Wow -- four new books highlighting PHEVs! As the electoral season
warms up, books add considerable legitimacy and become important
attention-getters for policymakers.

They're also great gifts! Find the books that will deepen your
understanding -- and pick out ones to show your family, friends and
colleagues why you're so excited about PHEVs.

We've put all the PHEV-related books at
http://www.calcars.org/books.html -- in one place to make it easy for
you, and incidentally to give us a small bit of "affiliate revenue."
(So put the books URL in your email signature, blogs, etc.) So far
we've seen only a few orders, but now that more books are available,
we hope you'll order them through our links.

Of course, Sherry Boschert's book is all about PHEVs, and others have
appeared over the past two years -- but here are the new ones. The
first two are now in stock in bookstores, two more will join them
shortly. Our general format below is the title/author info,
publisher's description and our additional comments. And since we
learned in elementary school to cover "who/what/when/where and why I
liked this book," we end with a one-liner recommendation.



**** FREEDOM FROM OIL: How the Next President Can End the United
States' Oil Addiction by David Sandalow
David Sandalow is an Energy and Environment Scholar at the Brookings
Institution. He has served as Assistant Secretary of State for
Oceans, Environment & Science; Senior Director for Environmental
Affairs, National Security Council; and Associate Director for the
Global Environment, White House Council on Environmental Quality.

FROM THE PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL
"I plan to deliver an address from the Oval Office one month from
today. The topic will be oil dependence."
With these opening words, Freedom from Oil takes the reader to the
highest levels of government, as Cabinet members and White House
aides debate how to break our addiction to oil. In a fast-moving
narrative, David Sandalow shows how to solve this problem while
offering a unique window into the White House at work.
A White House veteran, Sandalow explores what would happen if the
next President made breaking the United States' addiction to oil a
top priority. In crisp and clear prose, Sandalow explains the size of
the challenge and then offers a powerful message of hope. "This issue
unites Americans," he writes. "Game-changing technologies are at
hand." Plug-in cars, biofuels and measures to improve traffic are all
part of the solution.
(The back cover includes praise from Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Senator
Richard Lugar, General Wesley Clark, James Woolsey and Frances
Beinecke, President, Natural Resources Defense Council.)

OUR COMMENTS
The book is an unusual combination of policy analysis and journalism.
It includes profiles/interviews with Plug In America's Chelsea
Clinton and Tesla's Martin Eberhard. You'll find a 14-page Memo to
the President from the Secretary of Transportation entirely on PHEVs!
Its Presidential Plan to End Oil Dependence starts with a Clean
Vehicle Executive Order, priming the pump by
* offering to buy 30,000 PHEVs at an $8,000 premium
* committing after their delivery that half the vehicles purchased by
the federal government will be PHEVs.
That's a much stronger version of Pres. Bush's Order, which has had
no impact. It goes further with:
* legislation to retool US auto factories and assume some auto
industry health costs
* consumer tax credits of $8,000 for the first million PHEVs and
$4,000 for the second million.
* replacing CAFE standards with Fuel Reduction and Energy Efficiency
(FREEdom) standards
* a Federal Battery Guarantee Corporation to help manufacturers
provide 10-year battery warranties for the first million cars
The book ends with a Presidential speech calling for "new ways of
doing business that create jobs, cut pollution and make us stronger,"
and "proposing a grand bargain with American automakers. If you
invest in advanced technologies, we'll invest in you."

OUR ONE-LINER: "What could be better than this complete and practical
roadmap for the next President on plug-in hybrids and everything else
we need to achieve Freedom from Oil?"



****ZOOM: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future by Vijay
Vaitheeswaran and Iain Carson
Vijay Vaitheeswaran, an MIT-trained engineer and global energy and
environment correspondent for The Economist, wrote a comprehensive
article on PHEVs for the magazine in June 2006
http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/435.html Ian Carson is Industry
Editor at the Economist. We recently posted about Vijay's appearance
on CBS http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/850.html and we describe
his Portfolio Magazine article, "Big Green Machines: Handicapping
Toyota, G.M., Volkswagen, and the new clean upstarts in the race to
the future" at http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/856.html

FROM THE PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL
"We are living in the midst of a Great Awakening. People are seeking
environmentally-sound alternatives to gas guzzlers. Detroit's reign
is over. Oil companies, despite their billion-dollar profits, could
be on the brink of extinction if they don't adapt. And citizens, all
too aware that these industries have lobbied politicians into
gridlock over energy policy, are mobilizing to support leaders who
advocate new policies."
In the book, they say
"Enthusiasts love plug-in technology because it would dramatically
reduce oil use (which is why the national-security types are
interested) and also curb greenhouse-gas emissions (which is why the
environmentalists are interested). If it came to pass, it would
radically restructure America's energy economics by shifting demand
from the corner gasoline station to the power station. And who knows,
it might even shift the global balance of another sort of power --
the political variety."
The authors go on to a "call to arms" that includes a gas tax,
elimination of current subsidies, efficiency regulations and
additional public investment and citizen action.
This book just went into the top 1,000 at Amazon and is short-listed
for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year, to be announced
Oct 25 -- see the other five at
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f606e484-6a8d-11dc-9410-0000779fd2ac.html

OUR ONE-LINER: "ZOOM's very readable narrative takes the reader from
an analysis of why the petroleum age is ending to a picture of all
the entrepreneurs, environmentalists and engineers who are bringing
future cars to market now -- spurred in part by an unprecedented
grassroots movement for plug-in hybrids."



