Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air
by David JC MacKay (2009)
The late David Mackay was Regus Professor of Engineering at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow at the Royal Society. From 2009 to 2014 he was Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change. He was knighted in 2016.
‘Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air’ is a no non-sense look at the physics of how to eliminate green house gas emissions and reach net-zero. MacKay meticulously works his way through options in transport, buildings, and agriculture to stack up energy demand whilst matching zero carbon supply options. He delves into the fundamental engineering, thermodynamics, and physical limits of net-zero options to build a sustainable energy future.
The book is over a decade old now and some of the performance assumptions in areas like wind, solar, and batteries are outdated given the huge declines since publication, but the fundamental physics is sound and provides an enlightening take on energy technologies which helps the reader look beyond the many claims and counter claims in this most thorny of subjects. ‘Sustainable Energy’ is one of my favourite introductions to the technology of net-zero.
