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The End of Fossil Fuel Insanity: Clearing the Air Before Cleaning the Air
Everyone knows that fossil fuels won't last forever. Something needs to change at some point, regardless of whether the issue is climate change or because we need a practical replacement for petroleum as cheap supplies run out.
But while headlines suggest that a green-energy paradise is around the corner, not many are aware of the immense technical challenges that stand in its way. To turn our backs on fossil fuels, a staggering amount of work will be required to refit a global energy sector that has grown systematically for over a century. News of the latest green advancements can make it seem like plug-and-play technology, and simply a matter of switching from one source to another. In reality, the challenge is far greater, and infinitely more complicated.
To make matters worse, environmentalists and fossil-fuel defenders wage continuous but fruitless war, and the growing gap makes it impossible to have any sort of constructive dialogue. Each camp becomes more locked in their position with every exchange, and the most revolutionary ideas never see the light of day. Instead of building, time and money are wasted sparring.
Sparing no sacred cows, Terry Etam cuts through the media rhetoric, government propaganda, and widespread ignorance of the energy sector to get to the heart of what needs to change-and what needs to stay the same-if the challenges of moving away from fossil fuels are to be met, while maintaining the quality of life we have come to expect and rely on.
But while headlines suggest that a green-energy paradise is around the corner, not many are aware of the immense technical challenges that stand in its way. To turn our backs on fossil fuels, a staggering amount of work will be required to refit a global energy sector that has grown systematically for over a century. News of the latest green advancements can make it seem like plug-and-play technology, and simply a matter of switching from one source to another. In reality, the challenge is far greater, and infinitely more complicated.
To make matters worse, environmentalists and fossil-fuel defenders wage continuous but fruitless war, and the growing gap makes it impossible to have any sort of constructive dialogue. Each camp becomes more locked in their position with every exchange, and the most revolutionary ideas never see the light of day. Instead of building, time and money are wasted sparring.
Sparing no sacred cows, Terry Etam cuts through the media rhetoric, government propaganda, and widespread ignorance of the energy sector to get to the heart of what needs to change-and what needs to stay the same-if the challenges of moving away from fossil fuels are to be met, while maintaining the quality of life we have come to expect and rely on.
- GenresNonfiction
258 pages, Hardcover
Published January 17, 2019
10 people are currently reading
28 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 12, 2023
This was a very good book, except I didn’t learn anything new. I am a person who has worked for the energy industry for 25 years in both renewable and petroleum, so I have an exceptional understanding of how energy and society function together. I am appalled at the lack of energy literacy amongst the general public.
The second reason why is was a just an ok book as the authors’ humour grated on me. It felt contrived and over the top.
But I want to give this book to the general public and educate them on energy literacy. It would solve a lot of problems.
This is an excellent primer on the current energy systems and why switching to renewable overnight is impossible and why fossil fuel is here to stay for decades. It doesn’t matter if you believe in human caused global warming or not, but the world needs to switch from fossil fuels regardless as it is a finite resource. I know this as a geologist. Hydrocarbons are getting harder and more costly to find. Living in the Canada with its long and cold winters we need a way to heat our homes and where I live, solar, wind or hydro (rivers are too small) are not options for 24/7 energy. Petroleum products are everywhere and the world wants cars, travel by planes, bananas in winter, waterproof jackets, cellphones and coffee which all need petroleum for products and transportation. We simply cannot live without them and people do not realize how dependent we are on them.
Oil companies are very conservative in terms of PR and new ideas which is to the detriment to the public in today’s social media. I know. I worked at several of them.
I agree with the problems and solutions that he proposes, but I fear too many people are entrenched in the echo chambers and refuse to see the other side of the debate and that includes key decisions makers like politicians, CEOs and celebrities.
The second reason why is was a just an ok book as the authors’ humour grated on me. It felt contrived and over the top.
But I want to give this book to the general public and educate them on energy literacy. It would solve a lot of problems.
This is an excellent primer on the current energy systems and why switching to renewable overnight is impossible and why fossil fuel is here to stay for decades. It doesn’t matter if you believe in human caused global warming or not, but the world needs to switch from fossil fuels regardless as it is a finite resource. I know this as a geologist. Hydrocarbons are getting harder and more costly to find. Living in the Canada with its long and cold winters we need a way to heat our homes and where I live, solar, wind or hydro (rivers are too small) are not options for 24/7 energy. Petroleum products are everywhere and the world wants cars, travel by planes, bananas in winter, waterproof jackets, cellphones and coffee which all need petroleum for products and transportation. We simply cannot live without them and people do not realize how dependent we are on them.
