Table of Contents

Introduction to Sustainable Energy. Economics of Energy Generation and Conservation Systems. Energy Efficiency. Conventional Fossil and Nuclear Energy Generation. Wind Energy. Biomass Energy Conversion. Geothermal Energy. Fundamentals of Solar Radiation. Photovoltaics. Energy Storage. Ocean Energy Conversion. Transportation.

About the Author

Charles F. Kutscher is a fellow of the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, a joint institute between the University of Colorado-Boulder and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). He served as the director of the Buildings and Thermal Sciences Center at NREL from 2013 until his retirement in 2018. He has worked in the field of renewable energy for over four decades, during which time he has led research in solar heating and cooling, building energy efficiency, solar industrial process heat, geothermal power, and concentrating solar power. He is a fellow of the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) and served as the Society’s chair in 2000 and 2001. He led the ASES study, Tackling Climate Change in the U.S., which detailed how energy efficiency and six renewable energy technologies could greatly reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 2030. He has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Colorado School of Mines. He obtained a B.S. in physics from the State University of New York at Albany, an M.S. in nuclear engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Colorado-Boulder.


Jana B. Milford is a professor and former department chair in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Colorado-Boulder; she received her PhD from Carnegie-Mellon University, and J.D. from the University of Colorado Law School. Her research includes application of formal sensitivity and uncertainty analysis and optimization techniques to chemistry and transport models, and the use of these models in making decisions.


Frank Kreith is an internationally renowned expert in solar energy, heat transfer and thermal energy, and is the author of numerous textbooks and reference works in these fields. Dr. Kreith received his PhD from the University of Paris, and taught at the University of Colorado-Boulder until his retirement.