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Green Oil: Clean Energy for the 21st Century?
In Green Oil: Clean Energy for the 21st Century? Satya brings an expert understanding of the challenges and implications of owning the Alberta Oil Sands, the largest hydrocarbon deposit in the world. Green Oil argues that sustainable development of the oil sands can play a vital and leading role in the transition from today's high-carbon economy to a clean-energy future.
155 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 25, 2026
The problem with reading any book forecasting future technology 17 years after it was published is it is bound to get things right and wrong.
It seems like Das was well-intentioned in writing the book and it is an interesting look back at how far the debate on energy development has progressed.
It seems like Das was well-intentioned in writing the book and it is an interesting look back at how far the debate on energy development has progressed.
April 4, 2011
The book was interesting, but it lacked a coherent narrative. As such, it felt more like a textbook than a mass market work of non-fiction. It was a long read, despite it's short length, as a result of the more academic style of writing that it employed (although, there was a shit joke).
There were a lot of interesting ideas, but in many respects they weren't well tied together.
And, while Das' suggestions for how to build a green future in Alberta are generally good ones, I don't quite understand how Alberta is supposed to build hydro-plants on rivers in the Northwest Territories. Those resources belong to the people of the NWT (or, more likely, to the federal government, since territories don't typically have the same rights as provinces). How can Alberta just go in and make use of these resources? Das does a poor job of explaining this, in my opinion.
In some ways, this book is the progressive's answer to Ezra Levant's "Ethical Oil." Both start with a similar premise, but come at it from very different angles. And Das quickly moves past the idea that Alberta's oil is the greenest and most ethical, and looks at how we can make it even more so.
Unfortunately, for all of its interesting ideas, the book is dragged down by the stilted writing style that I mentioned previously and by poor editing that occasionally makes it difficult to work out what Das is actually trying to say. It's worth a read, but I'd definitely recommend borrowing it from the library rather than buying it.
There were a lot of interesting ideas, but in many respects they weren't well tied together.
And, while Das' suggestions for how to build a green future in Alberta are generally good ones, I don't quite understand how Alberta is supposed to build hydro-plants on rivers in the Northwest Territories. Those resources belong to the people of the NWT (or, more likely, to the federal government, since territories don't typically have the same rights as provinces). How can Alberta just go in and make use of these resources? Das does a poor job of explaining this, in my opinion.
In some ways, this book is the progressive's answer to Ezra Levant's "Ethical Oil." Both start with a similar premise, but come at it from very different angles. And Das quickly moves past the idea that Alberta's oil is the greenest and most ethical, and looks at how we can make it even more so.
Unfortunately, for all of its interesting ideas, the book is dragged down by the stilted writing style that I mentioned previously and by poor editing that occasionally makes it difficult to work out what Das is actually trying to say. It's worth a read, but I'd definitely recommend borrowing it from the library rather than buying it.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews