Title	Urban energy transition [electronic resource] : from fossil fuels to renewable power / edited by Peter Droege
Imprint	Amsterdam ; Boston ; London : Elsevier, 2008
Connect to	http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/book/9780080453415
Descript	vii, 655 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm

Contemporary cities, initially shaped by the logic of the Industrial Revolution, have evolved into a worldwide urbanization force, driven by readily available and relatively cheap fossil fuel supplies. They now face major changes as the fossil fuel era rapidly comes to a close. The end of this era marks the emergence of a new urbanism based on a massive energy transformation, characterized by the growing embrace of efficiency programs, sustainable forms of distributed energy generation, and new urban structures, market approaches, technologies, and policies. If a soft landing from the fossil fuel high can be engineered geo-regionally or even globally, successful strategies to preempt or adapt to change in realizing a sustainable, post-fossil fuel future will have to entail revolutions in urban energy infrastructure, city form, urban development logic, community culture, and management. This volume will characterize the nature of this historical change, and explore current initiatives to avoid a human, environmental, economical and cultural cataclysm, and to stabilize the long-term outlook for our urban communities

Urban energy transition: an introduction -- 1 Principles and drivers -- *Solar City: reconnecting energy generation and use to the technical and social logic of solar power -- *Urbanization, increasing wealth and energy transitions: comparing experiences between the USA, Japan and rapidly developing Asia Pacific economies -- *Undoing atmospheric harm: civil action to shrink the carbon footprint -- *Direct versus embodied energy: the need for urban lifestyle transitions -- *Energy, development and sustainable monetary systems -- 2 Policy, practice and dynamics -- *Energy and urban environmental regimes -- *Climate change and cities: the making of a climate friendly future -- *City energy networking in Europe -- *Energy use and CO2 production in the urban passenger transport systems of 84 international cities: findings and policy implications -- 3 Aspects of technology: opportunities and applications -- *Storage systems for reliable future power supply networks -- *The Media Laboratory City Car: a new approach to sustainable mobility -- *Towards the intelligent grid: a review of the literature -- *Innovations in rural and peri-urban areas -- 4 Transforming the built environment -- *Towards the renewable built environment -- *Counteracting urban heat islands in Japan -- *Ecodesign and the transition of the built environment -- *Financing the energy refurbishment of buildings -- *Sustainability on the urban scale: green urbanism new models for urban growth and neighbourhoods -- 5 International urban agendas -- *Barcelona and the power of solar ordinances: political will, capacity building and peoples participation -- *Reducing carbon emissions in London: from theory to practice -- *Urban energy and carbon management in Leicester -- Oxfords carbon emissions reduction: plans and tools -- *Integrating energy in urban planning in Vietnam and Thailand -- *Sustainable energy systems and the urban poor: Nigeria, Brazil, the Philippines -- *Energy planning in South African cities -- *Household markets for ethanol prospects for Ethiopia -- *Lagos, Nigeria: Sustainable energy technologies for an emerging African mega-city -- *Freedom from fossil fuel and nuclear power: the scope for local solutions in the United States