Author: Steven Yetiv (no website found)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Rating: WORTHY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!
The author demolishes some widely-believed held oil myths in this worthy volume, such as that America's current (and inevitably brief) domestic oil boom will lower prices. It won't necessarily do any such thing because oil is a global phenomenon and the US doesn't control oil prices. How about the one that Saudi Arabia is an oil-price dove? Nope. Can the US president significantly control oil and gas prices? Strike that one, too. Surely if the US has a strong local oil supply, then we don't need to be involved in the Middle East any more? Wrong. Gasoline costs what you pay at the pump? Nope. The US boom will erase peak oil concerns? Nope!
By some measures, the US is on track to become the world's biggest oil producer. But guess what? The US used to be the world's biggest oil producer. Then it wasn't. What goes around comes around. The author is an award-winning expert on the geopolitics of oil, and one-by-one he takes down these myths and sets us straight. Someone needed to do it, because oil myths are rife, they're blind, and they're dangerously misleading.
How about this for a disturbing set of ideas: "Building an electric car industry does not mean that consumers will buy in, but neither is it true that a broad shift toward eco-friendly cars will have very little impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Most importantly, raising the level of domestic production will never solve America's energy and strategic problems, and may even worsen climate change, unless it is accompanied by a serious national and global strategy to decrease oil consumption"?
This is a comprehensive overview of where we're at with oil - where we're really at, not where the oil companies and politicians want you to believe we're at. Dependence upon oil is a cancer which needs a cure. It's books like this one (and others I've reviewed recently) that can help us get there. I recommend reading this one.
