NewBooksEnergy

David Suzuki's book, The Sacred Balance, is an inspiring, thoughtful and timely book emphasizing the need for man to realize his place in the environment and to respect all of creation and embrace a way of life that is ecologically sustainable, fulfilling and just. Technology has stripped us of our linkage to the natural world around us and allows us to live in relative isolation and with at, least from our superficial viewpoint, impunity from the consequences of our lifestyle. This is a must read book for anyone who hopes to see humanity survive.

The Looming End of the Oil Era

The world is about to change dramatically and forever as the result of oil depletion. Within the next few years global oil production will peak. At the same time, emerging economies like China and India will be clamouring for the same types of creature comforts and conveniences that are taken for granted in the industrialized world, meaning tens of millions of barrels per day of additional oil demand. China has already gone from 2 million barrels per day to 6 million per day in just the last couple of years. We as individuals and as a society will face challenges never before seen. We must learn to reorient ourselves for a realistic future. There are no easy answers, so don't expect to read this book and come away with a warm and fuzzy feeling. It's an incredibly well documented hard look at the future we are facing and how to begin to prepare for it.

Everything You Need To Know About Petroleum Exploration

What makes this book important to the general reader is that Deffeyes (the author) was a lead petroleum geologist at Shell Oil, generally accepted as THE best petroleum geology research lab in the world. So, when he speaks, he speaks as one who knows. The book really gives a thorough review to where petroleum comes from, how it is found, how it is drilled for and processed, and then draws some conclusions about future supplies - none of them happy ones. While his assessment of the future is a bit more sanguine than Heinberg's, the message is essentially the same (and this is where the book's title comes from) - petroleum production will peak in this decade, possibly as early as next year and begin and inevitable decline. Hubbert was the Shell geologist who in the 1950's predicted that US domestic petroleum production would peak between 1970 and 1972. His prediction was roundly trashed by everyone, but, lo and behold, US production peaked in 1970 and has been in decline ever since. The energy "optimists" talk alot about the trillions of barrels remaining in the ground, but Deffeyes really makes the reader sit up and take notice that these estimates are exaggerated and best and unfounded at worst.

How mankind's activity is changing the very meaning of "nature"

Reissued on the tenth anniversary of its publication, this classic work on our environmental crisis features a new introduction by the author, reviewing both the progress and ground lost in the fight to save the earth.

This impassioned plea for radical and life-renewing change is today still considered a groundbreaking work in environmental studies. McKibben's argument that the survival of the globe is dependent on a fundamental, philosophical shift in the way we relate to nature is more relevant than ever. McKibben writes of our earth's environmental cataclysm, addressing such core issues as the greenhouse effect, acid rain, and the depletion of the ozone layer. His new introduction addresses some of the latest environmental issues that have risen during the 1990s. The book also includes an invaluable new appendix of facts and figures that surveys the progress of the environmental movement.

More than simply a handbook for survival or a doomsday catalog of scientific prediction, this classic, soulful lament on Nature is required reading for nature enthusiasts, activists, and concerned citizens alike.

As any of you who know me are aware, I have an abiding interest in energy issues, which I see as being at the heart of our environmental and political national and world strategies. The average person needs to educate him or herself with regard to energy and environment to know what changes are likely in the not to distant future. As energy demands around the world soar (read China and India for starters), and petroleum production peaks (certainly within this decade) our entire industrialized way of life will be forced to change. This peak is known as "the Big Rollover" - the day that no matter what we do, where we drill, how much technology we apply, we will start producing progressively LESS oil - and this in a world where demand continues to climb.

The situation is compounded by the fact that we have already burned up the easy to get to reserves, and what is left will take MORE energy to get out of the ground, meaning a lower net return on energy invested (known as EROEI). For instance, domestic EROEI for petroleum has fallen from 26:1 in 1916 to 2:1 in 2004 and will continue to fall. Once EROEI hits 1:1 even a willingness to pay unlimited amounts of money for the oil is meaningless if that process is a net energy loser (the laws of physics raise their ugly head).

And the longer we wait to address the issues the more wrenching the changes will be. The books reviewed here represent a call for action to rethink man's place and role on planet Earth and to make changes to reduce the pain and attempt to mitigate the economic and social chaos that will certainly occur to a degree we would rather not think about.

Charlie

The End of the Oil Age

David Goodstein, vice provost and Frank J. Gilloon Distinguished Teaching and Service Professor at at Cal Tech, explains the underlying scientific principles of the inevitable fossil fuel crisis we face, and the closely related peril to the earth's climate. Can our civilization continue to thrive? Can we replace fossil fuels? We cannot change the laws of nature, but if we are to face the future wisely, we must understand what those laws permit. This is a book about those simple, fundamental principles. The book is readable and concise. Highly recommended. Goodstein is also the author of the highly regarded Feynman's Lost Lectures.

A geologic cautionary tale for a complacent world accustomed to reliable infusions of cheap energy

Just published, this new book by Paul Roberts (who I recently heard in a town hall lecture series at the LA Central Library) is a remarkably informative and balanced introduction to the issue of dwindling world oil supplies. The book centers around one irrefutable fact: the global supply of oil is being depleted at an alarming rate. Precisely how much accessible (not to mention theoretical) oil remains is debatable, but even conservative estimates mark the peak of production in decades rather than centuries. Which energy sources will replace oil, who will control them, and how disruptive to the current world order the transition from one system to the next will be are just a few of the big questions that Paul Roberts attempts to answer in this timely book. If you need a quick read, try Out of Gas, but Roberts' book is a much broader and deeper book and well worth the effort.

As petroleum production peaks, what options are available to power our future?

