Power to the People : How the Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, Change Our Lives, and Maybe Even Save the Planet

by Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran

• ISBN13: 9780374236755
• ISBN10: 0374236755
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2003-10-30
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Summary

A guided tour of a revolution in the making that promises to change our lives Global warming, rolling black outs, massive tanker spills, oil dependence: our profligate ways have doomed us to suffer such tragedies, right? Perhaps, but Vijay Vaitheeswaran, the energy and environment correspondent for The Economist, sees great opportunity in the energy realm today, and Power to the People is his fiercely independent and irresistibly entertaining look at the economic, political, and technological forces that are reshaping the world's management of energy resources. In it, he documents an energy revolution already underway--a revolution as radical as the communications revolution of the past decades. From the corporate boardroom of a Texas oil titan who denies the reality of global warming to a think tank nestled in the Rocky Mountains where a visionary named Amory Lovins is developing the kind of hydrogen fuel-cell technology that could make the internal combustion engine obsolete, Vaitheeswaran gamely pursues the people who hold the keys to our future. Man's quest for energy is insatiable. It is also essential. By avoiding the traditional binaries that pit free markets against the wisdom of conservation and the need for clean energy, Power to the People is a book that debunks myths without debunking hope.

Author Biography

Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran is The Economist's Environment and Energy Correspondent, covering developments in politics, economics, business, and technology as they relate to energy issues. He has received awards for his journalism, and previously wrote about Latin America as the magazine's regional bureau chief in Mexico City. Born in Madras, India, he grew up in Cheshire, Connecticut and graduated from MIT with a degree in mechanical engineering. He now lives in New York.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Coming Energy Revolution	p. 3
Market Forces: The Invisible Hand Ascendant
Micropower--Thomas Edison's Dream Revived	p. 23
Enron vs. Exxon--or, The Sleeping Giants Awaken	p. 46
Why California Went B.A.N.A.N.A.s	p. 65
Oil--The Most Dangerous Addiction	p. 94
Environmental Pressures: The Green Dilemma
Welcome to Global Weirding	p. 117
Clearing the Air	p. 161
Adam Smith Meets Rachel Carson	p. 194
Energy Technology: Bigger Than the Internet
The Future of Fuel Cells	p. 223
Rocket Science Saves the Oil Industry	p. 261
A Renaissance for Nuclear Power?	p. 274
Micropower Meets Village Power	p. 291
Epilogue: The Future's a Gas	p. 317
Notes	p. 331
Bibliography	p. 343
Acknowledgments	p. 347
Index	p. 349
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