Reviews for Power Trip: A Journey Through Our Fossil-Fuel Past in Search of a Renewable Future

The average rating for Power Trip: A Journey Through Our Fossil-Fuel Past in Search of a Renewable Future based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-04-26 00:00:00 Frank Riley Yikes America! We really are bent over a barrel of oil. You and I already know this, but it's good to be reminded, not by shrill voices on TV or worthless politicians on the campaign trail, but by a good 200-level primer on America's energy crisis. Power Trip is a solid, current, balanced book on the crisis. Amanda Little provides a comprehensive review of our dependence on petroleum, coal, and natural gas. In the first of 2 Parts, she underscores our sickening dependence on oil, in all its ramifications beyond simple power production, and the second part reveals some components of the promise of a green power revolution. Here's the title of her chapters: LIFE LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 1. OVER A BARREL: The Boom and Bust of America's Domestic Oil Empire 2. WAR AND GREASE: How Oil Build and Sustains a Military Superpower 3. ROAD HOGS: Why a Hundred Years of Joyriding Has Us Running on Empty 4. PLASTIC EXPLOSIVE: From Baggies to Boob Jobs--Our Love Affair with Synthetics 5. COOKING OIL: How Fossil Fuels Feed the World (and Energy Shortages Could Starve It) 6. CHAIN OF FUELS: The Story of a 20,000-Mile Spinach Salad 7. SHORT CIRCUITS: Why a High-Tech Superpower Has a Third World Grid GREENER PASTURES 8. EARTH, WIND, AND FIRE: How Renewable Energy Will Dethrone the Powers That Be 9. AUTOPIA: Detroit Does the Electric Slide 10. CITY, SLICKER: Building Energy-Smart Homes and the Cities of Tomorrow 11. FRESH GREENS: Not Your Grandma's Eco-Movement--Meet the New Pioneers If you're a cognizant citizen, and don't spend all your days at medieval fairs, then you have a baseline knowledge of these topics. What I find most interesting--and refreshing--is that the author, despite a Jane Bagley Lehman Award for excellence in environmental journalism, didn't really know the extent to which America is built on coal and oil until she began research for this book. What that means is, she earned a well-paid living writing magazine articles about the environment for Outside, New York Times, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Wired, In Style, Men's Journal, and Washington Post as an ostensible 'Expert' without spending the 2 years necessary to write a book. In other words, as she drilled down (yep, that's a pun) into the topic, she became more aware of her own complicity in being dependent on oil. This is not a book of self-discovery, but it is a genuine expression of her gullibility and ignorance--like all of our own ignorance when the subject is broken down in detail. I think Amanda Little originally viewed herself as a low-carbon-footprint kinda girl; a 'green,' young, urban, professional hottie. It was nice to see her admit her culpability in adding her own small part to the crisis. Again, this is a 200-level summary. The writing is straightforward. Each chapter could easily have been a long book. It's just good to keep it in balance; to keep the energy crisis at the forefront of your cranium with so much else going on.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-10-03 00:00:00 Jarrid Harter Off this review: Power Trip: From Oil Wells to Solar Cells'A Ride to Our Renewable Future By Amanda Little (HarperCollins) At first blush, it seems like weaning ourselves off fossil fuels won't be terribly hard: Swap that clunker for a Prius, that old lightbulb for a CFL, and that plastic bag for a sturdy tote. But, as veteran journalist Amanda Little reveals in this sweeping account, there is almost nothing in modern life untouched by oil and coal. To tell the story of America's epic entanglement with hydrocarbons, she revisits President Franklin Roosevelt's seminal pact with the King of Saudi Arabia and Fritz Haber's revolutionary nitrogen fixation process and travels from the Corn Belt of Kansas to inside New York's electrical grid. Finally, Little profiles a few "fresh greens," who, using innovative scientific approaches, might help the world to survive withdrawal from its epic addiction.