In our power-hungry world, all the talk about energy—what’s safe and what’s risky, what’s clean and what’s dirty, what’s cheap and what’s easy—tends to generate more heat than light. What, Julianne Couch wanted to know, is the real story on power production in this country? Approaching the question as a curious consumer, Couch takes us along as she visits nine sites where electrical power is developed from different fuel sources. From a geothermal plant in the Mojave Desert to a nuclear plant in Nebraska, from a Wyoming coal-fired power plant to a Maine tidal-power project, Couch gives us an insider’s look at how power is generated, how it affects neighboring landscapes and the people who live and work there, and how each source comes with its own unique complications. 
The result is an informed, evenhanded discussion of energy production and consumption on the global, national, regional, local, and—most important—personal level. Knowledge is the real power this book imparts, allowing each of us to think beyond the flip of a switch to the real consequences of our energy use.

Traveling the Power Line: From the Mojave Desert to the Bay of Fundy (Our Sustainable Future)

Business & Money

Couch, Julianne

Industries

University Of Nebraska Press

Most people in the United States live in urban areas; still, there are nearly fifty million people living in small towns of just a few thousand people or less. Some towns are within a short drive of a metropolitan area where people can work, shop, or go to school; some are an hour or more from any sort of urban hub. In this book, Julianne Couch sets out to illuminate the lives and hopes of these small-town residents. The people featured live—by choice or circumstances—in one of nine small communities in five states in the Midwest and Great Plains: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wyoming. Daily they witness people moving out, heading to more urban areas, small businesses closing down, connected infrastructure drying up, entrepreneurs becoming discouraged, and more people thinking about leaving. This is the story we hear in the news, the story told by abandoned farms, consolidated schools, and boarded-up Main Streets. But it’s not the whole story. As Couch found in her travels throughout the Midwest, many people long to return to these towns, places where they may have deep family roots or where they can enjoy short commutes, familiar neighbors, and proximity to rural and wild places. And many of the residents of small midwestern towns are not just accepting the trend toward urbanization with a sigh. They are betting that the tide of rural population loss can’t go out forever, and they’re backing those bets with creatively repurposed schools, entrepreneurial innovation, and community commitment. From Bellevue, Iowa, to Centennial, Wyoming, the region’s small-town residents remain both hopeful and resilient.

The Small-Town Midwest: Resilience and Hope in the Twenty-First Century (Iowa and the Midwest Experience)

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

University Of Iowa Press

Jukeboxes &amp; Jackalopes is an apt description of this collection of essays in which the author shares her impressions of some of the unique bars scattered throughout small towns in Wyoming--some so small that the bar may be the only business at a location named and noted on the map but perhaps only claiming two residents. Regardless of size or remoteness of location, these watering holes often serve as community centers and living rooms away from home for those folks who populate the neighboring ranches and energy industry camps and offer a delightful experience for travelers who dare to leave the Interstate in search of a unique experience.

Jukeboxes & Jackalopes, A Wyoming Bar Journey

Biographies & Memoirs

Memoirs

Pronghorn Press

Along the Sylvan Trail dips into the lives of linked characters as they confront futures that aren¿t clearly dictated by conventional planning. All characters are connected in some way to the small town of Sylvan Grove, Iowa. On a clear day, they can see the water tower or grain silo of the next town up the road, which is both a way in and a path out.

Along the Sylvan Trail

Literature & Fiction

Dramas & Plays

Sastrugi Press LLC

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Books by Couch, Julianne