Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Are we on Easter Island? -- Easter Island -- The Mathematics of Extinction -- Progress Is Our Most Important Product -- The Unremitting Rise in Population -- The Case of Double Exponential Growth -- A Lesson in Fish -- From Hunting to Farming -- Energy Depletion -- 2. Electricity and the utility industry -- It Takes Energy to Make Energy -- Energy for Electricity Generation -- Enhancing Efficiency in Electricity Generation -- Early History of Electricity -- Generating Electricity -- Generating Electricity Commercially -- System Operation -- Methods of Rate Regulation -- Operating Models of an Era of Deregulation/Liberalization -- Utility Pools -- When Demand Exceeds Supply -- The Real Lesson of California -- 3. Biomass -- Yesterday®s Fuel -- Today®s Fuel: China, India, Indonesia, Brazil -- Biomass as a Motor Vehicle Fuel -- Biomass for Electricity Generation -- Biogas Tomorrow®s Fuel -- 4. Coal -- The First Energy Crisis -- The Origin and History of Coal -- Coal and the Industrial Revolution -- Coal and Railroads -- Coal and Steel -- The Rise and Gall of King Coal -- Types of Coal -- Coal Mining -- Coal Today -- Role of Coal Among the Major Consumers -- The Case Against Coal -- Clean Coal Technologies -- Eliminating Coal Not So Easy -- 5. The story of big oil -- History of Lighting -- History of Oil -- Enter John D. Rockefeller -- Enter Marcus Samuel -- Spindletop -- Spindletop and Shell --. The Emergence of Oil as a Strategically Vital Commodity -- The Era of the Seven Sisters -- Opening Up the Middle East -- Early Attempts at Oil Price Controls -- Enter Saudi Arabia and Kuwait -- Exit the Key Players -- Shareholders and Stakeholders -- Development of Saudi Arabia®s Oil Fields -- The Shoes Begin to Fall -- The Next Shoe to Fall -- The Birth of OPEC -- The 1973 Oil Crisis -- The Era of High Oil Prices -- The End of the Era of High Oil Prices -- The Era of Moderate Oil Prices -- It®s Not Oil Prices Any More, It®s Oil Security -- Oil and Diplomacy -- Oil and Environmentalists -- Role of Oil Companies After the Oil Crisis -- A Changing World -- Are Oil Companies® Margins All That Great? -- The Future Role of Oil Companies -- 6. OIL -- The Earth as an Oil Manufacturer -- Formation of Oil -- Oil Exploration -- Drilling Rights -- Drilling Equipment -- Directional Drilling -- Offshore Drilling Rigs -- Evaluating a Well -- Completing a Well -- Moving the Oil to the Well -- Maintaining Reservoir Pressure -- Getting the Oil to a Refinery -- Tankers and Barges -- Oil Spills -- Refining -- Oil Reserves -- Are We on the Downward Slippery Slope? -- Comparison of Major Discoveries versus Consumption -- Was 2004 a Watershed Year? -- Synthetic Crude -- Challenge of Oil: The Automobile -- Alternative Fueled Vehicles -- Enhancing Engine Efficiency -- Internalizing an Externality -- Is This Politically Acceptable? --. 7. Natural gas -- Background -- Early History of Coal Gas -- History of Natural Gas -- The Battle Over Lighting -- Long Distance Transmission -- Federal Regulation -- The War Years -- Opening Up the Northeast -- Last Stop Before Total Regulation -- Unraveling Natural Gas Regulation -- The Road to Deregulation -- From Source to Consumer -- Natural Gas as a Fuel -- The European Version of Deregulation -- LPG: Prelude to LNG -- Liquefied Natural Gas -- Organizing and Financing the LNG Supply Chain -- LNG Carriers -- LNG Pricing -- The Future of LNG -- Gas to Liquids (GTL) Technology -- Methane from Coal -- Methane from Shale -- Methane Hydrates -- 8. Nuclear and hydropower -- Background -- What Does a 1,000 Megawatt Plant Mean? -- Physics of a Nuclear Reactor -- Nuclear Incidents and Accidents -- Three Mile Island Incident -- Chernobyl -- Weapons Proliferation -- Disposal of Spent Fuel -- Commercial Reactors -- Fusion Power -- Future of Nuclear Power -- Hydropower -- The Saga of the Hoover and the Glen Canyon Dams -- Aswan High Dam -- 9. Sustainable energy -- Meaning of Sustainability -- Geothermal Energy -- Wind Energy -- Objections to Wind Power -- Evaluating a Potential Site -- Financial Incentives -- Small Can Be Beautiful -- Solar Energy -- Thermal Solar Energy -- Photovoltaic Energy -- Economics of Solar Power -- Ocean Energy -- Sustainable Energy and Economic Development -- A Sustainable Energy Action Plan --. 