**** APOLLO'S FIRE: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy by Rep.
Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks
Jay Inslee is a Representative in the United States House of
Representatives, representing the First District of the State of
Washington, in the Seattle area. He is a recognized leader in
Congress on energy issues and is the prime sponsor of the New Apollo
Energy Act and was recently named by Nancy Pelosi to the new House
Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Bracken
Hendricks is a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress
and former executive director of the Apollo Alliance, an organization
of environmental organizations, businesses, and labor organizations
dedicated to building a new energy future for America.

FROM THE PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL:
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy ignited America's Apollo Project
and sparked a revolution in space exploration. Today the New Apollo
Energy Project is poised to revolutionize the production of energy
and thereby save our planet. The nation that built the world's most
powerful rockets, its most advanced computers, and its most
sophisticated life support systems is ready to create the world's
most powerful solar energy systems, its most advanced wind energy
turbines, and its most sophisticated hybrid cars. This will result in
nothing less than a second American Revolution.
Who are the dreamers in California who believe they can use mirrors
and liquid metal to wring more electricity from a ray of sunshine
than anyone else on earth can? Who are the innovators who have built
a contraption that can turn the energy of a simple wave off the
Oregon coast into burnt toast in Idaho? Who are the scientists in
Massachusetts who have invented a battery that now runs your hand
drill and will soon run your car?
Readers will meet them all in this book. They will learn how the new
energy economy will grow, the research that is required, and the
legislation that must be passed to make the vision a reality.
This is a thoughtful, optimistic book, based on sound facts. No one
before has tied together the concepts of economic growth and
greenhouse gas reductions with such concrete examples. No one has
previously told the real stories of the people who are right now on
the front lines of the energy revolution. The co-authors, one a U.S.
Congressman who is the primary sponsor of the New Apollo Energy Act,
and the other the founder of the Apollo Alliance, have joined their
experience, expertise, and passion for a clean energy future to lay
out the path to stop global warming and gain energy independence.

OUR COMMENTS
The book includes some colorful stories of Rep. Inslee's talks with
Pres. Bush and Vice-Pres. Cheney. The book's section on PHEVs starts
in Ron Gremban's garage in Corte Madera and goes from there around
the Bay Area, to Austin Texas for Plug-In Partners, to a closed Ford
plant in St. Paul, MN to the LA Auto Show and Detroit for the Chevy Volt.
In describing the obstacles facing hydrogen fuel cell cars, the
authors say, "Battery technology will develop faster than fuel
cells." [An obvious point we've never seen better stated.] "In the
horse race between fuel cells and plug-ins, we are putting our two
dollars on plug-ins to win by several lengths."
Bill Clinton's forward to the book says in relation to global
warming, "Apollo's Fire is anything but a doomsday account. Rather,
it is hopeful and exciting, engaging the reader as it recounts
America's history of leadership and ingenuity."
Inslee brings to the book all his experience in the House of
Representative and his involvement in Washington State's projects
involving PHEVs. He is is the co-chair of Hillary Clinton's Energy &
Environment Task Force, so we're hoping his words will percolate
through to the candidate's policy priorities (she saw our cars in
Washington, DC and has talked about it in speeches).

OUR ONE-LINER: "Apollo's Fire's real life stories and optimistic
strategies can unify our nation through innovation and public
investment to reach prosperity in a sustainable world."



**** WINNING OUR ENERGY INDEPENDENCE by S. David Freeman
S. David Freeman, the energy guru known as the "Green Cowboy," shows
how we have the renewable energy we need to wean ourselves from the
Three Poisons: foreign oil, dirty coal and dangerous nuclear power.
He calls for replacing today's cars with plug-in hybrid vehicles.
Helped create US Environmental Protection Agency, former board chair
of Tennesse Valley Authority Board, head of NY Power Authority, Los
Angeles Department of Water and Power.

OUR COMMENTS: David Freeman is a unique and precious resource. See
our lengthy excerpts at http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/827.html

OUR ONE-LINER: David Freeman's Winning our Energy Indepence brings
four decades of experience to a fearless direct call to abandon the
"three poisons of coal, nuclear and oil," and an inspiring vision of
how to replace them with renewable energy sources powering plug-in cars.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Felix Kramer fkramer@...
Founder California Cars Initiative
http://www.calcars.org
http://www.calcars.org/news-archive.html
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