Without Hot Air

If you're interested in a reasoned, intelligent discussion of sustainable energy sources and energy conservation, then I suggest that you take a look at Sustainable Energy -- without the hot air , by David JC MacKay.  For you high-tech types, there is also a text-only, Kindle version available for 99 cents.  Not only that, MacKay says that he didn't write the book to make money, so if you'd prefer, you can download the whole text in PDF from the author's website.  If you  don't want to download the whole thing, you can read individual chapters on the website as well.

MacKay bases his arguments on quantitative analyses of known data.  This makes his arguments much stronger and harder to refute than arguments that are long on emotion and short on verifiable facts.  Since my opinion is that sustainability is too important to be saddled with weak arguments, I certainly welcome dMacKay's efforts.  Although his data focuses mostly on the situation in the UK (that's where he lives), the types of analyses he does may be extended to other developed nations, including the US.  

The book is accessible to readers at most levels.  MacKay puts all the challenging math in a section labeled "Technical Chapters".   

Thanks to PicardOut for the recommendation.