Power to the People

Climate change, power failures, tanker spills and energy wars: our profligate ways have doomed us to suffer such tragedies, right? Perhaps, but Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, the environment and energy correspondent for The Economist sees great opportunity in the energy realm and Power to the People is his fiercely independent and irresistibly entertaining look at the economic, political and technological forces that are reshaping the world's management of energy resources. In it, he documents an energy revolution already underway and exposes both the enormous risks to humanity and planet Earth and the massive opportunities and rewards afforded by our insatiable hunger for energy. From the corporate boardroom of a Texas oil titan who denies the reality of global warming to the Rocky Mountain Institute where visionary Amory Lovins is developing hydrogen fuel-cell technology that could make the internal combustion engine obsolete, Vaitheeswaran gamely pursues the people who hold the keys to our future. It is clear that the quest for energy is insatiable. Yet it is also essential. By avoiding the traditional divide that pits free marketers against the wisdom of conservation and the need for clean energy, Power to the People debunks myths without debunking hope.