The Solar Economy

Hermann Scheer is a member of the German parliament (the Bundestag) and Chairman of Eurosolar. One of the most active and influential campaigners for solar and renewable energy, he was awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize in 1999. [German edition, Solare Weltwirtschaft, published by Kunstmann Verlag, 2001; 25,000 copies sold.]

From fossil fuels to solar power: The power of the pyromaniacs; Fossil resource dependency - how economic processes have come adrift from their environmental and social bases; Global competition in place of global environmental policy; The origins of the fossil-fuel economy; Accelerating change and global displacement; Business unbound - cutting loose from nature and society; Reconnecting business and society through solar resources; From the political to the economic solar manifesto. PART I CAPTIVITY OR LIBERATION: FOSSIL FUEL AND SOLAR SUPPLY CHAINS COMPARED: ensnared by fossil supply chains; exploiting solar resources - the new political and and economic freedom. PART II THE PATHOLOGICAL POLITICS OF FOSSIL RESOURCES: the 21st-century writing on the wall - the political cost of fuel and resource conflict; the distorting effects of fossil supply chains; the mythology of fossil energy. PART III THROWING OFF THE FOSSIL SUPPLY CHAINS: energy beyond the grid; the untapped wealth of solar resources; The profitability of renewable energy and resources. PART IV TOWARDS A SOLAR ECONOMY: exploiting solar energy; Regionalization of the global economy through solar resources; the visible hand of the sun - blueprint for a solar world