Powering the dream

This book looks at the history of alternative energy including solar and wind power. In it the author explores both the forgotten history and the visionary future of America's green technology inventors. Few today realize that electric cabs dominated Manhattan's streets in the 1890s; that solar water heating boomed in California before the first World War, that Boise, Idaho, had a geothermal heating system in 1910; or that the first megawatt turbine in the world was built in 1941 by the son of publishing magnate G.P. Putnam, a feat that would not be duplicated for another forty years. Likewise, while many remember the oil embargo of the 1970s, few are aware that it led to a corresponding explosion in green technology research that was only derailed when energy prices later dropped. In other words: we have been here before. Although we may have failed, America has long had the chance to put our world on a more sustainable path. Americans have, in fact, been inventing green for more than a century. Half compendium of lost opportunities, half hopeful look toward the future, this book tells the stories of the brilliant, often irascible inventors who foresaw our current problems, tried to invent cheap and energy renewable solutions, and drew the blueprint for a green future. -- From book jacket and publisher. "This book looks at the history of alternative energy (solar, wind)"--Provided by publisher.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.