END OF OIL

by Paul Roberts

Petroleum is now so deeply entrenched in our economy, our politics, and our personal expectations that even modest efforts to phase it out are fought tooth and nail by the most powerful forces in the companies and governments that depend on oil revenues; the developing nations that see oil as the only means to industrial success; and a Western middle class that refuses to modify its energy-dependent lifestyle. But within thirty years, by even conservative estimates, we will have burned our way through most of the oil that is easily accessible. And well before then, the side effects of an oil-based society—economic volatility, geopolitical conflict, and the climate-changing impact of hydrocarbon pollution—will render fossil fuels an all but unacceptable solution. How will we break our addiction to oil? And what will we use in its place to maintain a global economy and political system that are entirely reliant on cheap, readily available energy?

Brilliantly reported from around the globe, The End of Oil brings the world situation into fresh and dramatic focus for business and general readers alike. Roberts talks to both oil optimists and oil pessimists, delves deep into the economics and politics of oil, considers the promises and pitfalls of alternatives, and shows that, although the world energy system has begun its epoch-defining transition, disruption and violent dislocation are almost assured if we do not take a more proactive stance. With the topicality and readability of Fast Food Nation and the scope and trenchant analysis of Guns, Germs, and Steel , this is a vitally important book for the new century.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Science, Environment, Economics, Sustainability, History

412 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

I'm a journalist and author of three books, most recently, The Impulse Society: America in an Age of Instant Gratification. My work focuses on the evolving relationship between the marketplace and the Self and touches on issues ranging from technology obsessions to the politics of narcissism. Earlier works have explored the energy economy and the food industry. I live with my family in Washington State.

Reviews

[Szplug · Rating 3 out of 5]

When it comes to surveying and assessing the global state of oil and energy, eight years might suffice to render a book dated—and I actually read this back when the paperback was first released. However, seeing as my reading speed lately could best be described as leisurely while I find myself afflicted with the urge to write reviews, I'm forced to dig into the past and see if I can pad a few core nuggets of remembrance with enough pseudo-info to produce a paragraph or three.

Right. On to the book: curiously, although Roberts effects a stance of impartiality in analyzing the then-current (2005) state of oil reserves and omnipresence for a burgeoning global energy demand, the status of alternative fuel development and the practicality/potentiality for their implementation, his very remove from stridency and/or advocacy in either direction tends to cast a chillingly somber shadow upon his investigation and prognosis. Certainly, in my case, he made clear the difficulties faced by such hyped alternative energy sources as hydrogen, wind, solar radiation, geothermal, and hydroelectric, making clear in the process that it is not simply the limitations of technology that are affecting their implementation, but the very demands of an extensive (and thus expensive) infrastructure that would be required to accompany their introduction en masse. And for anyone interested but pressed for time, a briefer but similarly well-informed analysis of the above can be found in Richard Muller's Physics for Future Presidents.

Turning back to Roberts, there is much herein to edify the general public, particularly in how vital hydrocarbons are to a wide array of industries and products that are inclined to be taken both for granted and as separate from the demesne of oil sheiks and tycoons. He also begins and ends things with nicely captured and expressive encapsulations of the way in which our insatiable demand for cheap and abundant energy has displaced, disturbed, and disfigured numerous parts of the globe—his description of abandoned oil derricks and tankers sprouting rustily from the flat and motionless waters off of the shores of the southwestern Caspian Sea serve as textual ballasts for the extensive, sobering, and ofttimes scary information imparted between their anchoring placement.

