An American Green Tech History Bibliography
In researching this book, I’ve run across a lot of great texts, both primary sources and academic scholarship. Most of the books listed here are considered important, but I’ve also peppered in some of the strange finds I’ve made at used bookstores up and down the West Coast. Over the next few months, I’ll be adding to and annotating this list.
The wondrous reach of the Internet combined with personal help from Peter Shulman at Case Western Reserve University, Thomas Andrews, Pamela Laird, and Myra Rich at the University of Colorado-Denver are largely responsible for the list of resources you see below. I’ve bolded those texts that strike me as a good (and interesting) starting places for other researchers.
If you have any suggestions for resources to add, send them my way. For more complete lists on oil and solar power, you might want to check out the bibliography at H-Net, Humanities and Social Sciences Online.
Thomas Andrews, Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War, 2008
Peter Asmus, Reaping the Wind: How Mechanical Wizards, Visionaries, and Profiteers Helped Shape Our Energy Future, 2001
Donald Beattie, History and Overview of Solar Heat Technologies, 1997
Brian Black, Petrolia: The Landscape of America’s First Oil Boom, 2000
Daniel Boorstin, The Americans: The Democratic Experience, 1973
Giovanna Borasi and Mirko Zardini, curators, Sorry, Out of Gas: Architecture’s Response to the 1973 Oil Crisis, 2007
Michael Brower, Cool Energy: Renewable Solutions to Environmental Problems, 2002
Ken Butti and John Perlin, A Golden Thread: 2500 Years of Solar Architecture and Technology, 1980
P.W. Carlin, A.S. Laxson, E.B. Muljadi, The History and State of the Art of Variable-Speed Wind Turbine Technology, 2001, 68-page PDF from NREL
Rick Clyne, Coal People, 1999
Victor Cohn, 1999: Our Hopeful Future, 1954
Paul Collins, “The Beautiful Possibility” in Cabinet Magazine, 2002
Barry Commoner, The Poverty of Power: Energy and the Economic Crisis, 1976
Kristen Eliza Coyne and Susan Ray, eds, Museum of Electricity and Magnetism at FSU
Farrington Daniels. Direct Use of the Sun’s Energy, 1974
William Davenport and Melvin Kranzberg, eds, Technology and Culture: An Anthology, 1972
Clive Day, A History of Commerce, 1907
DOE, Assessing the Potential for Renewable Energy on Public Lands, 2003
DOE, Renewable Energy Technology Characterizations, 283 page PDF, 1997
DOE, Renewable Energy Data Book, 129 page PDF, 2008
DOE, Carbon Dioxide Emission Factors for Coal by the EIA, 1994
Thomas Edison, The Diary and Observations, 1948
Northcutt Ely, “The Conservation of Oil” in The Harvard Law Review, 1938
Department of Energy, Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center, data site
Enermodal Engineering, Cost Reduction Study for Solar Thermal Power Plants, for the World Bank, 1999
John Adolphus Etzler, The Paradise Within Reach of All Men, 1836, full text available
Leonard Fanning, The Rise of American Oil, 1936 (reprint: 1948)
Edmund Fuller, Tinkers and Genius, 1955
Forrest Greg, SVO: Powering Your Vehicle with Straight Vegetable Oil, 2008
James D. Hamilton, “What is an Oil Shock?” in the Journal of Econometrics, 2003, 36 page PDF
Leonard Hyman, America’s Electric Utilities: Past Present and Future, 1988
Iowa Energy Center, Bibliography of Wind Resources
Marcellus Jacobs, Experience with Wind Driven Electric Generating Plant, 1931-1957, 3 page PDF, UN Conference on New Sources of Energy, 1961
Eric Jarvis, Aquatic Species Program: Lessons Learned, 28 page PDF for NREL, 2008
Richard Kerr, “The Next Oil Crisis Looms Large — And Perhaps Close” in Science, 1998, 4 page PDF
Andy Kessler, How We Got Here, 2005, PDF available at link
Andrew Kirk, Counterculture Green: The Whole Earth Catalog and American Environmentalism, 2007
David A. Kirsch, The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History, 2002
Gerhard Knothe, “Historical perspectives on vegetable oil-based diesel fuels,” 2001, 5 page PDF
Frank Laird, Solar Energy, Technology Policy, and Institutional Values, 2001
Gordon Laird, Power: Journeys Across an Energy Nation, 2002
Hans Landsberg, ed, Energy: The Next Twenty Years, A Report Sponsored by the Ford Foundation, 1979
Libby-Owens-Ford Glass Company, Your Solar Home, 1947
A. Lightner, Fuel from the Sky: Solar Power’s Potential for Western Energy Supply, for NREL, 2002
A. Lightner, B. Owens, Brighter than a Hundred Suns: Solar Power for the Southwest, for NREL, 2003
H. Lund, R. Nilsen, O. Salomatova, D. Skåre, E. Riisem, “The History High of Photovoltaic Cells“
Carol Lynn MacGregor, Boise, Idaho: 1882-1910, 2006
Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden
Christine Miller, “Wave and Tidal Energy Experiments in San Francisco and Santa Cruz” on the Western Neighborhoods Project, 2004
Christine Miller, “Wave Motors and Tide Machines at the Cliff House: 1886 to Present” on the Western Neighborhoods Project, 2003
Jana Monji, “Miles by the Jolt” in Pasadena Weekly, 2006
