Power Hungry

In this title, the author of "Gusher of Lies" examines the hard facts of supply and demand to underscore the vast quantities of power we need, and how little of that horsepower can come from 'renewable' sources - and then shows that the US has vast resources at hand, if only it dares muster the political will needed to tap them. The popular appeal of 'green jobs' and a 'green collar economy' based on a 'clean energy future' is obvious. But the sober reality is that it has taken the U.S. more than a century to build an economy based on fossil fuels. Moving it off those carbon-based fuels will take decades and require trillions of dollars of new investment. The U.S. and the rest of the world cannot - and will not - quit using carbon-based fuels at any time in the near future for a simple reason: they provide the horsepower that we crave. Power Hungry flatly rejects the conventional wisdom. For instance: we don't care about energy, we care about horsepower. Bryce's other heresies: oil is green. Renewables are not. The US should emulate France and Iran. Carbon capture and sequestration won't work.
And perhaps most surprising of all: the US leads the world in energy efficiency and better still, those efficiency gains are accelerating. "Power Hungry" explains why hydrocarbons (coal, oil, and natural gas) are here to stay while explaining that the fuels of the future are natural gas and nuclear...Bryce also provides an optimistic look forward, by showing that the US now has a surfeit of natural gas and its industrial companies are among the world's best at developing nuclear power. Going green is a journey. To get there, America needs more than political rhetoric; it needs to make good decisions and smart investments based on facts. This book, based on easily verifiable data - all of it backed up with a phalanx of footnotes and easy-to-understand charts and graphics - provides a clear-eyed view of what America has 'in the tank', how many miles it must still travel, and what it will take to transform the global energy sector.