Power from the People: How to Organize, Finance, and Launch Local Energy Projects

by Greg Pahl, Van Jones (Foreword)

Over 90 percent of US power generation comes from large, centralized, highly polluting, nonrenewable sources of energy. It is delivered through long, brittle transmission lines, and then is squandered through inefficiency and waste. But it doesn't have to be that way. Communities can indeed produce their own local, renewable energy. Power from the People explores how homeowners, co-ops, nonprofit institutions, governments, and businesses are putting power in the hands of local communities through distributed energy programs and energy-efficiency measures. Using examples from around the nation - and occasionally from around the world - Greg Pahl explains how to plan, organize, finance, and launch community-scale energy projects that harvest energy from sun, wind, water, and earth. He also explains why community power is a necessary step on the path to energy security and community resilience - particularly as we face peak oil, cope with climate change, and address the need to transition to a more sustainable future. This book - the second in the Chelsea Green Publishing Company and Post Carbon Institute's Community Resilience Series - also profiles numerous communitywide initiatives that can be replicated elsewhere.

Genres: Sustainability

288 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 2012

About the author

Greg Pahl is a 1967 graduate of the University of Vermont and a former Military Intelligence officer in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. A full-time freelance journalist for many years, he has written feature articles for numerous publications, including Vermont Magazine, the Vermont Times, Mother Earth News, The Champlain Business Journal, and many others."