[Paul Messersmith-Glavin · Rating 1 out of 5]

While apparently promising, this book turned out to be a total disappointment. The author accurately describes the problem of dependance on oil and the need for a new energy economy, but then consistently capitulates to the capitalist economy which is the root of the climate change problem. Rather than honestly discussing what it's going to take to stop global warming, he goes way out of his way to make sure capitalists don't lose any money by changing things too fast. Basically what he calls for is too little far too late. I'm still looking for a good book on the subject, in addition to Monbiot's excellent Heat.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Roberts takes a long, deep look at how our energy economy works -- where it came from, where we're at now (running out of "easy oil" and looking down the barrel of climate change), and where we're going. Roberts is a bit conservative on climate change and easy on the energy industries -- but the book is fair, his arguments well-structured (it's a perfect text for teaching argument and research), and well-supported. An extremely important book. On a side note, when I needed a text file of the book for a blind student who was otherwise unable to procure a text file that a braillenote reader could read, Roberts obliged personally. A good man, a scholar -- and the chapter titles are all subtlely named for 70s-80s rock and pop songs.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent read, written for both oil optimists and oil pessimists. Whether you are optimistic or pessimistic about the future of oil, Roberts argues compellingly that our short-term energy security relies upon countries that are increasingly hostile to the U.S. and the West, that is the dreaded cartel known as OPEC! Non-OPEC Oil (and gas) fields could peak by as early as 2015, and then we will be even more dependent on oil-exporting nations like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Even vast OPEC reserves could be depleted as soon as 2025 or 2030, given that worldwide usage of oil is increasing rapidly. That is truly not that far away, and it remains to be seen what the next energy economy will consist of. The question I have for you energizers is how smooth (or ugly) will this transition be?

Roberts has no easy answers, but increased reliance on coal, natural gas, solar, wind, biofuels and perhaps even nuclear energy will be part of the picture. It was encouraging to read the chapter Roberts devotes to renewables like solar, hydropower, wind, biofuels. Still, considering the warming of our planet, it gets a little scary.

According to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if we have any hope of averting the worst of climate change, we need to keep our atmospheric concentrations of CO2 below the 550 ppm (parts per million). He speaks of natural gas as being a "bridge" energy source (power companies are investing big in natural gas) but if we are to keep atmospheric concentrations of CO2 below the 550 ppm, "fully one-seventh of all our energy must be coming from some kind of new, carbon-free technologies by no later than 2030. By 2050, that share must be nearly one-third, and by 2075 more than half." So this is the timeline we have to work with, if we want to avoid the worst of catastrophic climate change and have more energy security!

So it's encouraging that solar power use has been growing at thirty percent a year. Wind power is also growing rapidly, and though wind counts for just .4 percent of the world's electrical supply, the wind market is doubling every two and a half years. Roberts hypothesizes that by 2020, "wind could be supplying 12 percent of our global power needs--all while generating an estimated seventy-two billion dollars in revenue for the wind power industry."

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paul Roberts gives a pretty comprehensive tour of the the past energy (transitioning from wood --> coal --> oil --> peaking of US oil production), current energy (oil geopolitics, the status of alternative energy forms), and future directions in energy.

Some new insights that I got from this book:
- I always sensed it, but the book articulates well how our interventions in the Middle East (Persian Gulf War --> Iraq Invasion) really centered around oil.
- All the easy oil in the world has been tapped. It is becoming more expensive and more risky to tap the remaining reserves in the world. Global oil will definitely peak by 2030, probably will peak by 2020, and according to many sources, oil has already peaked over the last decade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil). Without being cataclysmic, Roberts warns that the downward slope will be even steeper than expected as the major world powers attempt to hoard the remaining oil.
- Natural gas is a good transitional energy candidate, but also a fuel source that will die out. We would essentially trade one dying fuel source with another.
- Solar and wind are nascent industries, but with real hope. Roberts predicts that wind can potentially produce up to 12% of the world's energy by 2020.

Although written only in 2004, the book is a bit out of date. It describes China as a lumbering nation that will just add to the energy demand of the world without contributing to the transformation to alternative energies. In fact, a recent NYT article describes how China has taken the lead in renewable energy technology to become the world's largest maker of wind turbines and solar panels (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/bus...). Als

During the last 100 pages, the book got pretty repetitive and I started skimming towards the end. Overall, a good, balanced study into the energy challenges over the next century.

[Nick Woodall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent analysis of the energy market!

[Ryan · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was on my to-read list for years. Guess I mistook it for a book about Peak Oil, which it is most definitely NOT. Rather, it is a rambling tome of a book, an assembly of notes taken by this journalist author over the years about oil politics and alternative energy technologies mainly. Not much was retained in my memory as I dutifully plowed through to the end. There are detailed discussions about the technicalities of how hydrogen fuel cells work and the required infrastructure to produce and distribute hydrogen as a fuel, this much I remember. Otherwise it was a hopeless jumble and poorly organized.

In the concluding chapter of this 2004 book, SOME kind of change to our dependence on fossil fuels is envisaged in the coming decade, but reality had proved otherwise as we continue to plod on with business-as-usual, alternative or renewable energy sources continue to make hardly a dent in our overall energy use (including transportation, not just electricity production). Keep the economy going at all costs, climate be damned!

[Alex Furst · Rating 4 out of 5]

The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World by Paul Roberts.
4/5 rating.
Book #141 of 2019. Read December 15, 2019.

I thought this was an interesting book and I learned a lot about oil and our current energy infrastructure.

Paul does a good job working through info about oil, coal, natural gas, hydrogen, and some other energy options. He seems to be much more realistic on bridging timelines than happens in a lot of books - talking about the importance of factoring in the economic costs as well as environmental for the move from our current, oil- and coal-bloated system to a future one. Unfortunately, I think this also is somewhat related to his shortsightedness on what we could do with good incentives to move to a purely renewable energy infrastructure.
Along with this, he seems to be sold on carbon sequestration - a technology from other books that I have read that seems to have MANY drawbacks, and does not make "clean-coal". This is probably my biggest concern, but apart from this, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. His talk about re-thinking why we want energy in the first place is especially powerful: i.e. looking at why we want A/C and attacking the wish to not be hot in ways apart from digging up more coal or oil.

I think Paul's insights on the issue of oil are illuminating and that he realizes the precariousness of our current energy infrastructure as well as anyone that I have read.
It kills me though, as I read more and more books about huge problems in the world and I agree with all of them about how we need to start now - or really we needed to start "now" when this book was written in 2005!! We need to start holding people accountable, and making change on our own. I am optimistic, but boy is that starting to fade as we stray further down the road without a single damn change. Start conversations, start conserving, demand better technologies and better governance. WE the people are the ones who shoulder the burden to spark the change the world needs!

