|
|
|
In the aftermath of hurricanes and sharp increases in the demand for fuel, it is difficult to pick up a newspaper that doesn't have a headline about our latest "energy crisis." That's what makes The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy so refreshing. It challenges conventional wisdom about energy, and will change forever the way you think about it. Mark Mills is a physicist, and Peter Huber holds a doctorate in engineering from MIT as well as a law degree from Harvard. The authors assert that the more efficient our technology, the more energy we consume. Planes are more efficient than cars at transporting people long distances. But as flight gets cheaper, we want more of it. We will never conserve our way around this iron law. But raw fuels are not running out. We get better at extracting them. The first steam-powered oil drill went down 69 feet in 1859. Today drillers reach through 10,000 feet of water, 20,000 feet of vertical rock, and another 30,000 of horizontal rock. The big oil fields of Oklahoma were discovered in 1859 and pumped for more than 100 years. In 1969 they were estimated to still hold 125 million barrels. In the next quarter-century they yielded 4.5 billion barrels. Renewable fuels (sun, wind) are not the answer. After decades of subsidies, they still don't provide even 1% of our electricity. Regulators have forced utilities to buy power generated this way, but the fact is that the technologies for extracting and using conventional fuels is improving much faster than the supplies are diminishing. We need nuclear power. Outside the fever swamps of the left, there is a consensus that nuclear power is safe. This is an instance when even a blind belief in global warming could actually do some good - nukes don't contribute to that alleged problem. This book excels in describing the transformation of raw materials into electricity, and its progression to ever more refined forms that power the tiny motors and transistors found in automobiles and factories. The ability to refine electricity to purer levels enables miracles like lasers, silicon switches, and great factories that use energy with astonishing efficiency. The authors detail the chaos caused by overregulation; they gleefully recount the disaster in Gray Davis's California, where regulators forced utilities to shed their generation capacity. This was followed by bad deals to buy energy from out-of-state producers, which were followed by moralistic declamations "never again to let the state be held hostage to out-of-state producers." This is a hardheaded book that relies on logic and economics. It is filled with clearly designed graphs and tables that convey an astonishing amount of information. It's not an easy book, but it is accessible, and well worth a little effort. (Basic Books, 2005, 198 pps, $26) |
The authors provide the reader with a fact-packed analysis of energy production and usage. They reach breathtaking conclusions that will enrage the Luddite Left.
