sunrise delayed - a personal history of solar energy

ISBN-13: 9781500124878 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 310 str.

Frank Kreith Profes

Opis

At the age of 91, the author has written his life story, starting with his escape on a children's transport from Vienna following Kristallnacht. Interweaving his colorful personal and professional life, he tells about his work in solar and renewable energy in the United States, as well as in developing countries, culminating in his election as Pioneer for the World Renewable Energy Conference, an affiliate of the United Nations. He started his life in the U.S. working the night shift in a machine shop while attending college in the daytime and finally graduating from the University of California at Berkeley in 1945. The story follows the author's enthusiasm for nuclear energy under the guidance of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, to building a heat transfer laboratory at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and his effort to apply his knowledge of heat transfer to design nuclear power plants. He then discusses his gradual acceptance that sustainable energy is socially and technically superior to nuclear power to achieve a sustainable energy future. He also recognized that engineering is only a part of the larger picture which involves the interaction between population, environment, economics, and technology. The glue that binds these factors is an adequate supply of cheap energy which has heretofore come from fossil sources, but must now be replaced by renewable energy technologies. He described his career as Chief of Thermal Research and then Senior Research Fellow at the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) and the recognition he received from various professional societies. Kreith shows the path he laid out to work towards a sustainable energy future and the action by state and federal governments to attain this goal. The professional community of engineering recognized his contributions by establishing the ASME Frank Kreith Energy Award. The book ends with a realistic description of a socially and technically viable transition from our fossil era to a renewable and sustainable energy system.