Fred Morse, A Look at the US CSP Market, a 15 page PDF, 2007
Lewis Mumford, The Lewis Mumford Reader, 1986
Jon Naar, Design for a Limited Planet,
John Humphrey Noyes, Strange Cults and Utopias of 19th-Century America, 1870 (repub: 1966)
NREL, PV Manufacturing R&D (PVMaT) History
David Nye, Consuming Power
David Nye, Electrifying America
Fairfield Osborn, Our Plundered Planet, 1948
Greg Pahl, Biodiesel: Growing a New Energy Economy, 2005
PGK Panikar, “Oil: From Crisis to Crisis” in Economic and Political Weekly, 1991 (March 2-9)
John Perlin, From Space to Earth, 1999
John Perlin, “The Solar Cell Turns 50” at NREL, 2003
F. E. Powell, Windmills and Wind Motors, 1910 (reprint: 1985)
H. Price, D. Kearney, Parabolic-Trough Technology Roadmap: A Pathway for Sustained Commercial Development and Deployment of Parabolic-Trough Technology, for NREL, 1999
Carroll Pursell, The Machine in America, 1995
Palmer Cosslett Putnam, Power from the Wind, 1949
Palmer Cosslett Putnam, Energy in the Future, 1953
B. Pyadyshev, The Military-Industrial Complex of the USA, 1977
M. Ragheb, Historical Wind Generator Machines, 2009
Charles Reich, The Greening of America, 1970
Robert Righter, Wind Energy in America, 1996
Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 2001
Joseph Romm, “The technology that will save the world” in Salon, 2008
Euclid A. Rose, “OPEC’s Dominance of the Global Oil Market: The Rise of World Dependency on Oil” in Middle East Journal, 2004 (Summer)
Sargent & Lundy LLC, Assessment of Parabolic Trough and Power Tower Solar Technology Cost and Performance Forecasts, for NREL, 2003
J. Sheehan, et al, A Look Back at the US Department of Energy’s Aquatic Species Program — Biodiesel from Algae, for NREL 1998
Isabel Schnabel and Hyun Song Sin, “Liquidity and Contagion: The Crisis of 1763″ in the Journal of the European Economic Association, 2004 (December)
Vaclav Smil, Energy at the Crossroads, 2003
Vaclav Smil, Energies, 1998
Alex Steffen, ed, Worldchanging, 2006
L. Stoddard, J. Abiecunas, R. O’Connell, Economic, Energy, and Environmental Benefits of Concentrating Solar Power in California, a report for NREL, 2006
Armen Tashchian, Mark E. Slama and Roobian O. Tashchian, “Measuring Attitudes toward Energy Conservation: Cynicism, Belief in Material Growth, and Faith in Technology” in Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 1984
Ian Theaker, et al, Santa Monica Green Building Guidelines, 1994
Abbott Payson Usher, A History of Mechanical Inventions, 1954
C.J. Waag and S.H. Wood, Geothermal Investigations in Idaho, 1987, 168-page PDF
Daniel Wallace, ed, Energy We Can Live With, 1976
Spencer Weart, The Discovery of Global Warming at the American Institute for Physics website, 2001+
Mara Wilkins, “The Oil Companies in Perspective” in Daedalus, 1975
Image: Library of Congress, DN-0004751, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society.
January 3, 2009 at 1:10 pm
[...] Reading List [...]
January 4, 2009 at 4:43 pm
I’d add Gordon Laird’s Power: Journeys Across an Energy Nation (Penguin Viking 2002). Canadian, eh?
But since the power grid runs north/south from/to Canada and the US, rather than east/west, might be some valuable info for you. I like the fact that the book deals with everything from coal to wind (including nuclear, oil, and hydro generation).
January 4, 2009 at 5:05 pm
@Ruth: Thanks for the suggestion! So added.
January 8, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Thanks for this excellent compilation – I have no doubt I’ll be mining it in depth in future!
Do you have any plans to visit the UK and/or Germany for building design books dating from the 19th century? I’ve heard of a few references (but have never had time to chase down) that could carry very real relevance to current approaches, especially on natural ventilation, daylighting and application of locally-sourced materials, such as stone, lime mortar, etc.
At the risk of sounding self-promoting, I lead a team that developed Green Guilding Guidelines for the City of Santa Monica in the early 90s that I’m very proud of. They’re still available for free via the Web, at
http://greenbuildings.santa-monica.org/introduction/introduction.html
The Guidelines summarized how to design & build green buildings in the S Ca coastal climate, and point at a number of resources available at the time that might be of interest for your bibliography. Issues covered ranged from electric vehicle charging stations to greywater treatment to natural ventilation & cooling to…. Almost all advice is still very relevant today, as green design goes mainstream. I’d be very honoured if you felt the Guidelines, and the resources they cite, were worthy of addition to your bibliography.
And, if you’re interested, I’d be pleased to take a look thru my home office bookshelf for classics I’ve found tremendously useful in my practice over the past decades.
Again, thanks for creating this reading list – much appreciated!
Warm regards,
Ian Theaker P.Eng.