BOOK REVIEW NOVEMBER 2012
books
Renewable Energy Sources By D Vargoncik, M Sovadina, E Bromova Published by: Simopt Reviewed by Jan Willem Bode I remember reading one of the first reviews of the iPad by Stephen Fry. Even though I can’t remember his exact words, he described browsing the internet on an iPad as a totally new experience. And I think he was right. Browsing the internet on an iPad makes you feel closer to a website, more
involved in what you see and read, and more in control. I had the same experience when I opened Renewable Energy Sources, an iBook that is published specifically for the iPad. In short it’s a book
which doesn’t stop at beautiful photographs but also treats you to some stunning dynamic visuals as well: the spinning globes showing irradiation, currents, wind resources, etc all over the world; or the fun 3D video models and visualisations of hydro power plants, biomass gasifiers, etc.
“In short it’s a book which doesn’t stop at beautiful photographs but also treats you to some stunning dynamic visuals as well.”
This book really manages to take full advantage of being an iBook rather than a just a printed book, or a groovy looking pdf. The authors and designers have really managed to make “reading� a totally new experience. But hey, looks and fancy gadgets is not all that matters, content is important as well. Renewable Energy Technologies is a book that does what it says on the cover. It provides a comprehensive, clear, and sometimes quirky overview of, indeed, the renewable energy technologies that are currently being developed and/or
books implemented. What is interesting about the book is that they have managed on one hand to make the publication very accessible, but at the same time very comprehensive. So, don’t expect detailed market overviews with complex tables and graphs, although there
are some tables with numbers (the highest hydro power dam, the largest wind farms, etc). But concepts, overviews and the way things work are much more important in this book than detailed statistics.
Scale, that kind of stuff) in a way that I think is very easily readable, and slowly (or sometimes a bit more quickly) goes a lot more in-depth very soon you will be looking at a spinning globe showing the biggest wind farms in Every chapter starts the world – or a cross with a little background section of the generator information (what is room of a wind turbine. wind, what’s the Beaufort But even when text does
“at the end of every chapter you can choose to do a quiz and test your knowledge, something I always fall for.”
become complex, the 3D visuals and photographs guarantee that you keep on flicking through it. And then at the end of every chapter you can choose to do a quiz and test your knowledge, something I always fall for. The text is similarly larded with interesting facts. For example, did you know that at the first World Fair (Exposition Universelle) in Paris, 1900, Rudolf Diesel presented his diesel engine running on peanut oil? Of course, you could have also read this little fact in
the 2050magazine. com special issue on biodiesel, but it is these kinds of little facts that are so useful when you’re chatting with friends in the pub. And you can keep a conversation at a cocktail party (when
was the last time you had one of those?) going for a bit more than 20 seconds after you have told people that you work in or are interested in renewable energy and climate change. So not only fun and informative,
books these facts actually will improve your social life as well! I planned to read this book in a way that you normally do for a book review. You look at the way it is organised, you check the table of contents, you flick through a couple of pages, and start writing. Instead, I was dragged into reading more, and more. And that is why it took me a lot longer to get this article published than anticipated.
books on renewables would tell you that all renewable energy except for geothermal, is in the end solar energy, a statement I have not found in this book. And I have not seen many books where nuclear fusion is presented in a chapter on energy from water.
Future) is perhaps too brief to do the topic full justice and in an ideal world I would have appreciated more examples and perhaps more explicit explanations to some of the graphs that are used.
That said, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and was able to learn from It is a book for which I it. I have already told a assume that the target number of people that audience is people with they should go and get it. an interest in renewable Shame it is only available energy, but also people in iBooks. Well worth that have already worked ÂŁ4.99 though. in the sector for a while. I I have read a lot of dare to say that everyone To buy the book go to: books about renewable will learn something from energy, and with reading it, and it is fun as http://itunes.apple.com/ regards to content and well. us/book/renewablecategorisation, some less energy-sources usual choices are being The final chapter made. For example, most (Renewable Energy