THE 'LITERATURE'

[fc 12th Sept 2010] This was the Literature Cover Page, but has now been demoted into a sub area of its own.
The academic literature on renewable energy has been of little value to us thus far.

This is the cover page for the discussion of select literature (including our own).

The idea here is to openly discuss and dissect relevant literature.

To make things manageable we will need to limit the number of papers we consider. We are hopeful that you will engage in critiquing and understanding the papers we examine, and we welcome your suggestions of other relevant literature, new and old - so long as you have read and understood it. (A comment which merely provides a link and says "Hey, look at this", is not helpful.)

While the scientific literature is often idolised, the reality is that much of it is vague, inward looking, and disconnected from real-world practicalities. And, in addition, what may be good and nuanced work can easily be cited in support of simplistic notions, or even ones that do not exist in the original work. These problems, and others, are well appreciated by working scientists, even though a sort of professional reticence prevents more vocal criticism. In any case, the system we have is what we have, and the positive approach is to develop and improve it. The internet, through our Open Science approach, provides a powerful avenue for doing this.

bwb / as / fc - May 2010