Review: You'd be forgiven for thinking that renewable energy had dropped out of sight in the last few years. After a real gain in the 1970s and early 1980s the whole field, at least to the outsider, appeared to have gone quiet. Now, with the notion of global warming getting into the public consciousness there's a resurgence. Ideally, there would be a final recognition of the role renewable technologies can play. Sadly, this review is written at the same time the Australian Government is removing subsidies for solar technologies so perhaps the story from the 1970s hasn't be learned and we still need books like this to get the message across!

The book is divided into 5 sections. The fundamental point argued here is that renewable technology requires three things: good policy support, finance and research and development. These, along with an overview of renewable technology and a study of the developing world, form the basis for this book. The first part therefore, called 'basics', deals with the fundamentals of renewable energy - a brief guide to the viable sources as seen at present. There's a brief chapter making a case for renewable energy followed by others looking at the potential (critically analysing both positive and negative aspects) and its possible use in transport (mainly biofuels already being used). Part two, 'policies' gets down to the analysis of national policies and what this means for renewable energy. It's here that the renewables debate always got stuck. The case for renewables was always strong and the technology had a long history but it was always in implementation that the earlier debates got stuck. This update shows that there's been some improvement but nowhere near that which should have been made. The first chapter, looking at the national scene, notes the need for a broad range of policy instruments whilst at the same time recognising that most work goes on where pricing structure is favourable. Further chapters explore aspects of this in more detail. Chapter five argues that renewables can only make a real contribution if the energy market is geared towards them. Given the power of conventional energy companies one would have to argue that there is still some way to go. Chapter six goes further to highlight that governments often still subsidise conventional sources against renewable ones which must be removed if true market competition is to be allowed. It's no good demanding a market situation if one is not allowed to develop. A final chapter describes the international scene and notes that many of the national issues also apply internationally. Part three examines the role of finance in the spread of renewable technologies. As is rightly pointed out, the renewable energies market is vast but largely untapped, not least because of the lack of widespread, sophisticated financial systems. The Kyoto protocol could play a large part here through its ideas of 'clean development mechanism' and joint implementation'. Part four breaks from the study of renewable development to look at a regional perspective - the developing world. Much of the developing world already uses 'renewable' energy but largely because of lack of access to more expensive conventional sources. It's also here that renewables could make a great inroads especially in light of Kyoto. As we also see in chapter 12, the use of renewable technology would have a significant gender impact as well. Part five tackles the final issue - research and development. Chapter 13 lists the developments we have seen so far whilst the final chapter looks at what we need to do to spread this further.

This is a very good synthesis of the current situation. It highlights the key issues and proposes solutions even if there remains so many problems. Whilst one can argue that we should be beyond such texts now the reality is that there is still some way to go even if global warming has given an unexpected boost. This is an excellent, if technical text that would given educators a very strong background to boos their work in this area. What's needed now is a student version to push that area along. As the contributors often note, education is the key: this book deserves to be widely read to help the process along.