Varun Sivaram takes us inside the world of alternative energy innovation. He's an optimist, but a realistic one: he knows time is running short for the public and private sectors to join forces. Taming the Sun is a must-read look into the limitless potential of an energy source as timeless as the sun that may very well save the earth.
John F. Kerry, 68th U.S. Secretary of State; former U.S. Senator (D-MA)
Taming the Sun makes a compelling case that not confronting climate change could have dire consequences and, at the same time, makes a powerful case for the promise of solar energy. Everyone from physicists to investors to legislators should find the book instructive. Sivaram is even-handed and non-ideological in building his argument, but as he makes clear, progress ultimately depends on the political will to act.
Robert Rubin, 70th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury; former Co-Chairman of Goldman Sachs
Solar is the fastest-growing energy industry in the world, and it is at the heart of the clean energy revolution that is transforming technologies and economies around the world. Varun Sivaram's new book is an important primer about the global solar energy industry and the potential this energy source has to improve the lives of people and to help protect our planet and our future.
Ed Markey, U.S. Senator (D-MA); Chair, Senate Climate Change Action Task Force
Unlike any time since 1900 the world's energy system is in play. The futures—what society wants, and what will actually happen—are hard to fathom yet vitally important. Solar power lies at the center of this drama. Elegantly written and expertly argued, Varun Sivaram's new book is a stellar guide to the technologies and policies that will determine whether solar power meets its potential. His sober optimism is infectious.
David Victor, Professor, School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego; Co-Chair, Brookings Institution Energy Security and Climate Initiative
If you want to understand the history and the future of solar energy—one of the most important and transformative technologies of the 21st century—Taming the Sun is the book to read. Sivaram brings to bear scientific expertise in the most exciting frontiers of solar photovoltaics and interweaves science with business insights and nonpartisan policy recommendations. The result is the authoritative, balanced, and comprehensive text that the field has been waiting for.
Arun Majumdar, Professor and Co-Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy, Stanford University; Founding Director of ARPA-E and former U.S. Undersecretary of Energy
In Taming the Sun, Varun Sivaram makes a level-headed, yet compelling case for the role that solar energy can play in addressing climate change. His book not only introduces the solar technologies that are potentially significant, but also what is required to fully commercialize them from a scaling, funding, and policy perspective. It is an important and non-ideological contribution to discussion and decision making in a critical arena.
Shirley Ann Jackson, President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Professor of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy; Professor of Engineering Sciences
The book is not gloomy. It lays out the history, promise, and pitfalls of solar technology with an easy-going lack of wonkishness. But it offers a sobering message that may be as prescient—and as readable—as Robert Shiller's Irrational Exuberance was before the dotcom and housing crises of the 2000s
The Economist
The book is both the best available overview of where the industry finds itself today, and a road map for how it can reach that brighter future....
Financial Times
The first important policy book of 2018.
Bloomberg View
Foreign Affairs Best of Books 2018. Sivaram's enlightening and candid book describes both the enormous progress that has already been made in exploiting solar energy and the major obstacles to further progress.
Sivaram includes a raft of case studies, from current research on the photovoltaic materials called perovskites to Off Grid Electric, a start-up aiming to electrify swathes of Africa by 2019.
Nature
Taming the Sun is an even-handed untangling of a situation that can appear a mess of contradictions
Engineering and Technology Magazine
