'Connecting the Dots to Future Electric Power'

New Book Analyzes Future Power Alternatives

Most people assume that new technology will provide ample future electric power. In his new book, "Connecting the Dots to Future Electric Power" (now available through AuthorHouse), Edward J. Bair shows why most plans for a permanent solution to the energy problem fall pathetically short of credible. He analyzes a dozen aspects of known energy sources and organizes them in readable form in the context of both human and geologic history.

Economics dictates that the best new energy sources and/or sites are the first to be exhausted. Whether it is coal, oil, gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, biomass, wind, geothermal, photovoltaic, or solar thermal each source promises a future of continuously increasing difficulty and cost, says Bair.

"Solar energy outside the Earth's atmosphere is the one exception that provides ample increases in energy that are sustainable with no degradation. The problem is not primarily technical. It is the organization to provide the huge economy of scale needed to pay for the many plants worldwide with revenues from low cost power. Whether or not space solar power turns out to be feasible, it illustrates the scale of thinking long range energy policy requires."

Bair is a third-generation native of Colorado and was born in 1922. Summers spent on his uncle's gold-mining properties formed a basis for his independent-minded iconoclasm. After graduating with a B.S. in chemistry from Colorado State University, Bair joined the Manhattan Project just in time to help set up the facilities that purified the 235U for the first atomic bomb. After World War II, he received a Ph.D. from Brown University. Bair's independent academic career began at Indiana University in 1954 where he is professor emeritus of physical chemistry. Visits to most of the solar energy facilities in the U.S. as a solar power consultant led to his interest in the future of electric power and a realization that the magnitude of the problem is "vastly underestimated."