Oil companies are very conservative in terms of PR and new ideas which is to the detriment to the public in today’s social media. I know. I worked at several of them.
I agree with the problems and solutions that he proposes, but I fear too many people are entrenched in the echo chambers and refuse to see the other side of the debate and that includes key decisions makers like politicians, CEOs and celebrities.
May 29, 2021
The best book on this topic
I have to confess the first few lines of this book were a put off. I almost stopped reading when yhe author didn’t know whether Rumi was the name of the poet or Sufi was. I thought it runied any credibility that he could have on any subject.
Then I understood the author was trying to connect with people that may not necessarily know those things. It’s a book from a lay person (who knows about the energy industry) to the lay person who would want to know more.
Another put off: he refers a lot of his sources to Wikipedia. Who in his right mind would do that? However, I truly believe there is method to the madness.
The author warns us about gramatical and typographical errors. There are quite a few of those. As well as inconsistencies like “wetlands represent 6% of the world’s lands” only to say “wetlands reprent 5% of the world’s land” just a couple of sentences later.
Having said all that, if you bring yourself down from the high horse, and think about it as real arguments to understand -and stop- the bickering between the energy industry and environmental groups, this is the best book to do so.
It’s a fun read for sure.
I have to confess the first few lines of this book were a put off. I almost stopped reading when yhe author didn’t know whether Rumi was the name of the poet or Sufi was. I thought it runied any credibility that he could have on any subject.
Then I understood the author was trying to connect with people that may not necessarily know those things. It’s a book from a lay person (who knows about the energy industry) to the lay person who would want to know more.
Another put off: he refers a lot of his sources to Wikipedia. Who in his right mind would do that? However, I truly believe there is method to the madness.
The author warns us about gramatical and typographical errors. There are quite a few of those. As well as inconsistencies like “wetlands represent 6% of the world’s lands” only to say “wetlands reprent 5% of the world’s land” just a couple of sentences later.
Having said all that, if you bring yourself down from the high horse, and think about it as real arguments to understand -and stop- the bickering between the energy industry and environmental groups, this is the best book to do so.
It’s a fun read for sure.
April 14, 2022
Clearing the air
An excellent read. Well written and in depth coverage of all aspects of fossil fuels. This book gives a true measure of the strength and depth of the very extensive problem of rep!acing fossil fuels with alternatives. The book explains very clearly why the world will take a lot longer to do this regardless of all the hype about impending cataclysm. The book explains why we must start now to begin the long haul of producing fossil fuel alternatives to keep pace with ever increasing energy demands. Fossil fuels will not last for ever.
An excellent read. Well written and in depth coverage of all aspects of fossil fuels. This book gives a true measure of the strength and depth of the very extensive problem of rep!acing fossil fuels with alternatives. The book explains very clearly why the world will take a lot longer to do this regardless of all the hype about impending cataclysm. The book explains why we must start now to begin the long haul of producing fossil fuel alternatives to keep pace with ever increasing energy demands. Fossil fuels will not last for ever.
October 15, 2024
The author does not point out anything new if you are familiar with the industry. Still a good book to read if you are someone not in the know of how entrenched oil and gas is in our lives and the ridiculous idea that we can get rid of it this decade.
“No matter where you stand on the spectrum of energy debates, there is no getting around the fact that fossil fuels have enabled the most magnificent standard of living the world has ever seen for billions of people.”
“You probably have a burning question on your mind: who is right? I will not beat around the bush; I have no freaking clue. And that is fine, because we shouldn’t even be considering that question. By framing the debate that way, we force people to consider it a binary alternative; either support the environment, or support fossil fuels.”
“What we need to look at briefly is what happens when government, organizations, special interest groups, and a whole new industry are encouraged to develop renewable energy sources and ram the output into a system they do not understand either, and expect it all to work.”
“That is a wind nutshell, is the problem with wind and solar energy. It is produced in vast quantities exactly when we do not needed, and there is not yet any functional way to store it until it is needed. Power consumption peaks, as noted earlier, at certain times of the day. This phenomenon is as regular as clockwork. So is the fact that this peak does not coincide with when the suns output is strongest, or when the wind blows the hardest.”
