Forward this to everyone you know. In my view it is basically an operating manual for 21st century civilisation.

If a review copy were to mysteriously appear in my email inbox, the odds are good that a review would follow.

man, i'm sure your intentions are good, but how on earth can you have missed the point about how ENORMOUSLY DESTRUCTIVE remote solar and wind "farms" are?  do you have any idea how many acres of wilderness are permanently and thoroughly killed for 400MW (which, of course, never means 400MW) of utility scale solar power?  between 6,000 and 10,000 acres!!  to get enough power, you would need to kill off tens of millions of acres of pristine wilderness - that is completely whacked.  we know that you can't kill the rainforests, wetlands, coral reefs, kelp forests, glaciers, etc. so why do you just offhandedly kill the desert without a second thought?

you seriously do not even mention it, as though it's no biggie, while you ramble on and on about lengthy transmission and how you can't generate power near cities.  it's called rooftop PV, you may have heard of it?  it could power 100% of any city in the west during daylight hours, and once storage R & D improves, 100% during all hours, especially when paired with effective CONSERVATION (which is bigger and more effective than "efficiency" alone).  

urban turbines are also easy to do.  it does not have to be "hot" or even "clear" for PV to work, just "light."  PV panels also GREATLY reduce "thermal heat island effects" resulting from paving over too much area (like in cities), which will greatly reduce power needs in the form of A/C.

man, you gotta dig a lot deeper.  check out rocky mountain institute if you want some smart people doing some righteous projects and advocating for clean, profitable, and feasible energy policies - you will see how the big boys rock this topic.  keep fighting the good fight, just please think through all the consequences...

the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.

I have been familiar with RMI for as long as they have been in existence, and with Amory Lovins since he first wrote soft energy paths to make a less threatening version of Barry Commoner's arguments.

PV is still extremely expensive. And, as I pointed out in the book, total land area to produce all our power from solar thermal and wind farms would be a great deal less than is consumed by hydro and by coal. Not to  mention that especially wind, but also solar thermal rest on the land a lot less heavily than coal.

As to urban wind turbines. Look at the actual cost per kWh of the things. (Not the manufacturers claims, but actual costs and actual production per turbine.)

Look I love the idea of urban turbines. I love the idea of deployment of solar cells on every unshaded rooftop, south wall, and perhaps shading parking lots and roads as well. And I have some real hopes they will be ready soon. But they are not ready on same scale as industrial wind or solar thermal today.

Note that when "big boy" Amory Lovins talks about making hydrogen for his absurd hydrogen path from renewables instead of natural gas, he cites industrial wind from the Midwest as the immediate potential source.