Ordering Information
Cloth Text,
208 pages
978-1-84407-456-3,
36.95
We are making a mess of energy. What we're doing with it is leaving people in the dark and endangering the planet. But we could do much better. Keeping the Lights On shows how. In immediate, accessible, everyday language it describes a different way to think about energy, what we want from it and how we get it.
Drawn from over 35 years of work from one of the leading voices in the field, the book describes how we have persisted in getting energy and electricity wrong. It suggests how we could go about getting them right, improving energy security and services while reducing costs and vulnerability, globally and rapidly. It offers a concise, focused and coherent presentation of an important central
thesis: that electricity is an infrastructure issue, so we have to stop treating it as a commodity issue. The book discusses the timely and heated debates surrounding energy in an accessible and entertaining tone. It also includes a guide to terminology and a list of key organizations and contacts in the field. It gives a comprehensive introduction to the most important issues, providing the reader with innovative and expert ideas and solutions.
Keeping the Lights On challenges sterile and damaging misconceptions, with an exhilarating vision of a brighter future. We can make energy use more reliable, more equitable, and more sustainable, for ourselves and our children, starting with electricity, starting now.
Selected Reviews
"It should be compulsive reading, if not compulsory reading, for all politicians and other players that determine or have a role to play in energy policy, and more importantly in tackling climate change."
Allan Jones,
Chief Executive Officer, London Climate Change Agency
"Patterson thoroughly understands and explains the failures of the past that led to the dominance of centralized power systems. His inspiring vision for a decentralized future is a positive affirmation that we can indeed improve the health of the planet without hurting the global economy."
David Sweet,
Executive Director, World Alliance for Decentralized Energy, Washington
"As ever [Patterson] provokes us to re-examine our own thinking about energy policy. Essential reading as we face up to new challenges."
Jim Skea,
Research Director, UK Energy Research Centre
"Patterson carves out the most applied and practical of 'road maps' as to where we need to go if we are to deliver a genuinely sustainable electricity system for the future."
Jonathon Porritt,
Chair, UK Sustainable Development Commission
"A very important and timely book. Patterson persuasively challenges traditional asumptions about how we think of energy and electricity, and presents and exciting vision of an innovative and sustainable future."
Nick Mabey,
Chief Executive, E3G, and former senior adviser in the UK Prime Minister's Strategy Unit
"Patterson shines his own penetrating light into the future of electricity, identifying some surprising possibilities He has a remarkable talent for explaining technical concepts in simple, compelling terms, and for drawing lessons from history that help define positive, possible futures. If you use electricity, you should read this book."
Ralph Torrie,
Vice President, ICF International, Toronto