Energy: A Human History
People have lived and died, businesses have prospered and failed, and nations have risen to world power and declined, all over energy challenges. Through an unforgettable cast of characters, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes explains how wood gave way to coal and coal made room for oil, as we now turn to natural gas, nuclear power, and renewable energy. “Entertaining and informative…a powerful look at the importance of science” (NPR.org), Rhodes looks back on five centuries of progress, through such influential figures as Queen Elizabeth I, King James I, Benjamin Franklin, Herman Melville, John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Ford.
In his “magisterial history…a tour de force of popular science” ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Rhodes shows how breakthroughs in energy production occurred; from animal and waterpower to the steam engine, from internal-combustion to the electric motor. He looks at the current energy landscape, with a focus on how wind energy is competing for dominance with cast supplies of coal and natural gas. He also addresses the specter of global warming, and a population hurtling towards ten billion by 2100.
Human beings have confronted the problem of how to draw energy from raw material since the beginning of time. Each invention, each discovery, each adaptation brought further challenges, and through such transformations, we arrived at where we are today. “A beautifully written, often inspiring saga of ingenuity and progress… Energy brings facts, context, and clarity to a key, often contentious subject” ( Booklist, starred review).
Reviews (105)
Kindle app ruins book’s illustrations.
The book is excellent. It explains our energy past to elucidate our energy present and future. And it’s quite well written. However, don’t buy this or any other book with graphs, photos, or illustrations on the Kindle app. This book has many such features which I’m sure would aid in comprehending the material, if only they were rendered at a size larger than my little fingernail. As it stands, it is impossible to even see what most of the diagrams and photos are meant to convey. And yes, I tried to no avail to enlarge them. Amazon really needs to fix this. For now, though, I’d advise folks to avoid trying to read even marginally technical books on the Kindle app.
Factual and Hard Headed
Free flowing and highly readable, indeed engrossing with many fascinating vignettes about historical events that shaped energy markets. And I was pleasantly surprised this was not an ideological treatise about fossil fuels and climate change, in fact reading between the lines it seemed to me that because of their inability to be scaled without huge subsidies the author is highly skeptical about renewable sources like wind and solar, waxing instead about the lost promise of nuclear, lost because in a democracy irrational fears (in this case about radioactivity) become accepted in to the public discourse as hard fact. He probably needed to be circumspect about his skepticism of wind and solar for fear of being skewered alive on the altar of political correctness by the "climate scientist" cabal, always fearful of some counterargument to the Faith jeopardizing their research grants.....
Interesting History
I read this book based upon a recommendation in the Wall Street Journal and was not disappointed. The author covers the evolution from wood to coal to steam to electricity to nuclear and does a pretty good job of looking at the upsides and downsides of each. Each energy source has done some harm but lots of good. We need to keep evolving to make the world a better place. We’ve done it before.
Another interesting technical read from Rhodes
Excellent book. I enjoy the way Rhodes brings historical characters to life. I do recommend it. I have two issues, both having to do with the Kindle version. First, the illustrations are hard enough to view when you CAN expand them. I'd say half the illustrations in this book could not be expanded so were essentially worthless little blobs on my screen. Second, I was immersed in reading with about 4 hrs and 45% remaining to read when the narrative suddenly ended. Huh? Turns out that last 45% is acknowledgments, bibliography, notes and index. Kudos to Rhodes for being so thorough but I was pretty let down by my perceived loss of material. I wasn't really interested in spending 4hrs perusing the extras. I think this Kindle quirk needs to change.
A Tragically Flawed History of Energy, with numerous errors and misinformation on renewable energy.
