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| The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World | 
| Author: Paul Roberts
Publisher: Mariner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $1.57
You Save: $13.38 (89%)
New (44) from $7.60
Avg. Customer Rating:  85 reviews
Sales Rank: 22578
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0618562117
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.79
EAN: 9780618562114
ASIN: 0618562117
Publication Date: April 5, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Visible shelf wear -- may have some notes/markings on pages
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| Customer Reviews:
 Readable, comprehensive and urgent October 14, 2006
32 out of 33 found this review helpful
Let me be as concise as Roberts is comprehensive: this is best book on the looming energy crisis that I have read, and I have read half a dozen.
It's the best because it is the most thorough and the most readable. It is also very well researched and demonstrates the kind of understanding of a large and complex subject that inspires confidence.
So why do we have some negative reviews? It's hard to say since most of them are as vacuous as Roberts is detailed, but my guess is that some reviewers are offended because Roberts lays the blame for our energy problems on the politicians, in particular on the politicians currently in power, and he minces no words. To wit: "If American energy politics has always been dysfunctional, a new standard may have been set with the election of George W. Bush. The Texas Republican floated into office on a wave of campaign contributions from the energy and auto industries ($2.4 million from carmakers alone), and proceeded to assemble a White House that was closely aligned with both industries." (p. 298)
I also noticed that one reviewer thinks that Roberts doesn't realize that hydrogen is essentially a storage medium. One has only to read the book to see that Roberts has a commanding understanding of the so-called hydrogen economy based on the fuel cell, and a firm grasp of the problems involved in getting there.
Roberts touts renewables and anything that limits the amount of carbon that goes into the atmosphere. This does not set well with the fossil fuel industry, especially with the powers that be in Vice-President Cheney's home state of Wyoming where the coal reserves are enormous. He also touts conservation and shows how following the administration of Jimmy Carter it became something of a dirty word, so much so that now it is better to speak of energy efficiency than to actually tell people they ought to conserve, or heaven forbid, put on cardigan sweaters as Carter did. To me the most remarkable chapter in the book is the one on conservation and energy efficiency, Chapter 9 "Less is More." Can you imagine how such a statement as "Less is More" would appear to a conference of Texas oil men? You might as well be a vegan at the barbeque.
Roberts estimates that "if efficiency were approached not simply as an afterthought but as a core element in industrial design" the total savings would be enormous. "[R]eengineering the entire car concept around fuel efficiency...could yield gasoline-powered cars that get not just forty miles per gallon but sixty miles per gallon or even eighty miles per gallon... Introducing vehicles like this on a global scale would save as much oil as is produced by all the members of OPEC combined..." (pp. 227-228)
Why hasn't that been done? The reason is complex, and a good way to appreciate the forces working against conservation and efficiency is to read this book. Roberts spent a lot of time and energy finding out why we are in the fix we're in, and he does an outstanding job of explaining it to the general reader.
But, strange to say, after reading this book I am not as pessimistic as I once was. I think we are going to solve our energy problems through the combination of existing energy sources, oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar and other fringe renewables, and especially through conservation and a more efficient use of the energy we have. (By the way, Roberts' discussion of natural gas and how it is coming heavily to market and why right now, is very interesting.) As any astute economist knows, a penny saved is better than a penny earned (if only because of taxes!), so it is true that energy not wasted is cheaper and more reliable than energy that we have to get from OPEC.
There is a slight danger however of an incredibly horrendous downside in this brave new world that I hope will be there for my grandchildren. If we continue to go hog wild with fossil fuels, especially if China, the US and the rest of the world indiscriminately burn coal to fire our economies, we may put so much CO2 into the air that we will not be able to stop a runaway green house effect. That danger is worse than a nuclear winter: think of Venus where lead melts on the surface on the planet. That could happen here, and we could get beyond the point of no return without realizing it.
That danger alone is reason enough to work as diligently as possible to find ways to avoid using fossil fuels, but if we must, pay the cost to "scrub" them and dispose of the carbon without letting it get into the air. Roberts gives a good idea of the problems involved in doing this and where the technology and--more importantly--where the mentality of our leaders is on this subject.
Ignore the nay-sayers. This is an outstanding book.
 The U.S. just expanded reserves 50% September 14, 2006
2 out of 34 found this review helpful
The book deserves 2 stars because there are worse books on oil out there. But the author fails to grasp many critical issues in both oil economics and developing technology that the book ultimately serves as a another in a long string of "we are probably doomed books" to come out now faster than ever. Roberts is a good writer who is just too far out of his depth to write on this topic.
Yergin gets stuff wrong as well, but one gets a much better picture with his 1993 oil book even if now over a decade old.
 Poisonous Misinformation September 12, 2006
4 out of 83 found this review helpful
The most depressing thing about a book like this is not the outrageously inaccurate content, but, based on the high ratings and adulatory comments by other reviewers, that most people actually believe this drivel. How can we possibly form an effective energy policy when the citizenry are not only uninformed but ill-informed? The answer is that we cannot. I will not bother to go through a detailed criticism, not only because it would take an almost book length document to do it, but because, in the highly politicized atmosphere we live in, no one would believe it. Today, the "truth" depends much more on one's political views than on an objective evaluation of the evidence.
 Comprehensive Overview of Oil Depletion September 11, 2006
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is good book and is well researched. It gives balanced exposition to both the optimists and pessimists in their takes on oil depletion and the peak oil phenomenon. I already believe that the pessimists are right - our civilization is in for a very rough ride that will begin in the very near future. So, I think the balance Roberts provides does not give the impending crisis the gravity it deserves. The author is being a good journalist by presenting the alternative energy possibilities as potential ways to soften the blow of an oil crunch, but I think alarm bells should be going off. Kunstler's The Long Emergency does a better job of scaring the hell out of you - and rightly so.
Misleading, repetitive and under-researched August 29, 2006
15 out of 30 found this review helpful
It is unfortunate this book didn't come out better. Some glaring problems with it include:
- has no concept of energy physics to begin with
- does not understand "hydrogen economy" (hydrogen's an expensive storage, not a source of energy)
- downplays geological data of oil discovery (or doesn't understand it), although Hubbert is covered briefly
- believes or disseminates half-baked unproven ideas from the research sector: scientifically not valid energy sources are brought forward as alternative fuels
- does not deal with the net energy concept (EROEI) or even refer to it
With these fundamental oversights it's really difficult to recommend the book.
It's not completely without merit as it does tell some of the basics right, but mostly it's pathologically impartial journalistic fluff, without looking at the hard facts as a good researcher should.
It's too much about how we are miraculously going to replace oil, gas and coal with tar sands, nuclear power, hydrogen and live happily ever after.
To those readers who want to believe this, this might be a good book. People looking for valid and scientifically solid reasoning on the subject will be sorely disappointed.
I'd recommend books by Deffeyes, Simmons, Heinberg, Campbell and many others before this (all on peak oil).
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