Quotes:
"The cumulative effect of so much unnecessary internal combustion is staggering: since the SUV craze began in 1990, the twenty-year-old trend in the United States toward improving automotive fuel efficiency not only has halted but is now sliding backward, dramatically increasing U.S. demand for oil."
"Yet even a cursory look reveals that, for all its great successes, our energy economy is fatally flawed, in nearly every respect. The oil industry is among the least stable of all business sectors, tremendously vulnerable to destructive price swings and utterly dependent on corrupt, despotic 'petrostates' with uncertain futures. Natural gas, though cleaner than oil, is hugely expensive to transport, while coal, though abundant and easy to get at, produces so much pollution that it is killing millions of people every year."
"Critics place much of the blame on a political system corrupted by big energy interests - companies desperate to protect billions of dollars in existing technologies and infrastructure. An equal measure of blame, however, must fall on the 'average' American consumer, who each year seems to know less, and care less, about how much energy he or she uses, where it comes from, or what its true costs are."
"Early tribes of hunter-gatherers, for example, probably had no phrase for 'energy cost-benefit analysis,' but they knew which roots and berries had the highest caloric content and thus offered the richest energy returns for a given investment of energy."
"Although early automakers had tried steam engines, and electric motors, by the time Henry Ford introduced his Model A in 1903, the gasoline engine had demonstrated its greater power and range."
"Or in plain English, remaining undiscovered fields not only will be smaller but are likely to yield ever-smaller volumes of petroleum."
"In private, auto industry officials admitted that the existing gasoline engine was becoming obsolete. Energy efficiencies were embarrassingly low - less than 20 percent of the energy in the gasoline actually reaches the wheels - and emissions are still higher than they need to be."
"So embedded has oil become in today's political and economic spheres that the big industrial governments now watch the oil markets as closely as they once watched the spread of communism - and with good reason: six of the last seven global recessions have been preceded by spikes in the price of oil, and fear is growing among economists and policymakers that, in today's growth-dependent, energy-intensive global economy, oil price volatility itself may eventually pose more risk to prosperity and stability and simple survival than terrorism or even war."
"Today, one out of every four barrels of oil produced in the world is burned in America, and this enormous, apparently limitless appetite exerts a ceaseless pull on the rest of the world's oil players and on the shape of the world political order."
"Oil policy for both exporters and importers, whether they stated it or not, shifted toward the general goal of stabilizing prices at a level that satisfied all the dominant players within the oil regime: not so low as to harm oil companies and oil states, but not high enough to harm the economies of the major oil consumers - or worse, encourage conservation or alternative energy technologies."
"The more the United States resists a coherent climate policy, the more it becomes clear that the one country that could make the biggest difference - in reducing emissions but also, and perhaps more important, in using its wealth and technology to lead the way to a postcarbon energy order - has become the biggest obstacle to any meaningful progress."
"It wasn't that car technology had stopped improving; compared with the internal-combustion engines of 1970, the new engines generated much more power for the same gallon of gasoline. Yet, instead of using this 'efficiency dividend' to save more fuel - that is, instead of keeping power constant and cutting fuel consumption - Detroit, and eventually its rivals in Europe and Japan, went the other way, making larger, heavier, more powerful cars and trucks that could carry bigger loads, accelerate more quickly, and offer more features but that used more fuel in the process.
A quick look at the numbers shows how dramatic the change has been. In 1975, the average new American car got around fifteen miles to the gallon and had enough power to accelerate from zero to sixty miles per hour in around fourteen seconds. By 1985, after ten years of oil shocks and government fuel-efficiency mandates, U.S. cars averaged twenty-five miles per gallon, but acceleration had improved only marginally."
"By 2002, the average American 'car' not only was heavier but could go from zero to sixty in less than 10.5 seconds - a huge increase in power. At the same time, though, fuel efficiency had slumped to about half what it could have been had Detroit kept its focus on miles per gallon."
"Pickup trucks, which for decades had been marketed mainly to farmers, contractors, and other real working types, suddenly became a hot ticket for a burgeoning class of urban cowpokes - city slickers and suburbanites anxious to look tough."
"In fact, fewer than one in twenty SUV owners ever goes off-road, and only one in ten pickup drivers ever actually carries anything in the back of the truck."
"The SUV represents the height of conspicuous energy consumption. The extra size, weight, and power of the vehicles are rarely justified by the way their owners drive them. Even though owners and carmakers counter that the SUV's greater size, weight, and capabilities provide an extra margin of safety, studies indicate that SUV's not only are more likely to kill people in cars they hit but, because they roll over more easily, are actually more dangerous to their occupants as well."
"Or as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concluded recently, if the 2003 vehicle fleet had the same average performance and weight distribution as vehicles made in 1981, the average fuel economy would be a third higher."
