NEW! Solar Water Heating:
A Comprehensive Guide to Solar Water and Space Heating Systems
by Bob Ramlow 288 pp, 2006, $25

Heating water with the sun is almost as old as humankind itself, and it is done all over the world. Yet there are strangely few resources on the topic in North America.

Solar Water Heating fills this gap. It reviews the history of solar water and space heating systems from prehistory to the present, then presents the basics of solar water heating, including an introduction to modern solar energy systems, energy conservation and energy economics.

Drawing on the author's experience as an installer of these systems, the book goes on to cover:

* Types of solar collectors, solar water and space heating, solar pool heating, including their advantages and disadvantages
* System components, their installation, operation, and maintenance
* System sizing and siting
* Choosing the appropriate system.

Since people often get turned off by the up-front cost, the book focuses especially on the financial aspects of solar water or space heating systems, clearly showing that such systems can save significant costs in the long run. Well-illustrated, the book is designed for a wide readership from the curious to the student or professional.

Bob Ramlow is the solar thermal consultant for the Wisconsin Focus on Energy Program. The owner of a renewable energy company, he has over 30 years experience with solar energy systems and is a founder and director of the Midwest Renewable Energy Association (MREA). Benjamin Nusz currently works as a solar water heating consultant and site assessor in Wisconsin

Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty is a guidebook on peak oil and global warming for people who work with and for local governments in the United States and Canada. It provides a sober look at how these phenomena are quickly creating new uncertainties and vulnerabilities for cities of all sizes, and explains what local decision-makers can do to address these challenges.

Post Carbon Cities fills an important gap in the resources currently available to local government decision-makers on planning for the changing global energy and climate context of the 21st century.

"How will we cope with a future of energy scarcity? As a policy maker I look to other communities for inspiration and ideas, but there's been a lack of information on what local governments are doing to adapt to Peak Oil. Post Carbon Cities fills this gap: herein lies the roadmap plotted by the cities that are leading the way. Enthusiastically recommended!"
Dave Rollo, City Council President, Blooomington, Indiana

"Post Carbon Cities is an exceptionally clear and comprehensive call-to-action to those who actually work in the trenches of city governance. We don't have any more time to waste getting ready for an energy-scarcer future, and for those who remain dazed and confused, this book is an excellent place to start."
--James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency and The Geography of Nowhere

New! Alcohol Can Be a Gas!:
Fueling an Ethanol Revolution for the 21st Century
by David Blume, 2007, 596pp., $47.00 Sale $39

Everything you wanted to know about alcohol-fuel production but were afraid to ask. More than 20 years ago, veteran biofuel guru Blume (Alcohol Can Be a Gas!, 1983) beat the drum for alcohol-based alternative fuels. Blume's latest book is a well researched and expanded update to his original work, incorporating 21st-century concerns over global warming, domestic-energy policy, grassroots biofuel solutions, and the challenges of going green in a world dominated by the fossil fuel "oiligarchy."

Blume systematically and entertainingly builds his case for individual responsibility and activism in dealing with the nation's domestic-energy challenges, and he excludes no one in preaching his gospel of alcohol-fuel independence. For the novice, Blume tells the story of alcohol production's rich history in America, from the Civil War to today, and effectively demystifies the thorny pros and cons of the current national energy-policy debate regarding ethanol. This education alone is worth the cover price.

Make no mistake, the book is more than a bully pulpit for championing sociopolitical opinions on global-energy woes; it is a technical how-to book. Written with enterprising do-it-yourselfers in mind, Blume offers countless hands-on technical solutions ranging from home stills to for-profit manufacturing strategies, and builds chapters on detailed charts, graphs, and step-by-step building instructions, giving activist-minded readers the data and resources they need to implement personal and individualized energy solutions. A well-executed, socially conscious, proactive, and rigorous call to action.

The Party's Over:
Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies
by Richard Heinberg
2003 $18 $16, 275pp.

A definitive measure of the limits of oil presents modern society with an ultimatum of profound gravity. Helps break denial of the energy crisis. Extremely important.

The world is about to run out of cheap oil and change dramatically. Within the next few years, global production will peak. Thereafter, even if industrial societies begin to switch to alternative energy sources, they will have less net energy each year to do all the work essential to the survival of complex societies. We are entering a new era, as different from the industrial era as the latter was from medieval times.

In The Party's Over, Richard Heinberg places this momentous transition in historical context, showing how industrialism arose from the harnessing of fossil fuels, how competition to control access to oil shaped the geopolitics of the 20th century, and how contention for dwindling energy resources in the 21st century will lead to resource wars in the Middle East, Central Asia, and South America. He describes the likely impacts of oil depletion, and all of the energy alternatives. Predicting chaos unless the U.S. -- the world's foremost oil consumer -- is willing to join with other countries to implement a global program of resource conservation and sharing, he also recommends a "managed collapse" that might make way for a slower-paced, low-energy, sustainable society in the future.

The Book of Masonry Stoves: Rediscovering an Old Way of Warming
by David Lyle    1994, 11 x 8.5, 208 pages, $35

Within the past decade, millions of Americans have discovered the economic benefits and personal pleasures of heating with wood. At the same time, many have discovered that there are serious problems associated with wood heat and iron stoves: chimney fires from creosote, air pollution from poor combustion, and structural fires caused by faulty stove installation. The masonry stove, widely used in Europe and Asia for centuries, surmounts these problems.

Masonry stoves offer good solutions to many of the problems associated with wood burning. They provide clean combustion at a high temperature, good efficiency, a high degree of safety, and little or no pollution. Masonry stoves require little care, needing to be fed only once or twice a day. They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes from simple to elegant and from austere to gothic. And they are easily adapted to a variety of structures including solar designs.

The Book of Masonry Stoves represents the first comprehensive survey ever published of all the major types of masonry heating systems, ancient and modern. Detailed plans and building information are included in the book. As a complete introduction to masonry stoves, it will help many people rediscover an old way of warming, using masonry stoves.