Solar Wind by Peter J. Blau

About the book

Prompted by our nation's insatiable hunger for energy, a multi-billion dollar project takes shape in the Alaskan wilderness. Project Aurora is a receiving station for solar wind energy that is collected by a chain of satellites and beamed down to Alaska where it's processed and fed to the North American power grid. An enthusiastic, but stressed team of engineers, computer programmers, and construction workers struggle to complete the project under the intense scrutiny of the Secretary of Energy, the White House, and congressional skeptics who'd like to see the whole thing scuttled. Environmental groups and middle-eastern countries whose oil revenues are threatened are poised to sabotage the project.

Three vignettes set the tone for the story. Children in a remote Alaskan schoolhouse are burned by mysterious radiation from the sky. An old-timer in a fuel truck is incinerated while trying to outrun an advancing firestorm. A weatherman in NOAA'S severe storms center notices a bizarre shape in the cloud formations above Alaska and startles his supervisor.

The first chapter begins months earlier when a lone figure snowmobiles toward the new Aurora antenna station to install a secret black box in the wiring. Later, his lifeless body is dropped into Prince William Sound by two German mercenaries. Then we meet the main characters starting with Dr. Alvin Brewer, the project director, and his up-beat, snack-craving deputy Dr. Arnold Tinsman. Mark Tipton, a Pulitzer-prize winning newspaperman has been sent from San Francisco to cover the project's completion. Meanwhile, in Vancouver, Arab brothers Amad and Sayed El-Amin plot to sabotage the project. Amad infiltrates a local environmental group for cover. Enter Commander Brett Garth who is sent secretly by the White House to report on the project. Garth, a man of action captures Amad El-Amin as he tries to plant a bomb, but his brother Sayed activates the hidden device that causes one of the satellites to malfunction, sending a beam of fiery destruction across the Alaskan countryside.

Meanwhile Brewer, in an effort to save his failing marriage, invites his wife to join him. Her train heads directly into the path of the deadly energy beam. Garth and site security chief, Colonel Jack Chang, leap aboard a jet helicopter, navigating the turbulent energy storm in a vain attempt to try to reach the train in time. Computer experts predict that the beam will soon threaten Anchorage. Top-secret military lasers, whose presence on the satellite was concealed from Brewer, compound the problem. These lasers, also out of control, intensify damage from the beam. Brewer is livid when he learns about the military hardware. A brutish army general named Dykeman arrives unexpectedly to take over command while Aurora's engineers scramble to defeat the electronic sabotage device. The engineers are too late to save the satellite from being shot down by a killer missile under presidential orders. Flying home, Garth defeats stowaway Sayed El-Amin in the hold of an aging cargo airplane. The plane's navigation is scrambled by microwave storms, causing the aircraft to bear down straight at Mount McKinley.

The story ends a year later as Mark Tipton sits in his office, finishing a newspaper article about the congressional testimony of Brewer and the others. The last witness is Dr. Whiteburn, the former NASA administrator. He laments the irreparable damage to the earth's communication satellites from collisions with fragments from the shattered Aurora platform.

About the author

A native of Reading, Pennsylvania, Peter J. Blau has been a staff scientist and materials engineer at several government laboratories including the Air Force Materials Laboratory, the National Bureau of Standards and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. He has a B.S. and M.S. degrees in metallurgy and materials science from Lehigh University and a Ph.D. in metallurgical engineering from The Ohio State University. His research career has ranged from studies of lunar soil samples from the Apollo program to more recent work on light-weight bearing materials and brakes for fuel-efficient vehicles. He is fellow of two technical societies -- ASM International, an organization for materials professionals, and ASTM International, an organization that develops testing standards. An author or co-author of over 115 journal articles and four technical books, Peter remains an active technical writer and editor.

Besides reading, recreational writing has been Peter's hobby since childhood. He's even authored an underground book containing limericks on tribology (friction, lubrication, and wear). Other hobbies include photography and keyboard improvisation. His first novel, Solar Wind, is a techno-thriller about a team of dedicated professionals who are struggling to bring a new satellite-based energy system into operation at a remote antenna station in Alaska. Middle-eastern saboteurs cause its high-energy beam to spin dangerously out of control. A second novel, also a techno-thriller, is well on the way.