Recommended: Energy: A Human History

Richard Rhodes, who wrote the wonderful 1987 book The Making of the Atomic Bomb, has written a new book on Energy, entitled Energy: A Human History. It is well worth reading just for general interest and to appreciate the degree to which energy use throughout the ages has shaped civilizations and cultures. But of more immediate application is his last chapter, in which he deals with the mythology and facts of renewable energy. Basically, the glowing promises of some that we will transition to carbon-free renewable energy within the next 20 years or so are a fantasy being sold to the public with little or no factual or scientific or economic basis. Moreover, if we really want to get to mostly carbon-free energy, we will have to overcome the American public's irrational fear of nuclear energy, because nuclear energy is the only way we can provide enough carbon-free energy to manage our growing electrical base load throughout the world.  This book will give the reader a factual basis with which to judge the (often unrealistic) claims of the renewable-energy proponents.