04/15/08
New Book: Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy.
Michael Klare (author of Blood and Oil, 2004 and Resource Wars, 2001) has written another book on a future driven by great power struggles for control of the planet's hydrocarbons.
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In Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008) he describes the new (potentially explosive) political scenario as Russia, China, Sudan, and Kazakhstan get into the game. A rather slim Chapter 9 (23p.) euphemistically entitled "Solutions for Averting Disaster" proposes the need for petroleum alternatives (rapid development of renewables) and climate friendly coal. Hey, what else is new? More interesting are his proposals for the formulation of new consortia, the need for a new Industrial paradigm and a new International energy order. However, he doesn't say much on how we get there. The book has a great bibliography, and Paul Ehrlich calls it a must read. If you are interested in this book, you might also find these titles useful and edifying: Oil and Security : A World Beyond Petroleum by Ernst G. Frankel (2007) and Out of the Energy Labyrinth: Uniting Energy and the Environment to Avert Catastrophe by David Howell (2007) and Earth in the Balance by Al Gore (NB: the 3rd edition published in 2006 - it has a brilliant new foreword based on his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech and the last chapter has a plan for getting us out of the current crisis).
3 comments
Although there is room for all countries to benefit from new energy production methods, the US cannot fall behind in innovating energy production to save our current energy industry. These old energy need to adapt to a new environment and start producing energy and distributing it in a manner that allow them to retain their relevance.
Hopefully books like this are on the reading list of the President Elect, which we suspect they are. It seems that reality is finally setting in after a long harsh year of record fuel prices, and that we are understanding our vulnerability when it comes to energy.
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