Kenneth Deffeyes (author of Hubbert's Peak, Professort Emeritus at Princeton Univeristy and former head of Shell's petroeum geology department), looks ahead beyond the imminent peak in oil production and examines our alternatives to petroleum - what are they, what can they be used for, can they provide sufficient energy to allow us to continue life as we know it. Deffeyes takes a hard look at these questions. The book is concise and readable, and Deffeyes' dry sense of humor wrests a smile from the reader every so often, in spite of the somewhat somber outlook he paints for modern civilization's prospects. If you read Hubbert's Peak, you need to continue your education with Beyond Oil.

The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy

This timely book by world reknowned energy analyst Matthew Simmons takes a hard factual look at oil production in the world's largest producer and reservoir of oil, Saudi Arabia. VIrtually all informatioin on reserves and production in the OPEC nations is essentially a national secret for these member states, so hard data are hard to come by. Simmons analyzes the past, the present and the future of oil production in Saudi Arabia and draws some very disturbing conclusions about that nation's vaunted capacity to boost production at the drop of a hat. The US government and the International Energy Agency assume that the Saudis will be producing 20 to 25 million barrels of oil a day in the next two or three decades, Simmons draws the conclusion that their real demonstrated capacity is more like 10 million barrels per day, and any draw down beyond that is unlikely without severely over stressing the fields and dramatically reducing the ultimate amount of recoverable oil. Simmons undertakes detailed analysis of the non-OPEC super giant fields and demonstrates that all 4 of the Saudi's super giants have probably peaked already and are unlikely to come to the rescue of an energy hungry world. Indeed, the vaunted Saudi production has been called on and in fact promised several times over the last 18 months, yet no meaningful increase has occurred. Have they peaked? If Simmons is even remotely correct, the industrialized world needs to be making some dramatic changes in our energy policy in order to avert a looming disaster of the kind that Heinberg paints in The Party's Over.

Can the U.S. stop using oil by 2050?

Yes, says visionary Amory Lovins. So long as we get serious about improving energy efficiency. The cost? $180 billion over 10 years.

Nearly 30 years ago Amory Lovins took on the utility industry. The industry was predicting a high-energy future filled with nuclear power plants. Lovins called the utility forecasts "the hard path" because they committed us to producing ever more energy. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Lovins suggested an alternative, "Soft Energy Paths."

Lovins pointed out that the least expensive, safest and most secure energy we could acquire wouldn't come from more drilling and more nuclear power plants. It would come from using energy more efficiently. Rather than the hard work of raising the bridge, he suggested the easier work of lowering the water. All we had to do was to make cars, trucks, houses and buildings more energy efficient. That, he wrote, would eliminate the need to build more nuclear power plants and to search the planet for new sources of hydrocarbons.

Lovins -- ridiculed as a dreamer at the time -- was right. The conventional wisdom was wrong. Energy efficiency in the next decade reduced our oil consumption so fast, it broke the pricing power of OPEC and crushed oil prices. But now, demand has caught up with and is likely to outstrip supply for the foreseeable future.

Now, working with a team from his Rocky Mountain Institute and with the support of the Department of Defense, Lovins has a bolder idea: Apply energy efficiency to end our dependence on oil.

Not just foreign oil, mind you, all oil. In the process, we can revolutionize (and save) our automobile industry, create a million jobs, strengthen our economy, end the flow of oil money that funds terrorism and win enduring national security.

In "Winning the Oil Endgame," Lovins shows us the path to reduce our oil consumption.

How much? How fast? Think about these figures:

We could reduce the amount we import from the Persian Gulf by 50% by 2015.

We could use less oil by 2025 than we used in 1970.

We could import no oil at all by 2040.

We could use no oil at all by 2050.

More impressive, much of this can be done simply by getting back on the efficiency-improvement path we were on when we responded to the first and second OPEC oil price shocks in 1973 and 1979, and provide thousands of additional American jobs in the process as a whole new industry blossoms.

The coming threat to "civilization" from the end of the oil age

I am often asked, what book is the ONE to read. After reading virtually everything out there, I think that The Long Emergency is the one. Kuntsler's book covers the technical, economic, political, social and personal side of not just Peak Oil when the Big Rollover happens, but looks well beyond that at what the end of cheap energy means for industrial society as it is now configured. It's a distinctly unpleasant vision of the future of what we know as "everyday life". It's a future where cheap energy has disappeared, where no miracle technological bullet exists to allow the world to continue its energy dependent consumer binge. It's a sobering book and should be read by anyone planning to be alive even 10 years from now. Kunstler is NOT a doomsayer, but a realist looking at where we are, what's going to happen and how we can best deal with it.

A Crude Awakening

If you don't have the time (or perhaps the inclination) to read any of the books about the energy crisis the world faces (and specifically the liquid fuels crisis), then rent or buy "A Crude Awakening". It takes a hard and painful look at petroleum's history, current position as the foundation of our modern industrial way of life, and a shocking look at what we may face in the not so distant future. Many of the authors listed below are interviewed. There's also some great historical footage of M. King Hubbert explaining his predictions of the peak of US petroleum production. Dr. Hubbert predicted in 1956 that the US would peak between 1970 and 1972 and enter a long, slow permanent decline. At the time he was ridiculed. Amazingly enough, we peaked in 1970 at 11.3 million barrels per day (US DOE figures) and domestic production has declined to 6.8 milltion barrels per day in 2006, in spite of one of the most aggressive exploration and drilling sprees since the early days of the US oil industry, and in spite of the discovery and development of Alaska's North Slope field. There is no reason to expect that world reserves will perform significantly differently. "A Crude Awakening" will take about 90 minutes of your time, but give you a great overview of what the world we know is facing. Highly recommended.