Ask yourself:
Do you feel that this generation, and the generations to come face a future of only limited resources - and even less hope?
Is this the last generation that will have access to millions of years of stored energy in the form of fossil fuels?
Do you feel like the corporations and politicians are lying about how much fossil fuels remain unused - and how much they will cost?
Do you feel like the system is about to implode?
Well, it's sooo much worse than that!
And sooo much better...
This book traces the history of energy, from 1491 through today. It is a remarkable story. A story filled with one-armed bigamists, Texas Rangers named Lone Wolf hired by the governor to arrest anyone producing oil cheaper than big oil would like. Clandestine meetings in Scottish castles. Footraces to patent offices to steal inventions allowed to lapse by illiterate Italian immigrants (and as a result, Bell is remembered as the inventor of the telephone).
Nearly everything you ever learned about the history of energy is wrong. For example - Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb. The Wright Brothers were not the first to fly. Henry Ford did not invent the automobile, or the assembly line... in fact he arrived fairly late to the entire party.
And then there are the formal conspiracy theories - Was Prohibition an attempt by Standard Oil to eliminate competition from ethanol? Did GM conspire to dismantle the light rail system across the U.S (the U.S. Supreme Court thought so).
Our energy history leads to our energy present. A world that experienced peak coal (1998), peak natural gas (2003), and peak oil (2007). Will we repeat the same mistakes we have repeated many times before?
Now that we know where we have been, and where we are - where are we going?
Ten predictions for the coming two decades, as the BioMass Hits the Wind Turbine. For example:
- Why the electric car will come to dominate transportation within 15 years.
- Why all the media hype regarding the "recent natural gas boom" is just that - hype. We may soon be seeing a 3-5 fold increase in prices, and shortages resulting in massive imports of natural gas. Some boom, eh?
- How the line between consumer and supplier of power will disappear - and the utility of the future may look very much like FaceBook.
- And ultimately, why energy will be free in the not too distant future.
Yes, everything is about to change. But rather than a future without hope - it will be a future without limits.
Easy to read. Entertaining. And packed with more facts than you will find pretty much anywhere (certainly more facts than you will find in Exxon's annual report).
