Title | : | More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy |
Author | : | |
Rating | : | |
ISBN | : | 1802067302 |
ISBN-10 | : | 9781802067309 |
Language | : | English |
Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
Number of Pages | : | 307 |
Publication | : | Published October 3, 2024 |
The author shares the same acute anxiety about the need for a green transition as the rest of us, but shows how, disastrously, our industrial history has in fact been based on symbiosis, with each major energy source feeding off the others. Using a fascinating array of examples, Fressoz describes how we have gorged on all forms of energy – with whole forests needed to prop up coal mines, coal remaining central to the creation of innumerable new products and oil still central to our lives. The world now burns more wood and coal than ever before.
This book reveals an uncomfortable ‘transition’ was originally itself promoted by energy companies, not as a genuine plan, but as a means to put off any meaningful change. More and More and More forces its readers to understand the modern world in all its voracious reality, and the true nature of the challenges heading our way.
More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy Reviews
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A much necessary sobering view about the relationship of fossil fuels, their powering of the large scale manufacturing and the entrenched positions of the growth focussed polities - and their policies - that disallow for radical change
The effect of compounding of the installed stock of fossil powered tech - and the design of value chains connecting power / electricity generation (wood in ample demand to support scaling of shaft coal mining in early 20th century) to final production (amount of wood required for palette and box packaging). Fossil hardly escape - and the relative representation of demand covered by new “less impactful” energy drivers - ignore the design of the pyramid:
Its oil (car fuel) standing on top of coal (steel production) standing on top of wood (originally to support coal, now to provide cheap energy in “developing countries”)
A lot of this has to do with the growth paradigm - with the ball of climate impact continued to be pushed forward, for as long as the cash from “business as usual” can cover the “occasional negative cost”. Also a result of the capital system with margins sitting in the final production countries whereas the impact of basic extraction and energy intensive processing sits “elsewhere”.
Moving the needle partly happens by the new wealth of non-fossil fuel tycoons - but they also provide a nice distraction for the capital surplus (investment) that was in other eras sent to finance transformative programs. -
Geniální.