Project Sunshine: How science can use the sun to fuel and feed the world

Description

Professor Tony Ryan is the leader of 'Project Sunshine', a far-reaching project at the University of Sheffield that brings scientists together to find solutions to the world' s problems. From photovoltaics to organic electronics, from microbial science to optoelectronics, the power of the sun is central to this new, holistic approach. Capturing just one hou' s worth of sunlight will enable us to meet the plane' s food and energy needs for an entire year. Written with PR guru Steve McKevitt, and unmissable for all popular science and history of science fans, Project Sunshine gives us a true picture of how we are going to live - and going to have to live - in the surprisingly near future.

Professor Tony Ryan OBE is a polymer chemist at the University of Sheffield. He delivered the 2002 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures and regularly appears on Radio 4's Infinite Monkey Cage with Brian Cox and Robin Ince, and has been on In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg.

Lucid, optimistic - and plans to save the world ... This is stirring stuff, and well told -- Fred Pearce, New Scientist A ray of sunshine on the issues of food and energy security. -- Nature This is an important, much needed book. It shows that things can't go on as they have done: population growth, fossil-fuel burning, greenhouse-gas pollution. But it also explains that they don't need to. Technologies exist, or are on the threshold of existing, that can keep the lights on and keep food on the shelves. Without being Panglossian or diminishing the challenge, Project Sunshine offers rays of hope. -- Philip Ball, author of Critical Mass and H2O: A Biography of Water Tony Ryan and Steve McKevitt argue forcefully that if we are to tackle the biggest challenges facing the world today, we need to put our local star at the centre of human affairs. They marshal a wide range of scientific research to show that we could all benefit from becoming a society of sun worshippers. -- Roger Highfield 'A sweeping narrative of past and present, Project Sunshine explores the way we use (and waste) our resources and how solar power may yet solve the energy crisis ... with wonderful factual nuggets and handy numbers to have up one's sleeve. -- Dame Athene Donald * Times Higher Education *