In 1961, President John F. Kennedy ignited America's Apollo Project and sparked a revolution in space exploration. Today the New Apollo Energy Project is poised to revolutionize the production of energy and thereby save our planet. The nation that built the world's most powerful rockets, its most advanced computers, and its most sophisticated life support systems is ready to create the world's most powerful solar energy systems, its most advanced wind energy turbines, and its most sophisticated hybrid cars. This will result in nothing less than a second American Revolution. Who are the dreamers in California who believe they can use mirrors and liquid metal to wring more electricity from a ray of sunshine than anyone else on earth can?
Who are the innovators who have built a contraption that can turn the energy of a simple wave off the Oregon coast into burnt toast in Idaho? Who are the scientists in Massachusetts who have invented a battery that now runs your hand drill and will soon run your car? Readers will meet them all in this book. They will learn how the new energy economy will grow, the research that is required, and the legislation that must be passed to make the vision a reality.
This is a thoughtful, optimistic book, based on sound facts. No one before has tied together the concepts of economic growth and greenhouse gas reductions with such concrete examples. No one has previously told the real stories of the people who are right now on the front lines of the energy revolution. The co-authors, one a U.S. Congressman who is the primary sponsor of the New Apollo Energy Act, and the other the founder of the Apollo Alliance, have joined their experience, expertise, and passion for a clean energy future to lay out the path to stop global warming and gain energy independence.
Foreword \ President Bill Clinton The First Apollo Project
Chapter 1. A New Apollo Project for Energy - Global Warming Comes to the White House'Or Doesn't - Ten Energy Enlightenments
Chapter 2. Reinventing the Car - Becoming Mahatma
Chapter 3. Waking Up to the New Solar Dawn - When Energy Markets Go Wrong: Surviving Enron
Chapter 4. Energy Efficiency: The Distributed Power of Democracy - Green-Collar Jobs: From the South Bronx to Oakland
Chapter 5. Reenergizing Our Communities, One Project at a Time - We Don't Need Oil
Chapter 6. Homegrown Energy - Wind Energy: False Starts on the Road to Success
Chapter 7. Sailing in a Sea of Energy - A Mind Opened about Mined Coal
Chapter 8. Can Coal or Nuclear Be Part of the Solution? - The Apollo Alliance: New Coalitions for Change
Chapter 9. What's It Going to Take? - A Tale of Two Presidents
Chapter 10. An American Energy Policy - Placing Our Bets on a New Apollo Project - Lessons of the Mimosa Tree - Stories from the Field
Epilogue: Launching Apollo Acknowledgments Notes Index
"And so Apollo's Fire shares the stories of dozens of dreamers, inventors, scientists and more who are taking global warming seriously, and are doing their part to fight it."
