The Extraction State

The Extraction State
Author: Charles Blanchard
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2021-01-12
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0822987775

The history of the United States of America is also the history of the energy sector. Natural gas provides the fuel that allows us to heat our homes in winter and cool them in summer with the touch of a button or turn of a dial—when the industry runs smoothly. From the oil crisis of the 1970s to the fall of Enron and the California electricity crisis at the turn of the century to contemporary issues of hydraulic fracking, poorly conceived government policies have sometimes left us shivering, stranded, or with significantly lighter wallets. In this expansive narrative, Charles Blanchard traces the rise of natural gas and the regulatory missteps that nearly ruined the market. Beginning in the 1880s, The Extraction State explains how the New Deal regulatory compact came together in the 1920s, even before the Great Depression, and how it fell apart in the 1970s. From there, the book dissects the policies that affect us today, and explores where we might be headed in the near future.

Oil in the Sea III

Oil in the Sea III
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2003-03-14
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309084385

Since the early 1970s, experts have recognized that petroleum pollutants were being discharged in marine waters worldwide, from oil spills, vessel operations, and land-based sources. Public attention to oil spills has forced improvements. Still, a considerable amount of oil is discharged yearly into sensitive coastal environments. Oil in the Sea provides the best available estimate of oil pollutant discharge into marine waters, including an evaluation of the methods for assessing petroleum load and a discussion about the concerns these loads represent. Featuring close-up looks at the Exxon Valdez spill and other notable events, the book identifies important research questions and makes recommendations for better analysis ofâ€"and more effective measures againstâ€"pollutant discharge. The book discusses: Inputâ€"where the discharges come from, including the role of two-stroke engines used on recreational craft. Behavior or fateâ€"how oil is affected by processes such as evaporation as it moves through the marine environment. Effectsâ€"what we know about the effects of petroleum hydrocarbons on marine organisms and ecosystems. Providing a needed update on a problem of international importance, this book will be of interest to energy policy makers, industry officials and managers, engineers and researchers, and advocates for the marine environment.

Why We Hate the Oil Companies

Why We Hate the Oil Companies
Author: John Hofmeister
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2011-08-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0230106781

As president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister was known for being a straight shooter, willing to challenge his peers throughout the industry. Now, he's a man on a mission, the founder of Citizens for Affordable Energy, crisscrossing the country in a grassroots campaign to change the way we look at energy in this country. While pundits proffer false new promises of green energy independence, or flatly deny the existence of a problem, Hofmeister offers an insider's view of what's behind the energy companies' posturing, and how politicians use energy misinformation, disinformation, and lack of information to get and stay elected. He tackles the energy controversy head-on, without regard for political correctness. He also provides a new framework for solving difficult problems, identifying solutions that will lead to a future of comfortable lifestyles, affordable and clean energy, environmental protection, and sustained economic competitiveness.

The New Map

The New Map
Author: Daniel Yergin
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 544
Release: 2020-09-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0698191056

A Wall Street Journal besteller and a USA Today Best Book of 2020 Named Energy Writer of the Year for The New Map by the American Energy Society “A master class on how the world works.” —NPR Pulitzer Prize-winning author and global energy expert, Daniel Yergin offers a revelatory new account of how energy revolutions, climate battles, and geopolitics are mapping our future The world is being shaken by the collision of energy, climate change, and the clashing power of nations in a time of global crisis. Out of this tumult is emerging a new map of energy and geopolitics. The “shale revolution” in oil and gas has transformed the American economy, ending the “era of shortage” but introducing a turbulent new era. Almost overnight, the United States has become the world's number one energy powerhouse. Yet concern about energy's role in climate change is challenging the global economy and way of life, accelerating a second energy revolution in the search for a low-carbon future. All of this has been made starker and more urgent by the coronavirus pandemic and the economic dark age that it has wrought. World politics is being upended, as a new cold war develops between the United States and China, and the rivalry grows more dangerous with Russia, which is pivoting east toward Beijing. Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping are converging both on energy and on challenging American leadership, as China projects its power and influence in all directions. The South China Sea, claimed by China and the world's most critical trade route, could become the arena where the United States and China directly collide. The map of the Middle East, which was laid down after World War I, is being challenged by jihadists, revolutionary Iran, ethnic and religious clashes, and restive populations. But the region has also been shocked by the two recent oil price collapses--and by the very question of oil's future in the rest of this century. A master storyteller and global energy expert, Daniel Yergin takes the reader on an utterly riveting and timely journey across the world's new map. He illuminates the great energy and geopolitical questions in an era of rising political turbulence and points to the profound challenges that lie ahead.

