Navigating the Energy Maze ― The Transition to a Sustainable Future

This book presents essential information for the development of a comprehensive sustainable energy policy. It examines the diverse types of energy, their resource abundance and the material needs to develop and use them, and how communities and cities can better control their own destinies by locally managing energy use and generation. This approach does not suggest the undoing of existing infrastructures and energy providers, but rather a cooperative transition from national-regional energy management to a more local-centered system. The information is the foundation for eight specific legislative initiatives necessary for a national comprehensive sustainable policy that can both facilitate and drive the process of evolution from a carbon-energy economy to a sustainable renewable energy future.

Dr. Roger James Kuhns has over 35 years in mineral exploration and natural resources, water and energy resources, environmental remediation, renewable energy systems, and sustainability. He has held positions at BHP Billiton (General Manager for mineral exploration, petroleum field assessment, and mineral economics and development for Africa and the Mediterranean), Noranda Exploration (U.S. and Canada), Black & Veatch (Global – sustainability, renewable energy assessment, remediation, economic modeling, and strategic planning), and Applied Ecological Services (North America environmental remediation and LEED development projects, including assessment of impacts and restoration approaches regarding the Alberta Tar Sands). Kuhns is the founder of SustainAudit, LLC, a sustainable practices application company that integrates all renewable energy systems, materials use, LEED certification, and food systems with the natural environment to ensure long-lasting resources and economic affordability leading to a high quality of life.

Dr. George H. Shaw has had a career as a professor of geosciences with an emphasis on geophysics, especially high-pressure measurements of elastic properties. He has taught at the University of Minnesota and Union College, and was awarded an NSF post-doctoral fellowship at Edinburgh, Scotland as well as an American Geophysical Union Congressional Science Fellowship. Dr. Shaw worked for congressman Al Swift on energy and environmental issues, and particularly on the formulation and passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. At Minnesota he co-developed a course in energy resources and policy which he continued to teach at Union.