American Physical Society: Reviews

The January issue of the American Physical Society newsletter reviews three energy-related books: Twilight In the Desert by Matthew Simmons, The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World by Paul Roberts, and The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the Worldwide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth by Jeremy Rifkin. Simmons gets the most positive review:

…While I can’t evaluate Simmons’ claims, I find the presentation thoughtful, coherent, well-presented, and scientifically convincing. He stresses the topics on which information is unavailable or uncertain, and he carefully expresses his conclusions in terms that reasonably reflect the uncertainty in the input information. The Saudis have disputed Simmons’ claims, so the ball is now in the Saudis’ court. If they wish their claims about their projected future high levels of their oil production to be taken seriously, they must unveil their data for the world to evaluate. And we scientists need to be aware of the great anti-scientific efforts of those who would have us believe that resources such as petroleum are effectively infinite.

This is an impressive book. On the book jacket is an endorsement by Nobel Laureate (Chemistry 1996) Richard Smalley who writes, “This book is likely to be the most important ever written about oil.”

APS.org