Table of Contents
Preface: Where We're Coming From xv
Chapter 1 Six Reasons the United States Needs to Get Its Energy Act Together 1
Playing the Blame Game
The Great Energy Debate Pop Quiz
Suppose People in China Really Start Living the Way We Do
Chapter 2 Groundhog Day, or Haven't We Seen This Movie Before? 24
America's Energy Chronicles, or How We Got to Where We Are Today
Chapter 3 Giving the Voters What They Want 36
Chapter 4 Seemed Like a Good idea at the Time, or How Three Flawed Ideas Could Get Us Off Track 43
A Message to Our Readers
Chapter 5 The Basics: Ten Facts You Need to Know 57
The Great All-in-One Fossil Fuel Centerfold
Chapter 6 Double, Double, Oil, and Trouble 81
Peak Oil, or When Will We Run Out?
The Return of Snidely Whiplash: Are Evil Speculators to Blame?
Chapter 7 You Load Sixteen Tons and What Do You Get? 110
Clean Coal: The Ad Wars
Chapter 8 It's All Right Now (In Fact, It's a Gas) 129
Chapter 9 Time for the Nuclear Option? 141
Chernobyl and Three Mile Island: Twice-Told Tales
Chapter 10 As Long as the Wind Blows and the Sun Shines 162
Dam It: Hydroelectric Power
Looking for the Newest Hot Spots: Geothermal Power
Grid and Bear It: Why the United States Needs a New Electricity Grid
Chapter 11 No Place Like [an Energy-Efficient] Home 193
Are We Looking to Live in All the Wrong Places?
On the Rebound: Why More Efficiency Doesn't
Always Save Energy
Chapter 12 Driven to Distraction 211
The Big Bang Theory of Auto Safety
Take Your Pick: Food or Fuel?
Chapter 13 Looking for Mr. Wizard 235
Green-Collar Jobs, You Say? Name Some
Chapter 14 Sitting on Top of the World247
Setting theGlobal Thermostat: How to Tell if We're Really
Making Progress on Climate Change
Chapter 15 So Now What? Ideas from the Left, Right, and Center 261
This Little Piggy Went to Market; This Little Piggy Passed Laws
President Obama's Promises
Chapter 16 The Reality Show 292
Acknowledgments 301
Notes 303