Environmental Physics: Sustainable Energy and Climate Change

Egbert Boeker & Rienk van Grondelle, VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands

Environmental Physics, Third Edition serves as an introduction to physics in the context of societal problems such as energy supply, pollution, climate change and finite resources of fossil fuels and uranium. The emphasis of this text is on physics, i.e. the concepts and principles that help in understanding the ways to produce energy efficiently or to mitigate climate change. Extra attention is given to photosynthesis due to its importance in the field of renewable energy.

This thoroughly revised and updated third edition focuses on the utilization of sustainable energy and mitigating climate change. The text explains the physical mechanisms behind climate change and discusses the physics of renewable energy options. Nuclear power is treated in a separate chapter because of its social and political importance. In the final chapter political and social aspects of ‘renewable energy and climate change' are reviewed.

A distinguishing feature of the text is the discussion of spectroscopy and spectroscopic methods, again from basic concepts, as a crucial means to quantitatively analyze and monitor the condition of the environment, the factors determining climate change and all aspects of energy conversion.

This textbook will be invaluable to students in physics and related subjects such as physical chemistry and geophysics. It assumes a basic knowledge in physics and mathematics, and all equations are derived from first principles and explained in a physical way.

Supplementary material including sections from earlier editions of this book, a description of environmental experiments for a student's labs and computer codes to expand some of the books' content are available from www.few.vu.nl/environmentalphysics

Keywords: General & Introductory Physics