Mackay, D.J.C. (2013). Sustainable Energy - without the Hot Air. Cambridge: Uit Cambridge.

I had originally attempted to read the online version of this - having found it on the Oxford Engineering reading list - but quickly realised that it would be much better to read a physical copy. It just so happens that my Dad had done a masters in renewable energy, and when I mentioned this book to him, it turned out that he had an old copy of it lying around somewhere. Nice coincidence.

This has definitely been the book that I have enjoyed most so far for a number of reasons, so instead of overviewing the content of chapters (of which there are many) I will explain the elements that I most appreciated from the book, and will outline some of the interesting and eye opening things that I took away from it. 

Before the book begins properly, Mackay objectively lays out the truths about climate change, using facts and data in graphs to visually demonstrate his point. He attempts to reason with both sides of the argument on climate change, taking into account varying perspectives, before clearly explaining the need for a transition to renewable energy. I liked how Mackay explained why the first section of the book would focus on "numbers not adjectives", outlying his motivations  and highlighting the need for the discussion of energy solutions in discussion in politics.

The first great part about this book is the way it is written. Mackay employs a casual and relatable writing that makes the content of the book a bit easier to digest. Mackay uses instances from his life - such as the sustainable makeover of his house - in order to make the book relatable to readers, making it seem as though we each have the power to make a significant difference. Despite this, Mackay is firm in his belief that "if we all do a little, only a little will get done", which is reiterated throughout many of the different sections. This is important as it acknowledges that drastic change must happen in order to ensure our future as a civilisation.

The structure of the book is also very well thought through. For the first section of the book, Mackay sums up all of the energy consumptions and possible sustainable energy productions of England, representing these with two competing red and green bars. Throughout this section Mackay utilises units of kwh per person per day, which personalises the energy consumptions, clearly demonstrating the costs of "greenifying" our electricity consumptions. Further, all forms of energy consumption are equated to electrical energy, simplifying the summing process. Throughout the section, it is very clear that many different renewable energy productions (boxes added to the green stack) must be added, in order to make up the energy needed for just one box added to the red stack, highlighting the energy intensity of activities such as travel and production of household brick-a-brak.

Mackay clearly outlines the simplifications he makes, and is constantly aware of the limitations of his investigations. He drastically simplifies many of the numbers, and often is very generous to renewables, allowing for large land areas to be occupied alongside high efficiencies. By the end of the first section, Mackay concludes that the total energy consumption outweighs the possible renewable energy production, but proceeds to show the reader more accurate predictions of the total available energy from renewables, from investigative institutions - numbers drastically lower than the energy consumed. This realisation is saddening, making the reader eager to find out the possible solutions that Mackay will propose in the next section entitled "making a difference".

This section outlines numerous methods of making our energy use more efficient, such as electrifying transport, before explaining how to use EV chargers to donate energy to the power grid in order to stabilise fluctuations caused by the use of renewables such as wind and solar. This section also discusses futuristic energy production types such as fusion, and highlights the future of solar in the form of solar concentration farms which can be built in the dessert. In this section, I really enjoyed learning about the engineering problems posed by relying soley on renewables - such as drastic fluctuations in power supply - alongside the possible ingenious solutions to these problems. 

What I really appreciated about this book was the addition of the technical chapters, found in the last section of the book. These chapters each linked to an accompanying chapter in the first section, and walked through the calculations used in order to determine the values used in the first section. These calculations are clearly annotated, explaining step by step the process used to find estimates. These simple calculations made me think more about maths in every day life, as I found myself trying to apply some of the concepts used in my own life. 

One calculation in particular really changed my perspective on travel. The energy lost to air resistance for a car, increases with the cube of the velocity. For this reason, it is clear that driving only marginally slower when possible can drastically reduce the energy lost during long journeys.

Goodsell, D.S. (2010). The machinery of life. New York, Ny: Copernicus Books

I originally picked up this book early 2024 when I was still in year 11; at this point in time I was still not entirely sure which future avenue I would like to pursue. I was still interested in medicine, biochemistry and biomedical engineering, and having enjoyed GCSE biology, I gave this book a shot, finding it in my school library. Unfortunately I did not make it awfully far into the book as revision and other priorities took up significant portions of my time. Of the little that I had read, I thoroughly enjoyed, I think in part due to the stunning illustrations which littered the pages (found on the right). Despite this, I ended up returning it and only picking it up again around November time of the same year. 

