ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
The West Texas Power Plant That Saved the World
By Andy Bowman
Texas Tech University Press published The West Texas Power Plant That Saved the World: Energy, Capitalism and Climate Change, by Andy Bowman (September 2021), with a foreword by Nature Conservancy Chief Scientist and national best-selling author Katharine Hayhoe.
Climate change has never been more in the news, and the news of 2021forest fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, heat waves and polar vortex have surprised us all. Just in time comes a new book by Andy Bowman, a twenty-five year renewable energy veteran, with a unique take on the problem that focuses not just on our climate problems but on what we can do about it to make it better.
The book tells the story of the world’s first solar power plant built on spec, the Barilla Solar project built near Ft. Stockton, Texas in 2014, and how solar energy transformed from its very humble beginnings into the cheapest power generation technology on the market today. The central theme of the book is the idea that as unlikely as it seems now, we may one day soon change our capitalism from the biggest driver of climate change to the most powerful weapon against it.
In The West Texas Power Plant that Saved the World, Bowman highlights:
· The Relationship between capitalism and climate change, particularly the idea that global capitalism has caused climate change but that we must now make it our most potent weapon against it.
· The Carbon Budget, which is the idea that we only have so much more CO2 that we can put into the atmosphere before temperature increases of 2C is guaranteed, and our current track will ensure that level of warming within the next 15 years.
· History of solar power, in particular its reinvention by China with the impetus from German companies and the US and Europe as China’s biggest solar customers over 2005-2015.
· Impacts of climate change on Texas and the city of Galveston in particular.
· The relationship between power plant finance and greenhouse gas emissions, in particular how only the most competitive generation plants get built and when they do, they lock in emissions from those plants for decades to come.
· The idea of merchant power plants and how the Barilla plant in West Texas shows that solar is the most dominant power generation technology on the scene today.
For author Andy Bowman, this is a very personal story. Bowman grew up in Galveston and acutely remembers watching stormwater climb up seawalls and wreak havoc on his home. He weaves these memories into his coming of age over two decades in the renewable energy industry, beginning in the 1990s, and tracks the industry’s fits and starts that lead to the Barilla project. Barilla was the first solar project to be built “on spec,” without a pre-arranged contract in place, marking solar energy’s debut as power cheap enough to compete directly with traditional power plants. That trailblazing wager represents a tectonic shift in the electricity industry.
Katharine Hayhoe, Chief Scientist for the Nature Conservancy and long-time climate advocate, writes in the book’s foreword: “With vivid stories and incontrovertible facts, Andy Bowman makes it clear that climate impacts are not a future problem; they are here and now, affecting all of us in ways that matter. But he also explains how solutions are here today as well. They do not involve a return to the Stone Ages or a complete destruction of our energy-intensive way of life. Instead, from homegrown Texas solar to far-off Chinese investment, the world is already changing. Clean energy is already here. And the future can be bright.”
In a clear voice, Bowman explains the climate science that necessitated this shift and makes business-based arguments for what the future should look like. The result is a book that tells a personal story of West Texan innovation, gumption, and vision, while also outlining how our society needs to equip itself to confront climate change.
ABOUT ANDY BOWMAN:
Andy Bowman has been a serial clean energy entrepreneur since the late 1990’s, when he worked to develop some of the first utility-scale wind projects in the country. Over the last twenty-five years, he has participated in about 3,600 megawatts of wind and solar projects across the country, equivalent to about seven coal power plants. His newest company, Jupiter Power, LLC, is building grid-scale energy storage plants. Bowman holds a degree from the University of Texas School of Law and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. He graduated from Yale University in 1991. He is an adjunct professor at UT Law School and lives in Austin, TX with his wife and three children.
PRAISE:
“Even in the book’s early pages, it’s clear that Bowman has a unique talent for relating past events in a compelling, relatable and colorful way… the book is important: Climate change reporting will only become more crucial as time goes on. Texans are disproportionately subjected to the volatile weather that accompanies climate change. “
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— Christopher Collins, Texas Observer
TITLE: The West Texas Power Plant That Saved the World: Energy, Capitalism and Climate Change
AUTHOR: Andy Bowman
PUBLICATION DATE: September 2021
PRICE: $26.95 hardcover
ISBN: 978-1682830932
For more information, please contact Johanna Ramos-Boyer, JRB Communications, LLC
Office: 703-646-5137 |Cell: 703-400-1099
