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greentechZONE Products for the week of July 6, 2009
Elsevier Press Says…
Alternative and renewable energy resources are critical for providing future power solutions without the use of fossil fuels. Our 2009 eCatalog showcases our breadth and depth in this important discipline and provides cutting-edge reference books on energy production from safe, renewable and clean sources.
Our featured titles for 2009 include:
Micro Fuel Cell
By T.S. Zhao
May 2009, Hardcover, 312 pp.
Compact and readable, Microfuels Principles and Applications, offers engineers and product designers a reference unsurpassed by any other in the market. This book contains a detailed introduction to the fabrication of the components and the assembly of the system, making it a valuable reference both in terms of its application to product design and understanding micro engineering principles.
Solar Energy Engineering
By Soteris Kalogirouo
June 2009, Hardcover, 744 pp.
The book includes subjects such as energy related environmental problems, solar collectors, solar water heating, solar space heating and cooling, industrial process heat, solar desalination, photovoltaics, solar thermal power systems and modeling of solar systems including the use of artificial intelligence systems in solar energy systems modeling and performance prediction.
Fundamentals of Renewable Energy Processes, 2e
By Aldo Vieira da Rosa
March 2009, Hardcover, 864 pp.
This updated, expanded edition provides all the background needed to gain a thorough understanding of the most popular types of renewable energy--hydrogen, solar power, biomass, wind power, and marine power--from the ground up.
EN-Genius Says…
Elsevier Press’ 2009 Alternative Energy Catalog is an exceptionally useful collection of engineering textbooks that provides nuts-and-bolts information on virtually every aspect of designing clean energy generation systems. By providing a single place to turn to for practical information on the technologies and design practices that underlie renewable and nuclear power systems, this compact library serves as a valuable resource for engineers involved with clean energy.
Whether you are a newcomer to the green power movement or a seasoned veteran, this collection should prove to be highly useful. If you want an excellent overview of the field, consider Aldo de Rosa’s Fundamentals of Renewable Energy Processes. The author begins by providing the reader with a clear introduction to thermodynamic principles and mechanical heat engines before drilling down into solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, and ocean energy systems. He also gives an excellent overview of thermal/thermionic systems and hydrogen production/storage technologies. Likewise Exergy by Dincer and Rosen serves as an excellent overview of the practices involved with extracting the maximum efficiency out of nearly any kind of renewable or nuclear energy production system.
Whoa! Did somebody say nuclear? That’s right, Elsevier has wisely taken a pragmatic approach to the topic of clean energy, choosing to include topics like nuclear power that hard-core greenies like myself might not consider completely eco-friendly. A good deal of the collection is devoted to nuclear power: a technology which I have reluctantly accepted as an essential part of nearly any practical sustainable energy scenario. Some of the nuclear-related titles are intriguing enough to even interest a granola-munching green-tech advocate. When I find the time, I’m hoping to get a chance to at least browse through Sustainable Nuclear Power by Suppes and Storvick, Ian Hore-Lacy’s Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century or Gianni Petrangeli’s Nuclear Safety to get a less hysterical perspective on the subject.
Of course, the collection includes lots of excellent non-nuclear reading as well. Elsevier’s listings include nearly a dozen books on both solar-electric and solar-thermal systems, including Solar Energy Engineering, an excellent primer described in the release above. The extensive selection of titles related to fuel cells and hydrogen systems is a timely and welcome surprise which does a great job of covering both membrane-based (PEM) cells and high-temperature stationary systems. For those who like to do their technical reading via eBook, Elsevier offers bargain bundles of their top titles priced at $399, around half of the cost of an equivalent set of printed products. Currently, the eBook library includes a set of their best-selling titles on renewable energy, fuel cell technology and design, and nuclear power systems.
With the supply side of the energy equation so thoroughly covered, I’m hoping that Elsevier will eventually offer a similar collection of books that addresses the demand side with titles that show engineers how to manufacture more energy-efficient products. Such a collection should also include the handful of books on the market that cover eco-design practices such as RoHS/WEEE/EPEAT compliance or designing for recyclability and extended product life. I wrote a book on the subject for Elsevier back in 1999 (Green Electronics, Green Bottom Line – A Guide to Environmentally Responsible Engineering) but I am sure that there are a number of more up-to-date titles on the market. Although not published by Elsevier, a great place to start is Eric Williams’ Computers and the Environment (ISBN 1-4020-1680-8), published by Kluwer Academic Publishers.
If you are at all involved with design, I’d also like to recommend Design for Environment – A Guide to Sustainable Product Development (ISBN 9780071605564), by Joseph Fiksel, published by McGraw Hill. Although it does not exclusively focus on the design of electronic products, it does have an excellent section on the subject along with a thorough exploration of principles and practices that should be applied to any class of manufactured product. If you want to learn more about this book follow this link to see a complete web-based version.
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