Walter de Haas

Walter de Haas (1886–1969), who wrote under the pseudonym Hanns Günther, was a prolific German author, translator, and editor of popular science books.

He began to publish books in 1912, including introductions to topics in electrical engineering under the Franckh'schen Verlagshandlung imprint and popular science works in the same publisher's Kosmos series. His books remain exemplary for their combination of exactness and ease of understanding.

Today, his most important book is considered to be "In a hundred years: the world's future energy supply" (In hundert Jahren - Die künftige Energieversorgung der Welt), which was published in 1931 for Franckh's "Friends of Nature Club" (Gesellschaft der Naturfreunde). In the book, he started by pointing out that humanity would one day run out of coal (he dismissed petroleum as a source of energy because he felt that it would run out very quickly) and went on to discuss other possible sources of energy that could replace coal, including geothermal power, which already existed in Italy when the book was written, and other types of renewable energy that had not yet actually been used: the solar updraft tower, wave farms, and tidal power plants.