Value Guide to Gas Station Memorabilia

Value Guide to Gas Station Memorabilia
Author: B. J. Summers
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2005-05-30
Genre: Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN: 9781574324402

This book is designed to be both fast and easy for the beginner and advanced collector alike. Summers's and Priddy's first gas station value guide has proven itself to be a pace-setting standard in this rapidly expanding field. This eye-catching hardback edition with over 1,000 full-color photos of signs, pumps, cans, premiums, and thermometers related to the gas station field and bits of information strategically located throughout will make the reader a more informed collector. 2006 values.

When Oil Peaked

When Oil Peaked
Author: Kenneth S. Deffeyes
Publisher: Hill and Wang
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2010-09-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1429981326

In two earlier books, Hubbert's Peak (2001) and Beyond Oil (2005), the geologist Kenneth S. Deffeyes laid out his rationale for concluding that world oil production would continue to follow a bell-shaped curve, with the smoothed-out peak somewhere in the middle of the first decade of this millennium—in keeping with the projections of his former colleague, the pioneering petroleum geologist M. King Hubbert. Deffeyes sees no reason to deviate from that prediction, despite the ensuing global recession and the extreme volatility in oil prices associated with it. In his view, the continued depletion of existing oil fields, compounded by shortsighted cutbacks in many exploration-and-development projects, virtually assures that the mid-decade peak in global oil production will never be surpassed. In When Oil Peaked, he revisits his original forecasts, examines the arguments that were made both for and against them, adds some new supporting material to his overall case, and applies the same mode of analysis to a number of other finite gifts from the Earth: mineral resources that may be also in shorter supply than "flat-Earth" prognosticators would have us believe.

Carbon Democracy

Carbon Democracy
Author: Timothy Mitchell
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2013-06-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1781681163

“A brilliant, revisionist argument that places oil companies at the heart of 20th century history—and of the political and environmental crises we now face.” —Guardian Oil is a curse, it is often said, that condemns the countries producing it to an existence defined by war, corruption and enormous inequality. Carbon Democracy tells a more complex story, arguing that no nation escapes the political consequences of our collective dependence on oil. It shapes the body politic both in regions such as the Middle East, which rely upon revenues from oil production, and in the places that have the greatest demand for energy. Timothy Mitchell begins with the history of coal power to tell a radical new story about the rise of democracy. Coal was a source of energy so open to disruption that oligarchies in the West became vulnerable for the first time to mass demands for democracy. In the mid-twentieth century, however, the development of cheap and abundant energy from oil, most notably from the Middle East, offered a means to reduce this vulnerability to democratic pressures. The abundance of oil made it possible for the first time in history to reorganize political life around the management of something now called “the economy” and the promise of its infinite growth. The politics of the West became dependent on an undemocratic Middle East. In the twenty-first century, the oil-based forms of modern democratic politics have become unsustainable. Foreign intervention and military rule are faltering in the Middle East, while governments everywhere appear incapable of addressing the crises that threaten to end the age of carbon democracy—the disappearance of cheap energy and the carbon-fuelled collapse of the ecological order. In making the production of energy the central force shaping the democratic age, Carbon Democracy rethinks the history of energy, the politics of nature, the theory of democracy, and the place of the Middle East in our common world.