Why Carbon Fuels Will Dominate The 21st Century's Global Energy Economy

摘要

This slim but well referenced and illustrated volume should have been reviewed long ago - not because it deals with environmental matters but because it provides a clear description and rational analysis of our deeply entrenched energy economy as it is likely to remain for many decades. The 'environment' enters as constraint; climate change is discussed but briefly. This is essential reading for people who would like to change this economy either for 'local' reasons to ensure self-sufficiency (so-called energy security or independence), for the more dubious global goal of 'saving the planet.' Odell denies neither the gradual depletion of fossil fuels nor the possibility of climatic change, but he questions the various political and ideological agendas that call for major interventions in the prevailing system. He keeps a sense of time and place, both in rather short supply in many current energy debates.