"Coal-fired power is the dirtiest of all power. The plants emit great globs of sulfuric soot, which causes acid rain, and about twice as much carbon dioxide as a gas-fired power plant producing the same number of kilowatts. And coal-fired power is expensive. Although the coal itself is dirt cheap (about a dollar for the equivalent of a million British thermal units, or Btu's) - and plentiful (world reserves should last about two centuries), a new coal-fired power plant costs two billion dollars to build, faces all kinds of pollution rules, and takes thirty years to pay off. In other words, although the operating costs (the fuel) for a coal-fired power plants are low, the capital (construction) costs are substantial."
"As John Browne, chief executive of BP, told a reporter, 'one dollar invested today in gas-fired generation capacity produces three to four times the amount of electricity [as] the same dollar invested in coal-fired generation capacity.'"
"Flavin, for example, argues that the main reason that prospects for alternative energy seem so bleak is that most of the forecasts come from a complacent political culture so accustomed to hydrocarbons that it is unable to believe that alternatives can exist anywhere but in the margins. 'When you talk about how fast wind is growing, energy industry people will say, "Who cares - you're starting with such a small base," ' Flavin says. But by that logic, he points out, IBM would still be the dominant force in computers. Just as the IBMs of the world had no way to conceptualize a threat like the personal computer, the energy establishment has no clue where the energy market is going, where the competition is coming from, or how we may be powering ourselves in thirty years, or even twenty. 'If you had asked the computer industry in the 1970s where it was headed, you would have been told, "Mainframes forever," ' Flavin says. 'You wouldn't have heard about Bill Gates. Changes in the basic nature of the technology had already set up a new way to look at computing, but none of the big boys had figured it out. So while it's important to analyze what the big energy companies are thinking, ultimately, you may be talking to dinosaurs - creatures that are going extinct or that will barely survive, but only by completely changing their business model.'"
"When we talk about energy conservation, we mean not just using less energy, but using energy more efficiently - that is, squeezing more work, more goods and services, more wealth from each kilowatt-hour we consume. In this sense, conservation is less a question of morals or ethics than of sound business practices: maximizing the profit we can make for each dollar we spend on energy."
"Around the world, at every level of society, we squander an embarrassing volume of energy every day. Less than a quarter of the energy used in the standard stove reaches the food. Power plants in the United States discard more energy in 'waste' heat than is needed to run the entire Japanese economy' - and half the electricity generated in the United States isn't needed to begin with. Barely 15 percent of the energy in a gallon of gasoline ever reaches the wheels of a car - a missed opportunity that, if exploited, would completely rewrite the geopolitics of oil. As Amory Lovins, one of the world's most outspoken efficiency advocates, likes to point out, 'just a 2.7 miles-per-gallon gain in the fuel economy of this country's light-vehicle fleet could displace Persian Gulf imports entirely."
"In other words, it is now possible to save more oil than we could possibly find in the ground, and to do so at a per-barrel cost well below the average market price for oil."
"In the U.S. power sector alone, we could reduce our electricity rates by 40 percent and cut CO2 emissions in half by upgrading power plants and transmission systems. Replacing inefficient household furnaces with high-performance models would, within fifteen years, reduce gas demand in North America by nearly 25 percent. And, as we have seen, automotive fuel efficiency could be doubled through technologies that are already in use, thereby saving vast quantities of oil and, in theory, sparing us endless foreign entanglements."
"In fact, spending money on energy efficiency can be a lucrative investment. Every dollar spent retrofitting an old office building with more energy-efficient lights, heating and cooling systems, and windows typically nets the owner savings of $1.20 or more - a 20 percent return on investment that easily beats the Wall Street average, but with far less risk."
"Reversing such disincentives won't be easy. Governments would need to rewrite everything from building codes to tax laws, in order to encourage investments in efficiency upgrades. Industries would need to rethink the way they do their energy accounting and, in particular, incorporate life-cycle energy costs into the bidding process for capital projects. But the payoff would be enormous. If national governments resumed the aggressive approach toward energy efficiency that was so successful in the 1980s and began reducing energy intensity by 2 percent a year (which is actually less than the United States has been achieving without really trying, over the last decade), world power needs in 2010 would be cut to around half of current demand. If we reduced energy intensity by 3 percent a year, we could meet world demand in 2100 with around a quarter of the energy we use today. In other words, improving efficiency only slightly faster than is already happening 'spontaneously' in the United States would mean that within a century ten billion people could be enjoying a modern level of energy services for less than a fourth of the energy used today."
"All told, whereas the tax rate for non-oil industries is 18 percent on average, the oil industry is effectively taxed at just 11 percent, a sweet deal that amounted to tax savings for oil companies of $1.5 billion in 2000 and more than $140 billion since 1968."
"In recent years, almost 65 percent of all federal production tax incentives, used to encourage certain energy industries, had gone toward gas production, as compared with 1 percent for renewables."
"In other words, we no longer have the luxury of simply waiting to see how the energy economy evolves and hoping for the best. From now on, we must take a proactive role in building our energy future, first by understanding why and how our energy system must be transformed, and then by working to ensure that the shift takes place. For, ultimately, the question facing us isn't whether our energy system will change - indeed, the process is already under way - but whether we can live with the outcome."

