site evaluation, economics of wind power generation, towers, turbine design, hybrid system design, grid interconnection, pumping water with wind, maintenance, purchasing used systems, etc.

This is a “survey of the options” type guide to heating your home using renewable energy. In addition to passive and active solar heating, this book also includes information on biofuel boilers, wood boilers, wood heat, and both ground source and ambient air type heat pumps. Useful for determining what the best combination might be for your home, both as a retrofit to an existing home or when planning and building a new home.

This is a very inspiring book! I agree with Greg Pahl, that the future of America lies in action at a community level that promotes and lives sustainable principles. There is strength in communities that pool talents and resources that the lone wolf survivalist will never come close to attaining. This book looks at energy production on a community level, and shows clear examples of how it is done, from the wood chip power plant of Burlington Vermont, to the sustainable community commitment of Willits California, to the wind and biomass energy coops of Denmark, Holland and Germany. Pahl shows us many options for making Community Supported Energy (CSE) a reality in our own communities. At some not-to-distant future time, CSE could be the cornerstone that helps us to maintain some level of a modern technological society as the global economy slides into history.

Shorter and simpler than Kemp’s book, Power with Nature provides a nice clear summary of RE options that will help you to size your system and figure out what will work best in your particular application. Ewing provides numerous pearls of wisdom gleaned from building and living off-grid.

This is probably the best all-around “how-to” guide to renewable energy systems. It will educate you about all the major system components and help you perform your system planning and installation. Covers everything from composting toilets, to PV systems, to small scale wind, to micro hydro, to back up fossil fuel systems. Includes some basics on biofuels, including how to process your own biodiesel from used cooking oil or lard. Some of the other references cover their individual topics in greater detail and depth, but if you want to buy just one book, this is the one to buy!

If you want to process and produce your own biodiesel, this is the book for you. Biodiesel Basics and Beyond aims to separate fact from fiction and to educate potential home, farm and cooperative manufacturers on the economic production of quality biodiesel from both waste and virgin oil feedstock. The book includes: detailed processes and lists of equipment required to produce biodiesel that meets North American standards; how farmers can use excess oilseed as a feedstock for biodiesel production; the use of the co-byproduct glycerin in making soap; a guide to numerous reference materials and a list of supplier data.

David Blume’s opus, Alcohol Can Be a Gas, is the definitive guide to weaning America from the oil habit via biofuels. In great detail, it thoroughly debunks the myth that ethanol production takes nearly as much energy to run the process as it produces, and shows how America can thrive by sustainably growing both an abundant food supply and biofuels at the same time (they can actually feed each other synergistically). Blume shows us a pathway to personal and national energy independence! David Blume has been an alcohol pioneer since Buckminster Fuller, one of America’s foremost visionary geniuses, coached and coaxed Blume in the 70’s to continue to pursue their united dream of energy independence through biofuels. Blume is a hands-on kind of guy, having been an organic farmer, inventor, permaculture teacher and alcohol pioneer over the past thirty years. This book is encyclopedic in scope, and is for everyone from policy makers to consumers to the back yard tinker who wishes to make his own ethanol and convert his existing gasoline powered car to run on ethanol fuel