10. Looking toward the future -- The Hydrogen Economy -- Hydrogen Stores Electricity -- Tomorrow's World of Hydrogen -- Climate -- Climatic Changes During Recorded History -- Where is Climate Headed? -- Carbon Dioxide Conundrum -- Projecting the Future -- The Environment -- The U.S. Clean Air Acts -- The Montreal Protocol -- The Kyoto Protocol -- Efficiency and Conservation -- Energy Star Program -- Light Emitting Diodes (LED) -- CAFE Standards -- 11. An energy stragety -- Oil -- An Unlikely Projection -- Scarcity Playing Itself Out -- Increasing Supply -- Decreasing Demand -- Internalizing and Externality -- A Plan to Get Out of the Middle East -- Pollution -- We Need Time.

List of Tables and Figures: Top world ethanol producers -Contribution of biomass -Employment, productivity and safety -Shareholders® percentage -Employment patterns of jack-ups and semisubmersibles -Historical development of refining processes -Write-up of OPEC reserves -World®s largest oil fields -Energy content of motor vehicle fuels -How far can a gasoline tax go? -International natural gas pipeline movements -U.S. electricity generating units -World®s largest dams in terms of electricity generation -Economic analysis of actual solar energy system -Calculating carbon release -Global warming potential and atmospheric lifetime of greenhouse gases -Proposed CAFE standards for light trucks -Average annual energy costs of oil and natural gas -2030 projected oil demand and supply -Exhausting a resource -History of the global population -Percentage of population below age 15 -Annual change in world population -Energy consumption and world population growth -Global per capita energy consumption -Marine life harvest -Energy consumption -Growth in world electricity demand -World®s leading nations in electricity generation -Energy sources for electricity generation -Global coal production/consumption -World®s leading consumers/ producers of coal -Known coal reserves and R/P ratios U.S. Oil and coal prices- Oil consumption by nation in 2002 -Role of coal in China and India -Role of Coal in the United States and Europe -Role of coal in Russia and Japan Growth in World and U.S. Oil consumption and OPEC production -U.S. oil consumption and production -. History of Middle East crude oil prices-Saudi Arabia oil production and consumption-Per capita GDP in Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Japan since the oil crisis-Cost factors of a U.S. gallon of regular gasoline in 2000-Comparison of gasoline prices in Europe and the United States-Success ratios and productivity of U.S. oil and gas wells-Nations with declining oil production-World®s proven reserves-World ratio of reserves to production-Major world oil producers-Major world oil consumers-Major world oil reserves-Frequency of discovery of giant oil fields-Comparison of major discoveries versus consumption-World heavy oil and bitumen resources-U.S. versus world automobile population-Composition of new car sales in the United States-Automobiles per one thousand population-Average miles driven per year for passenger cars-Arabian gulf oil exports and U.S. imports from the Arabian gulf-Consumption versus waste of natural gas-World natural gas consumption in tcf-World®s largest natural gas reserves-Sources and destinations of LNG-U.S. average natural gas wellhead price U.S. Natural gas reserves versus consumption-Distribution of electricity-generating capacity-Growth in nuclear power in terms of displaced fossil fuels-Role of nuclear power in generating electricity-World population of commercial nuclear reactors-World®s largest hydropower producers-Nations with the greatest dependence on hydropower-Principal wind energy generating nations-Growth in solar photovoltaic (PV) power-Automobile and light truck CAFE standards-U.S. light truck and automobile population-U.S. gasoline price and consumption 2005.

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