“The electrical grid, whose basic footprint was set ins tone hundreds of years ago, is vastly outdated technology. It is also so large and entrenched that uprooting it and starting over again, without unacceptable power disruptions, is for all intents purposes impossible. Somewhere in between leaving it alone and rebuilding it, we need to find a path to making it work with what we have in mind with green energy. But we absolutely, critically, must do that homework before we can even consider a true green revolution.”
“Once described as the Seven Sisters, these companies dominated the global petroleum scene from the 1940s to the early 1070s (and are still a formidably large component). During that period, the group controlled approximately 85 percent of the world’s oil reserves. That is a shocking number for a handful of oil companies to control, and at some point, the countries that owned the oil decided so too, because those big oil descendants now control only about 6 percent.”
“Generally speaking, World War I (1914-1918) marked the beginning of the petroleum age. Combatants entered the war on horses and ended it by machine, and the world never looked back.”
“The organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was created when a number of developing countries that were responsible for a lot of the world’s production decided that they wanted to control their own destiny. Multinationals were kicked out and state oil firms took control of petroleum reserves.”
“However, according to statistics Canada, the oil sands produce about five percent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, and Canada produces two percent of the world’s total. In other words, the oil sands produce 0.1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions while producing 2.5 percent of global oil production. China’s coal plants currently under construction will by themselves dwarf greenhouse gas output from the oil sands.”
“This is another facet of human nature that we simply must live with: our world is simply what we see. We don’t protest coal usage on the other side of the world, even though that would be a hundred times more environmentally beneficial, because, ah, that looks like a total pain in the ass to event try.”
“Nowadays, it sounds bizarre to stand up and say that, according to the tea leaves, the world was possibly headed for a dangerous cold spell. But that story did indeed happen in the mainstream media, with a particular 1075 Newsweek article at the epicenter of it all. At the time, it was a reasonable interpretation of what the world knew about the climate and how it was changing.”
“At 4 million barrels per day, it would take 1,300 years to produce all the oil in the oil sands.”
“The success of the fossil fuel business has, in a way, compounded the problem of getting the message across. Petroleum products are so entrenched and ubiquitous that it defines credulity to try to explain to people what would be left of their comfortable worlds without fossil fuels. The list of consumer products is almost all encompassing, and the things that are not on the list were likely brought to you via fossil fuels.”
“We are part of a food and product chain that is so large and energy-consuming that it is virtually unimaginable: it is amazing to see what a few thousand people go through in a week. To extrapolate that to seven billion people is virtually impossible.”
“The point here isn’t that companies should do the right thing for publicity reasons, but that the cost of doing the wrong thing is a lot more substantive than it used to be.”
“An iPhone is a chemical stew needing 75 of the 118 elements of the periodic table.”
“The only lasting cultural artifact from the era is NASCAR racing, which was formed by hotshot moonshine runners who not only transported illegal booze but competed against each other for bragging rights. It is helpful that the goods gave us such a garnish reminder of the difficulty involved in cutting off supply of that which is in demand.”
“On top of that, it appears that coal contributes approximately 25 percent of global greenhouse gases. Thus, if natural gas replaced coal usage in its entirety, GHG emissions levels would fall by about 12-15 percent, and the world would survive another day.”
“No matter where you stand on the spectrum of energy debates, there is no getting around the fact that fossil fuels have enabled the most magnificent standard of living the world has ever seen for billions of people.”
“You probably have a burning question on your mind: who is right? I will not beat around the bush; I have no freaking clue. And that is fine, because we shouldn’t even be considering that question. By framing the debate that way, we force people to consider it a binary alternative; either support the environment, or support fossil fuels.”
“What we need to look at briefly is what happens when government, organizations, special interest groups, and a whole new industry are encouraged to develop renewable energy sources and ram the output into a system they do not understand either, and expect it all to work.”
“That is a wind nutshell, is the problem with wind and solar energy. It is produced in vast quantities exactly when we do not needed, and there is not yet any functional way to store it until it is needed. Power consumption peaks, as noted earlier, at certain times of the day. This phenomenon is as regular as clockwork. So is the fact that this peak does not coincide with when the suns output is strongest, or when the wind blows the hardest.”
“The electrical grid, whose basic footprint was set ins tone hundreds of years ago, is vastly outdated technology. It is also so large and entrenched that uprooting it and starting over again, without unacceptable power disruptions, is for all intents purposes impossible. Somewhere in between leaving it alone and rebuilding it, we need to find a path to making it work with what we have in mind with green energy. But we absolutely, critically, must do that homework before we can even consider a true green revolution.”