[Dennis Littrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Readable, comprehensive and urgent

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 an 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 that 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.

--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”

[R Arnaud · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the subject extremely interesting and I was excited to learn more about it. But I closed the book after 10 chapters very bitter. There are three main reasons: there is a lack of convincing facts and a surplus of anecdotes, much of what is said I knew and considered common knowledge, and the book is old enough for the situation to have changed considerably. Nonetheless, there is a some valuable information on the geopolitics of the oil industry and its history.

The book starts with a confession. The author recalls being on a sand dune and watching a sunset when he realized how perilous the oil situation was. A little bit too romantic to be true. Is the whole book going to be like this? Well, somewhat. Here is an example of two statements I found written in there : 1) Chinese spit because their country lacks oil, 2) The number of SUV produced in the West can be read in the fluctuating quotas on oil exports that are set by Saudi Arabia. Both statements can make some sense, but how am I to believe either one? In a book about correlations and predictions, I was lacking numbers. Clearly it was written in a way to avoid them as much as possible. I, on the other hand, was craving for graphs.

I estimate that 20% of the book is on geopolitics, 30% is travel writing and personal perspectives, and the remaining 50% is wikipedia knowledge: what is a fuel cell, what is global warming, what is the greenhouse effect, what is a hydrocarbon. It makes a comprehensive review but maybe too comprehensive?

What has changed since the Bush era? How did the predictions fare 10 years after? What was implied by the invasion of Irak, the death of Saddam Hussein, the invasion of Afghanistan, the shift of power in Iran, the death of Hugo Chavez? I will have to read another book.

[Barry Pomeroy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found Paul Robert’s The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World vaguely unsatisfying. I have read quite a bit of information in the genre, and what Roberts included was exhaustive, but over and above that, I find his economics model of oil impact short-sighted.
Roberts argues that we can delay change until the market is ready to absorb the impact of environmental legislation, and that we have time to develop alternative strategies. He also suggests that reserves of natural gas are much higher than estimates I have heard from other people arguing about peak oil, but he reiterates the political and logistical difficulty of getting it to market from where it lies hidden in Russia or South America.
He doesn’t mention crystallized methyl hydrate at all, possibly because the technology to take advantage of that is so far away, but he devotes much ink to hydrogen as a fuel, and its supporting technology as infrastructure.
His argument is primarily flawed by being so partisan. Perhaps because he is nearly only writing about the United States, he dismisses attempts by other countries to control greenhouse gas emissions. Any plan which doesn’t include the US, although in other places of his text he refers to India and China, who are soon going to be the major players, is doomed. He is skeptical about the resource wars even though some of those were being fought while he was writing, and while he recognizes the errors in the fictional weapons of mass destruction, his arguments point to military action as inevitable, necessary and, oddly, natural.
Roberts would do better to reach beyond the boundaries of the country of his birth, and consider what peak oil might mean for those who live in the throes of resource loss and its boom and bust economies.

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really well-balanced look at the issues revolving around the limited supply of oil. I really like the attempts to understand a variety of perspectives, and look carefully at a large number of options. It could probably use an update soon, as fracking has altered the quantitative expectations of how much oil will be available at what prices over the near to medium terms. Whether the long-term forecast changes depends on, e.g., whether ocean-floor methyl hydrates can be cost-effective sources of fossil fuel. These new technologies shift my concerns farther away from peak oil (which is being put off farther into the future) and towards climate change, the reverse of my concerns as I was reading this book.

[Kevin Larsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book might be the only balanced, full-spectrum view of the subject. It is from 2005, but many things it talks about have already come about. Listed in the book are many, many things that might be done to keep climate change from getting too bad and steering the energy economy in a sustainable direction. Unforunately in my experience there is a "free market" cult, in America anyway. From talking to people and even in the book, it seems that the world runs on the rails of a path of least resistance, that given free market forces there is no other course than the one we are on, no matter how hard one may try to change it. I'm okay with that, I won't get frustrated tilting at windmills.

[Mickey Somsanith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book to read. It documents how much oil is left in reserves and where they are. It also shows what types of technologies that will be employed to get that oil. Also, just imagine what type of society we will be living in, once the oil runs out. This book predicts we have hit peak oil or we will hit in a next few years. But as things are going now, oil prices hitting new highs... this may be a book to explain and help you deal with tomorrow's oil problems. Just imagine the resource wars that will be ensuing with developing nations become insatiably hungry for oil.

[Michael Gerald · Rating 2 out of 5]

I first thought this book can be an authoritative look at the state of one of the world's sources of energy, but it fell a little short. The author is not an expert on energy; he's a journalist. The strength of the book is while it elucidates quite clearly that the peak of oil production had come and passed and that there is a need to develop renewable sources of energy more agressively, it still maintains the centrality of oil in the world's economy.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

The End of Oil provides a compelling analysis of the current oil and coal dominated energy industry and a stark preview of the looming energy revolution.

Roberts examines all aspects of energy, from the peaking of oil reserves, to the relationship of energy resources and geopolitics, to the effect of current energy consumption on global climate, and to the political and economic challenges in transitioning from oil and coal to alternate energy sources.

[Mohammed Satchid · Rating 4 out of 5]

I personally found this book extremely useful in understanding how our oil driven world works, the politics behind it and the enormous amount of work that we still have ahead of us to find a sustainable green and profitable alternative to a grim energy crisis that awaits us in the not so distant future. I think Paul Roberts books does to oil what Fast food nation did to fast food.

[Antonomasia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not because I greatly disagreed with the book's ideas, but because some chapters were so dry, the book taking months to finish, that it was about 12 years (until 2016) that I read another book on environmental issues - ending up out of the loop on something which has been a central part of the way I've understood the world since childhood.

[Paul Charette · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very nice overview of our carbon-based economy, and how it might not transition well to something else -- we've gone from to wood, to coal, to oil, all while living standards have risen. But will whatever-is-next be ready before there is no more (cheap) oil??

[Gerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good introduction to the composure of our current energy system and the possibilities of a more independent energy system taking place in the future. a book that's not for tree-huggers or oil barons, but for people who like to stay realistic and not jump onto pedestals.

[Lara Bross · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book delves into our hydrocarbon-based energy economy and the problems with it and how to move to our next energy economy. It may be a rough ride and we are already experiencing much of what he discusses in the book - written in 2004.

[Steven Passmore · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate cars more than anyone but the book becomes repetitive. The chapter detailing the deals struck between Saudi Arabia and the United States is interesting, other than that the book is I hate to say ... boring, and dated too.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

This read puts into perspective as to how close we realistically are to the end of petroleum use. Makes one aware of the way we burn through gas as if it were nothing. Makes you want to drop your day job and begin researching new energy sources, yourself.

[Caleb Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

the best book at explaining our current situation with Oil around the world.

[Derick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tough but enlightening read. Full of knowledge about the energy economy that we take for granted. How wars have been shaped because of energy economics.

