Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

Substations and distribution networks 130Control and communications 132System stability 134Instabilities caused by the grid 136Brittleness is increasing 138Chapter Eleven Nuclear Power 141Nuclear terrorism: intentions and incidents 142The potential for reactor sabotage 150Other types of attacks on nuclear facilities 154Other vulnerabilities in the nuclear fuel cycle 156Military attacks on nuclear facilities 158Attacking reactors with terrorist bombs 159Radiological consequences of major releases 162Logistical and financial impacts 165Psychological and social impacts 166Chapter Twelve Forward, Lemmings! 169PART THREE: NATIONAL ENERGY SECURITYChapter Thirteen Designing for Resilience 177Resilience versus reliability 177Passive versus active resilience 179Resilience in biological systems 182Toward a design science for resilience 190Analogous universes 207The brittleness of mainframe computers 208The response: “distributed processing” 210Chapter Fourteen Rethinking the Energy System 214The semantics of “decentralization” 215Centralization: the root of the problem 218Social “decentralization”? 219The economics of decentralized energy 220Can decentralized investments be fast enough? 223Renewable sources: the dark horse pulls ahead 225A regional case study 227Is this a real turning point? 229Why should small technologies be faster? 231Chapter Fifteen End-Use Efficiency: Most Resilience Per Dollar 235The state of the art 238Micro benefits 248Macro benefits 253Economic priorities 257National least-cost scenarios 259Efficiency is the key to resilience 262Chapter Sixteen Inherently Resilient Energy Supplies 264Sustainable sources 266How reliable are renewable energy flows? 268Not all renewable sources make sense 270vii