Once again, I read through, finding many of the concepts fascinating. For example, the book starts off with describing the smallest elements of cells which make up the "Molecular Machines" which power our bodies: It speaks of the nucleic acids which make up our DNA and of the way DNA is arranged and folded to form helixes. I think this point about the arrangement of molecules was the most memorable part of the book for me, as I had always wondered about how components of cells are formed from non living chains of atoms. The way these atoms configure is due to different parts of each molecule having "hydrophobic" or "hydrophilic" tendencies, meaning that they are repelled or attracted to water respectively. This concept was present throughout much of the book as it forms the foundation of much of biochemistry. It is next found when the book moves to on to the formation of lipid bilayers - the barriers which separate the cytoplasm and interior organelles from the outside world. These barriers are made up of lipid molecules with hydrophobic and hydrophilic heads and tails which cause them to line up, shielding the tails from water outside of the cell in a truly astounding fashion. It is in this section especially, that the illustrations really help; having the ability to see the folding of proteins in 3 dimensions is truly remarkable as it helps the reader to understand the true nature of cellular components, existing not only in ink on a flat page. I think that this is often forgotten and overlooked, especially in the textbooks of pre A Level biology - but this method of seeing the structures of proteins visually in the way that they are seen in our own bodies somehow makes it much more memorable.

Once the book has established the basic concepts behind biochemistry - namely how strings of inanimate atoms can combine to form organic structures - it then moves onto explaining some of the process's which occur within cells. I found this section of the book a little tricky to understand as I had no further knowledge of cell biology from GCSE level; it follows that I was unaware of the presence - let alone role - of ATP and its different variants. Nonetheless, I still managed to understand the role of ATP in transferring energy throughout the cell and storing chemical energy for future use. I do feel however as though some of the content at this stage would have been better understood by a reader with a more developed understanding - the competence of an A Level biology student would most likely suffice. The book then goes on to explain the necessity for energy production in cells, and the roles this energy then plays in the maintenance, protection etc of the cell. I believe that it was in this section - although it has been a while since reading this as of the time of writing - that the process of chemical reactions in terms of the collisions of molecules was explained. It highlighted the fact that molecules are in a permanent and random state of motion - they are always moving in sporadic and unpredictable ways, with collisions - and ultimately reactions - only occurring on the basis of probabilities and presence of corresponding complexes (as mentioned in the lock and key theory of GCSE biology). 

The book moves on to explain the process's of DNA synthesis involving RNA, ribosomes etc. I will not go in to depth on this topic in this write up as it is a particularly interesting (yet understandably confusing) topic in its own right - deserving of a full write up at some point in the future. I found that this process did go in to much deeper depth than the coverage which it got at GCSE which I am very glad about as this has always been a topic which I have been interested in. When I came to read through some of the A Level biology spec for my own personal interest, I found that the understanding that I had gained from this section of the book allowed me to develop and comprehend ideas about the synthesis of proteins much more easily than I would have otherwise been able.

It was after the next section which I put down the book. Not becuase of a lack of interest, but rather becuase I reasoned that I had broadened my horizons into the area of cellular biology adequately for the time being, and that my reading time would be better spent with "Structures", the book listed above. This section focused on linking the knowledge learnt about cells into the bigger picture of our bodies. I thought that this section really compounded the thought provoking nature of the book; at this point I was constantly in awe, and felt totally aware of the seemingly infinite complexity of the biochemistry that makes our bodies function. I unfortunately did not finish this section, however I do still firmly believe that this book provided a somewhat of a grounding in concepts which will be useful in future engineering explorations, and I am definitely not adverse to picking this book back up to finish in the future. For me, the illustrations really made this book a stand out; I often found myself staring perplexedly at the pictures, thinking about the processes of these macro machines acting inside my own body and wondering in awe about the fact that I - a combination of trillions of tiny molecules bumping around and rearranging in varying fashions - had the mental capability to think about the very molecules that made me up.