“Once described as the Seven Sisters, these companies dominated the global petroleum scene from the 1940s to the early 1070s (and are still a formidably large component). During that period, the group controlled approximately 85 percent of the world’s oil reserves. That is a shocking number for a handful of oil companies to control, and at some point, the countries that owned the oil decided so too, because those big oil descendants now control only about 6 percent.”
“Generally speaking, World War I (1914-1918) marked the beginning of the petroleum age. Combatants entered the war on horses and ended it by machine, and the world never looked back.”
“The organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was created when a number of developing countries that were responsible for a lot of the world’s production decided that they wanted to control their own destiny. Multinationals were kicked out and state oil firms took control of petroleum reserves.”
“However, according to statistics Canada, the oil sands produce about five percent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, and Canada produces two percent of the world’s total. In other words, the oil sands produce 0.1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions while producing 2.5 percent of global oil production. China’s coal plants currently under construction will by themselves dwarf greenhouse gas output from the oil sands.”
“This is another facet of human nature that we simply must live with: our world is simply what we see. We don’t protest coal usage on the other side of the world, even though that would be a hundred times more environmentally beneficial, because, ah, that looks like a total pain in the ass to event try.”
“Nowadays, it sounds bizarre to stand up and say that, according to the tea leaves, the world was possibly headed for a dangerous cold spell. But that story did indeed happen in the mainstream media, with a particular 1075 Newsweek article at the epicenter of it all. At the time, it was a reasonable interpretation of what the world knew about the climate and how it was changing.”
“At 4 million barrels per day, it would take 1,300 years to produce all the oil in the oil sands.”
“The success of the fossil fuel business has, in a way, compounded the problem of getting the message across. Petroleum products are so entrenched and ubiquitous that it defines credulity to try to explain to people what would be left of their comfortable worlds without fossil fuels. The list of consumer products is almost all encompassing, and the things that are not on the list were likely brought to you via fossil fuels.”
“We are part of a food and product chain that is so large and energy-consuming that it is virtually unimaginable: it is amazing to see what a few thousand people go through in a week. To extrapolate that to seven billion people is virtually impossible.”
“The point here isn’t that companies should do the right thing for publicity reasons, but that the cost of doing the wrong thing is a lot more substantive than it used to be.”
“An iPhone is a chemical stew needing 75 of the 118 elements of the periodic table.”
“The only lasting cultural artifact from the era is NASCAR racing, which was formed by hotshot moonshine runners who not only transported illegal booze but competed against each other for bragging rights. It is helpful that the goods gave us such a garnish reminder of the difficulty involved in cutting off supply of that which is in demand.”
“On top of that, it appears that coal contributes approximately 25 percent of global greenhouse gases. Thus, if natural gas replaced coal usage in its entirety, GHG emissions levels would fall by about 12-15 percent, and the world would survive another day.”
October 6, 2020
Etam attempts to describe the complexity and issues of energy use. Unfortunately, much of the material is superficial, simplistic and frequently just silly. In the end, I just skimmed most of the book. No big ideas or perspectives were found. Most subjects are better covered elsewhere.
As an example, the author tells the reader that "... I'm the last person that should be guiding you through the workings of the world's electrical system.", and proceeds to prove it with a largely misleading description of utility systems.
It is unclear as to the intended meaning of the title of the book. It seems that the author claims to be a "thought leader" in the energy industry, and hopes to be engaged in sorting out issues.
As an example, the author tells the reader that "... I'm the last person that should be guiding you through the workings of the world's electrical system.", and proceeds to prove it with a largely misleading description of utility systems.
It is unclear as to the intended meaning of the title of the book. It seems that the author claims to be a "thought leader" in the energy industry, and hopes to be engaged in sorting out issues.
November 8, 2022
Well qualified straight talk to get to the point.
Terry Etam lays out a rational discussion of a topic that is often fraught with misleading arguments that don't apply. The enormity of the changes offered become clear and some suggestions become obvious, but a better way for thinking results from the reading.
Terry Etam lays out a rational discussion of a topic that is often fraught with misleading arguments that don't apply. The enormity of the changes offered become clear and some suggestions become obvious, but a better way for thinking results from the reading.
March 5, 2022
This is one of the best books I have ever read on the subject of Climate Change and our addiction to fossil fuels. Buy and read this book.
May 3, 2022
The book is conversational, practical and the authors sense of humour shows. It is a fun and useful read on a topic that brings so much division. I found messages of hope and unity.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews