SUSTAINABLE ENERGY focuses directly on energy related issues and includes a thorough treatment of all potentially viable energy sources. In most cases, individual chapters are devoted to each alternative energy approach. Although author Richard Dunlap covers past and current energy production methods, the text deals largely with future alternative energy strategies and follows the guidelines of ABET, the major engineering accreditation body. The book approaches these topics on a rigorous level -- familiarity with the basic concepts of freshman Physics and Chemistry is needed. The book contains enough material for a typical one semester course. The end-of-chapter problems are predominantly quantitative in nature. However, most are not straight forward calculations based on substituting values from the chapter in to the appropriate formula. The problems are designed to require the students to analyze information, to make use of material from previous chapters, to correlate data from various sources (not only from the textbook itself but from library, internet or other sources) and in many cases to estimate quantities based on interpretation of graphical data, interpolation of values and sometime just plain common sense. While maintaining a quantitative approach to the study of energy in our society, the text and accompanying problems show that this is a complex and very interdisciplinary topic. This approach is intended to provide students with an appreciation for the real problems that are encountered in the understanding of how we produce and use energy, and the realization that, while exact calculations are important and necessary, a broadly based analysis is often most appropriate.
