LEARN WHAT ENERGIEWENDE MEANS

Book of the Year: Clean Break, the Story of Germany's Energy Transformation -- and What Americans Can Learn From It

Jeff Biggers, December 20, 2012 (Huffington Post)

“Energiewende might be the most important German word to ever enter our American vocabulary…[J]ournalist Osha Davidson's riveting [inspiring and downright revelatory] new ebook, Clean Break: The Story of Germany's Energy Transformation -- and What Americans Can Learn From It, the story of Germany's Energiewende or power shift [away from nuclear power and coal to New Energy’will hopefully [make it] a driving part of our own energy lexicon…

“...Written with the skill and intrigue of an investigative journalist tracking down a mystery, [Germany’s journey to a clean energy future unfolds with the verve of a page-turning bildungsroman, with all the facts and figures to lay out a roadmap…Davidson takes us on a fact-finding journey to Germany's corridors of power -- from politics to the prairies to the Black Forest -- to understand how Europe's most important industrial power has managed to meet such an ambitious plan for renewable energy production…”

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“…Davidson presents some basic tenets of any plans for a power shift in our own dirty energy ways…Germany's plan is not infallible, of course, nor is it alone in its goal to operate on 80 percent renewable power by 2050 -- Scotland recently announced its intention to become 100 percent renewable by 2020.

“But as Davidson expertly shows, Germany's Energiewende demonstrates that the issue of climate change and transitioning off dirty fossil fuels should no longer be seen as ‘a problem,’ as one analysts explains, but a ‘task’ to be accomplished…Clean Break is a huge leap in making that task a vital part of our American energy policy.”

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