[Ron Wroblewski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the book was good, his predictions as to when oil production would peak were not accurate.

[Rafael Nardini]

Sugerir que ainda há tempo para explorar o petróleo tem por base uma premissa equivocada. O mundo tem menos de cem meses para cortar emissões de gases de efeito estufa pela metade, se quiser ter uma chance de estabilizar o aquecimento da Terra no patamar de 1,5ºC preconizado pelo Acordo de Paris. Não tem mais volta. Segundo a Agência Internacional de Energia (IEA, em inglês), nenhum novo projeto de exploração de combustíveis fósseis pode ser licenciado no mundo se quisermos cumprir esse objetivo. Não é difícil entender: quando sua casa está queimando, é de bom tom não entrar nela com um galão de gasolina.
No sempre atrasado Brasil, ainda se aposta no pré-sal. Sabe-se que um campo petrolífero que comece a ser explorado hoje leva cerca de 15 anos para atingir um volume de produção razoável. Ou seja, isso ocorreria em 2037, quando o processo de transição energética terá de ser uma realidade no mundo todo.
Segundo análises da mesma Agência Internacional de Energia, às políticas de combate às mudanças climáticas causarão a queda na demanda por petróleo antes de 2030. Neste cenário, governos e empresas estarão investindo em eletrificação de veículos, hidrogênio verde e outros combustíveis sintéticos, enquanto aqueles que permanecerem produzindo petróleo terão de lidar com os preços crescentes das emissões de carbono e a maior concorrência entre os produtores remanescentes.
Ao vislumbrar o pré-sal como sua prioridade, a Petrobras ignora essas incertezas e arrisca perder bilhões de reais em infraestrutura que pode se tornar obsoleta antes do que se imagina.
Grandes petroleiras mundiais atentas a esse risco, planejam mudar o foco dos investimentos para a produção de energia renovável.
O fato é que não há mais tempo. Não podemos pensar o futuro como uma repetição do passado.A janela para investimentos de longo prazo em fontes fósseis, como é o caso do pré-sal, já se fechou. Muito em breve o petróleo será visto não como um recurso a ser explorado mas como um problema a ser evitado.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of several books I've been reading to learn more about Peak Oil. This one is surprisingly upbeat, despite the periodic acknowledgement that business as usual will mean the end of the earth, as well as the probable end of every living thing on the planet including mankind. There is a lot of good information in here about declining oil, the environmental dangers of going after what remains, and the fragile political climate that Peak Oil is generating. We are headed for environmental disaster from Global Warming. At the same time we face a crisis of energy that will, in all probability, lead to more intense oil wars than we have seen in the past. Paul Roberts believes that it will all come out right in the end so long as the government supports research into alternative energy sources. I don't have his faith in technology. For every technological advantage that we have invented, we have paid in damage to the environment and to our own health. Nor do I think that advances in science necessarily follow just because we so desperately desire them. We should continue to seek alternatives, but in the meantime, we really need to cut back on our use of energy. And we need to do it now!

[Soph Nova · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I disagree very strongly with much of Robert’s analysis and strategic vision for solutions, I think this book was definitely worth the read - both for a perspective at a time when peak oil was the key driver in lots of folks’ analysis, and for a strategic perspective, rather than a tactical one. This combines journalism and storytelling with market analysis and predictions (although it leaves out some key narrative points, like the environmental and human impacts of the fossil economy). Roberts is no leftist, but he does put forward a call for transformation due to systemic limits and already present climate impacts on the horizon visible back in 2005. The grimmest part, though, is how little has changed 14 years later.

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This came out during Dubya's reign and is so rather dated and does not strive to be an epic entertainment like The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power. However, I found enlightening and educational the overview of diminishing returns for oil extractors, the lack of silver bullets outside the hydrocarbon fuels and the convincing argument that the future for oil is a cliff not a gentle downslope. (Strong demand and government actions keep supply steady-ish until it can't.)