Earth: The Sequel

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For anyone who has despaired that there are no solutions to the problems of global warming and runaway energy consumption, Earth: The Sequel may be for you.

The authors call it a sequel because it is the "story of the next new thing that none of us can afford to miss: how the multi-trillion dollar energy sector is being transformed — right now — by the American entrepreneurial spirit."

The new book, subtitled "The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming," highlights innovative, big-idea, real-world solutions, and the people behind them, that are exciting and energizing. It's written by Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund, and journalist Miriam Horn.

“The moment that America’s political leaders act to limit global warming pollution, we’ll see private investors rush to get behind these bold new inventions and bring them to market,” Krupp said in a press release. “New fortunes will be made that will dwarf the megafortunes of the information technology revolution.”

Among the strategies highlighted in the book, in the words of its publisher:

• Scientists at California-based Innovalight have found a cheap substitute for costly solar panels: they dissolve silicon nanocrystals in ink that can be printed onto any surface to harvest solar energy.

• The founders of Amyris are reengineering yeast so it can ferment sugar into pure hydrocarbon fuels, virtually identical to jet fuel, diesel and gasoline.

• Cambridge-based GreenFuel feeds carbon dioxide from power plant smokestacks to algae and then turns the algae into biodiesel, aiming to clean up pollution and beat oil at $60 per barrel.

• A tribe of Native Americans, fishermen for 2,000 years in the roughest waters of the North Pacific, are now working to harvest the fierce power of the waves themselves.

• A New Jersey neurobiologist is developing a scrubber for coal plant smokestacks using the same enzyme that removes carbon dioxide from the human bloodstream.

• An MIT bioengineer redesigns viruses so that they grab conductive metals and assemble themselves into the most powerful batteries ever seen.

For more on the book, visit www.EarthTheSequel.com.

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