The first 19 chapters provides a well written detailed history of every important form of energy in the past 400 years except renewables. Mr. Rhodes last chapter is so poorly written and full of misinformation on renewable energy that it destroys his credibility as an energy expert. He makes unbelievably dumb errors in explaining the contribution of wind and solar energy. This leads the author to a tragically flawed conclusion that our future must rely heavily on nuclear energy. It’s apparent that convincing us of this is his real motivation for writing this book. For instance in the last chapter Mr. Rhodes writes “By 2017, solar energy was delivering a small but increasing share of world electricity: 305 gigawatts out of total world installed capacity of some 25 million gigawatts—much less than 1 percent.” But this is absolutely wrong. The world actually had less than 7 thousand (not 25 million) gigawatts of electricity power generation capacity in 2017. And solar power was 387 gigawatts. Thus on a power basis solar had grown to almost 6% of world capacity, not as Rhodes states “much less than 1%”. Doubt this? Google world electricity power generation. But power capacity is not energy. In 2017 the total world electric energy production was 24,000 terawatt-hours. That same year solar energy production was almost 500 terawatt-hours or almost 2% of world energy. This may still sound trivial until you understand that over the previous dozen years solar energy production grew by a factor of 100. Yes that’s 100 times what solar produced in 2005. Mr. Rhodes choses to ignore the incredible exponential growth rate of solar energy. He also ignores that solar energy cost is continuously decreasing and its growth is not constrained by any resources limits. On the next page Mr. Rhodes repeats this same error with wind “In 2016 total installed wind electrical capacity reached 487 gigawatts. That’s much less than 1 percent of world total electricity.” Way wrong again. Wind was almost 10% of world electric power capacity. Wind energy production was actually more than 1100 terawatt hours or over 4% of world energy. Rhodes reinforces this error later in the chapter quoting another source as saying “wind energy occupies today 0.2% of the energy market, a point nuclear energy crossed in the 1950s.” Wind, like solar, has an impressive growth rate with decreasing costs and growth not constrained by resources limits. Is Rhodes simply ignorant about the true potential of solar and wind to become dominant forms of energy in the next dozen years? Or is he deliberately trying to mislead us into believing renewable energy is too puny to ever amount to much. His apparent intent is for us to embrace nuclear as a major part of our energy future. The book’s flawed conclusion with potentially tragic consequences deserves one star. For an up to date understanding of where solar and wind energy are going in the next dozen years, and the incredible synergy the electric vehicle will play in solving our energy and climate change issues, I suggest reading Bruce Usher’s “Renewable Energy, A Primer for the Twenty First Century”.
A knowledgable, readable book worth every minute.
Richard Rhodes is well known for careful research and clear writing in his several non-fiction books. This book is no exception. What makes it particularly interesting is his customary and illuminating use of narratives about individuals to illustrate the larger historical movements that he describes. Happily, the book is well documented so that the reader may follow up on details without excess searching for references. The topic is timely, and the book is valuable.
This book will help you understand the challenges and history of our use of energy
This is a great walk through the evolution of energy and a view of what is to come. Even if you think you know everything about how we got to where we are and the path forward, you will be surprised at how the author ties it all together. this book is a well balanced view of what we face and offers some thoughts on the path forward. It does a very good job in the discussion of today's energy picture to bring out the hidden biases that have been shaping the public discussion. There were some surprises in that section for me.
A must anyone who was ever interested in how things work
A suitable follow up for the same author's award-winning book, published 30 years ago, about the origins of the atomic bomb. It is also a must read for anyone who wants to understand the science (and pseudo-science) behind the climate change theory and the realities about energy production and usage that you will have difficulty finding told in such an entertaining fashion anywhere else. This book was so good that I bought it after I read it for free from a copy I borrowed from the local public library.
Not up to the previous efforts of this author
While I found this book somewhat interesting, it was a huge letdown compared to Rhode’s previous books that I have read. Huge gaps in the main story were apparent, and many of the engaging histories seemed incomplete - like an equation where the most important steps are “left to the reader.“ Furthermore, the end seemed rather abrupt; rather like he had simply run out of energy - so to speak - rather than because it was a natural ending point. Indeed, many of the modern energy sources were given extremely short shrift. A book that deals with its subject more appropriately - broader and yet more engaging - is “Atomic Awakening.” The current book simply doesn’t have the scope, effectiveness, or engagement of “the making of the atomic bomb.“
A most stimulating history of our biggest leaps of energy use
Richard puts together a thorough and fascinating account of modern society's various forms of fuel, from issues with wood scarcity to the rhyme and reason behind railroads and their genesis as tools for coal transport, to the nascent Saudi Arabian oil industry, steam and electric and internal combustion cars all the way to Nuclear fission-based energy. A discussion on the history of timelines and energy transitions, with an eye on predicting the future, is presented in the last chapter. Beware: a huge chunk at the end of the book is acknowledgements and bibliography. The actual story isn't as long as it seems from the thickness of the book.
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