97 Best Solar Energy Books of All Time

Bob Johnstone

This book is only partly about solar, as one part of the solution to the energy issue. I chose it partly because it’s a relatively new book, but also because we’ve already had books by a historian, a utility manager, and a politician; the environmental NGOs are also playing a very important role in all of this – in getting the legislation changed, in running campaigns – and Fred Krupp is president of the Environmental Defense Fund. Fred is interesting because, unlike a lot of people in the NGO world, he’s prepared to get down and dirty with corporate types. He sees that working with companies is likely to have more of an effect than being righteous and holier-than-thou. The book provides examples of companies, of start-ups, that are doing good things, that might help in the grand scheme of things. From a reader’s point of view, it’s a good introduction to a range of potential solutions to the energy problem. [source]

Bob Johnstone

This is a beautiful book. It’s everything an introduction to a subject should be. It’s structured in a very intelligent way; it has short chapters; it has a lot of good illustrations. It’s based on a lot of firsthand interviewing and research. [source]

Juliet Davenport

I met Ian McEwan as part of the Cape Farewell programme. That is an organisation set up by a lovely man called David Buckland, who is a photographer and an artist. He wanted to create a social response to climate change. In other words, he wanted to get people like Ian McEwan to mix with the scientists and find out more about what is going on. So he took a lot of people – including Ian McEwan, Philip Pullman and Jarvis Cocker – to the North Pole along with some scientists, so they could see what was going on for themselves. Ian took what he saw and put it in a novel. He wanted to put some big scientific ideas into everyday language. [source]

Andrew Elliott

In terms of non-business books, my choice has got to be Sahara by Clive Cussler. I like it mostly for the fact that it is nothing more than a fun, wild adventure. And, frankly, sometimes a book that provides nothing more than pure fantastical escapism is exactly what the doctor ordered. [source]

Bob Johnstone

In order for anything to be successful, you need supportive legislation, and to get supportive legislation you need politicians who are committed and informed. Herman Scheer was the great political champion of solar in Germany. He was the one who bulldozed the crucial legislation through the German parliament, against the wishes of the Schroeder government. Without him, the whole sea-change in solar in Germany would not have happened. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

On Bill Gates's reading list in 2012. [source]

Bob Johnstone

This book is not about solar specifically, but David Freeman has been in his time – and still is – a very active solar proponent. He’s a very, very interesting man. He’s been around forever and is now 83. I met him a couple of years ago in Los Angeles. He’s from Tennessee, although his folks are Lithuanian; his father was an umbrella repairman. He trained as a lawyer, and claims to have been the first energy policy person working in Washington – he goes back to the Johnson administration. When Carter was putting together his energy policy, it was based on Freeman’s work. What’s interesting is that after he left Washington, Freeman became a manager of utilities. At one stage, he was known as ‘the utility repairman’, because he was the guy who was called when something went wrong. One of the places he went to was SMUD – the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. They were having terrible trouble because their nuclear reactor was breaking down left, right and center. It was a twin of the Three Mile Island nuke, and eventually it was shut down. [source]