Our Renewable Future

Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy

By Richard Heinberg and David Fridley
Published 2016 by Island Press in collaboration with Post Carbon Institute.

One of GreenBiz’s Six Best Sustainability Books of 2016 

The next few decades will see a profound energy transformation throughout the world. By the end of the century (and perhaps sooner), we will shift from fossil fuel dependence to rely primarily on renewable sources like solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal power. Driven by the need to avert catastrophic climate change and by the depletion of easily accessible oil, coal, and natural gas, this transformation will entail a major shift in how we live. What might a 100% renewable future look like? Which technologies will play a crucial role in our energy future? What challenges will we face in this transition? And how can we make sure our new system is just and equitable?

In Our Renewable Future, energy expert Richard Heinberg and scientist David Fridley explore the challenges and opportunities presented by the shift to renewable energy. Beginning with a comprehensive overview of our current energy system, the authors survey issues of energy supply and demand in key sectors of the economy, including electricity generation, transportation, buildings, and manufacturing. In their detailed review of each sector, the authors examine the most crucial challenges we face, from intermittency in fuel sources to energy storage and grid redesign. The book concludes with a discussion of energy and equity and a summary of key lessons and steps forward at the individual, community, and national level.

The transition to clean energy will not be a simple matter of replacing coal with wind power or oil with solar; it will require us to adapt our energy usage as dramatically as we adapt our energy sources. Our Renewable Future is a clear-eyed and urgent guide to this transformation that will be a crucial resource for policymakers and energy activists.

Our Renewable Future is published by Island Press in collaboration with Post Carbon Institute.

French edition: Un futur renouvelable : tracer les contours de la transition énergétique (Écosociété, 2019)

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Authors

Richard Heinberg is Senior Fellow-in-Residence of Post Carbon Institute and is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost educators on the need to transition away from fossil fuels. He is the author of thirteen books, including seminal works on society’s sustainability crisis, The Party’s Over: Oil, War & the Fate of Industrial Societies (2003) and The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality (2011). He has authored scores of essays and articles that have appeared in Nature, Christian Science Monitor, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere; has been quoted and interviewed countless times for print, television, and radio; and has spoken to hundreds of audiences in fourteen countries.

David Fridley is a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), where he is deputy group leader of the China Energy Group. His work has involved extensive collaboration with China on end-use energy efficiency and modeling, industrial energy use, energy policy research, low-carbon city development, and energy supply assessment. He has published dozens of articles in peer-reviewed journals and authored chapters in three books. Prior to joining LBNL he was a consultant on downstream oil markets in the AsiaPacific region and a business development manager for Caltex China. He is a Fellow of Post Carbon Institute.

Publisher & Producer

Founded in 1984, Island Press’ mission is to provide the best ideas and information to those seeking to understand and protect the environment and create solutions to its complex problems. Island Press elevates voices of change, shines a spotlight on crucial issues, and focuses attention on sustainable solutions. islandpress.org

Founded in 2003, Post Carbon Institute’s mission is to lead the transition to a more resilient, equitable, and sustainable world. It provides individuals and communities with the resources needed to understand and respond to the interrelated ecological, economic, energy, and equity crises of the 21st century. postcarbon.org • resilience.org

Errata

The first printing of Our Renewable Future contained the following errors:

• page 40, Figure 2.5: the two pie charts should have been in petawatthours (PWh), not gigawatthours
• page 147, Figure 8.1: y-axis label should have read “kg oil equivalent,” not “kg pil equivalent”