Robert W. Righter - Böcker

In the wake of the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire, the city of San Francisco desperately needed reliable supplies of water and electricity. Its mayor, James Phelan, pressed for the damming of the Tuolumne River in the newly created Yosemite National Park, setting off a firestorm of protest. For the first time in American history, a significant national opposition arose to defend and preserve nature, led by John Muir and the Sierra Club, who sought to protect what they believed was the right of all Americans to experience natural beauty, particularly the magnificent mountains of the Yosemite region. Yet the defenders of the valley, while opposing the creation of a dam and reservoir, did not intend for it to be maintained as wilderness. Instead they advocated a different kind of development--the building of roads, hotels, and an infrastructure to support recreational tourism. Using articles, pamphlets, and broadsides, they successfully whipped up public opinion against the dam. Letters from individuals began to pour into Congress by the thousands, and major newspapers published editorials condemning the dam. The fight went to the floor of Congress, where politicians debated the value of scenery and the costs of western development. Ultimately, passage of the passage of the Raker Act in 1913 by Congress granted San Francisco the right to flood the Hetch Hetchy Valley. A decade later the O'Shaughnessy Dam, the second largest civil engineering project of its day after the Panama Canal, was completed. Yet conflict continued over the ownership of the watershed and the profits derived from hydroelectrocity. To this day the reservoir provides San Francisco with a pure and reliable source of drinking water and an important source of power. Although the Sierra Club lost this battle, the controversy stirred the public into action on behalf of national parks. Future debates over dams and restoration clearly demonstrated the burgeoning strength of grassroots environmentalism. In a narrative peopled by politicians and business leaders, engineers and laborers, preservationists and ordinary citizens, Robert W. Righter tells the epic story of the first major environmental battle of the twentieth century, which reverberates to this day.

This compelling saga recounts the human effort to capture the power of the wind for electricity--from the first European windmills, to nineteenth century experiments in rural electrification, to the immense wind farms in California and the plains states that feed power grid today.Environmental historian Robert W. Righter describes eccentric inventors and techinical innovations, analyzes the politics of the power industry, past and present, and demonstrates that individuals and small businesses have made the greatest contributions to wind-energy development. Wind Energy in America also focuses on contemporary developments, including U.S. government research and regulation and the international race for dominance in the wind-turbine business. Righter explores the arguments of people and organizations opposed to the spread of wind generators--often the same environmental groups, paradoxically, that hailed wind energy as a savior in the late 1970s.This abundantly illustrated history, free of ideology and cant, will be of lasting interest to environmentalists, scholars, and all readers alert to the need for alternatives to coal and oil.

Not long ago, energy experts dismissed wind power as unreliable and capricious. Not anymore. The industry has arrived, and the spinning blades of this new kid on the electric power block offer hope for a partial solution to our energy problems by converting nature's energy into electricity without exposing our planet and its inhabitants to the dangers of heat, pollution, toxicity, or depletion of irreplaceable natural resources. Windfall tells the story of this extraordinary transformation and examines the arguments both for and against wind generation.In Windfall, Robert W. Righter explains how wind is transformed into energy and examines the land-use decisions that affect the establishment of new wind farms. The book also discusses the role of tax credits and other government subsidies in the creation of transmission systems between the turbines and end users in cities.Currently the world's fastest-growing source of energy, wind generation has also given rise to backlash. A critical advocate of wind energy whose career as a historian has focused on environmental controversies, Righter addresses the cultural dimensions of resistance to wind energy and makes considered predictions about the directions wind energy may take. His sympathetic treatment of opposing arguments regarding landscape change, unwanted noise, bird deaths, and human medical implications are thought-provoking, as is his recommendation that we place the lion's share of turbines on the Great Plains.Most books on wind energy are technical manuals. Righter's book does not shy away from scientific explanations, but he does not write for engineers. His broad, historically informed vision will appeal to policy makers at the federal, state, and local levels and to anyone interested in a technology increasingly significant to supplying America's energy needs.