Customer Reviews

Oil Addiction: The World in Peril

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I just received this book yesterday, and eagerly read several chapters last night. I will say two things about this relatively short book (237 pages w/ somewhat large font size):

1) It is highly readable, both in prose and in format. The author's anecdotal stories and observations from all over the globe are based on his career as a French petroleum engineer, and each story is quite fasinating. His grasp of "petro-history" is also very impressive.

2) This book powerfully demonstrates just how addicted to oil we have become as a species, with particular criticism of US consumption and related foreign policies. He provides a strong critique of recent events in Mespotania...and he is quite passionate about the course that humanity it taking.

While somewhat short on solutions, this book is absolutely rich with examples that demonstrate the enormity of our oil addiction and the cahllenges that Peak Oil will usher in, most likely to occur before 2010 (ASPO and ODAC project 2008 as the peak).

He constantly informs the reader of how amazingly dense hydrocarbon energy really is, and how much these amazing little molecules are performing from everything from washing our clothes in a domestic clothes washer, to an international flight of US tourists visiting Egypt - an amount of energy expended in flight which he purports is more energy than what was expended over years by thousands of slaves toiling to build the Great pyramids... These examples are very thought-provoking.

Bottom line: Highly recommended reading, especially for those who want to buy a book on Peak Oil for friends or family who may prefer to read non-technical and/or fiction-type books. This book is of course non-fiction, but it is written in such a lively, engaging, non-technical manner, that I had quite a hard time putting the book down last night. Indeed, Oil Addiction is a must read.

Although most Americans are in denial, this book details the facts about the impact oil has had on our economy, our relationship to the rest of the world (especially the Middle East), the wars in Iraq and other places, and how our future will be impacted as this resource runs out and the price rises to
levels we can hardly imagine....and within the next 25 years, if not sooner.

The author knows the subject because he has been a part of the oil industry for several decades, has lived in the Middle East and knows the different understandings that the USA has from the rest of the world. He is truly an "insider."

Pierre Chomat's book deliniates in graphic manner the collosal predicament Western Civilization has gotten itself into by our addiction to oil. He intersperses fact and true stories or illustrations to bring out most forcefully his message which comes from a lifetime of experience in the business of oil. He does not offer any easy or sentimental solutions but trusts the reader to face the truth from which alone anything constructive can come. The book deserves reading by all segments of society.

The author begins this enlightening book by relating how energy from oil has freed humans from manual labor and enabled the development of vast industries. Oil has also been the source of economic strength of nations and therefore, of political power.

He tells how our addiction to oil evolved, like the beginning of any bad habit, with a small appetite for oil - there was less than one car per household - and a large supply of oil in the U.S. As more was found throughout the world, we perceived an inexhaustible supply of oil and used it accordingly, developing an addiction to this black fluid.

As we used up our domestic supply, we naturally looked to the region of great potential: the Middle East. He describes our forays to mine and distribute those untapped oil supplies and the power struggle for the rights to this oil. He quotes Henry Kissinger, "Oil is too important a commodity to be left to the Arabs."

One of the nice features of this well written book is the author's frequent use of visual illustrations. For example, he describes how many barrels of oil are needed to fly a person across the Atlantic, and what the world's daily oil production would look like if it were a river: like the Seine flowing through Paris. He compares the future global outlook for oil with the history of the rise and demise of the sardine industry in Monterey. The supply of sardines was once viewed as inexhaustible.

There is much more in this very readable book, bringing the reader up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2001 and its oil implications.

Jean-Michel Cousteau, in his preface to OIL ADDICTION, asks the overarching question, "Will we burn and bleed the planet to death for the comfort of a small minority?" Throughout his book the author poses this question in a variety of ways. He carefully examines its moral core while weaving allegory and fact to create a fabric of vivid patterns. These focus our attention on the policies and events which bring us to the perilous confrontatnions that today engulf our planet.
The author introduces the reader to a new term of his own creation which he uses throughout his book. This term is 'ergamine', which he defines as a drop of oil and it embodies the ENERGY bound up in that drop of oil(or a natural gas bubble, or a lump of coal). The energy released by burning an 'ergmine' is equivalent to the energy released/consumed in a day of manual labor. In the author's lexicon, 'ergamines' become 'energy slaves' which pass from oil producers to oil consumers at unjust prices. Thus oil is the great multiplier which is essential to the wealth and dominance of industrial societies. The author argues, "It is almost the sole guarantor of power for the countries of the Northern Hemisphere." Because this 'sole guarantor' is finite and is being depleted with abandon, demand is beginning to outstrip supply. This is periodically creating steep increases in price, leading to deadly conflicts over supply. The 'West' created an industrial empire that can only be sustained by the consumption of enormous amounts of this energy, most of which comes from outside the 'West'.
Almost every chapter of OIL ADDICTION draws attention to impending catastrophe. Many chapters focus on the historical context. Here the author is well informed by his personal experiences as an 'oil' professional. Other chapters focus on the injustice and inequality at the level of the individual. Still others are criticisms of policies which the author passionately believes will ultimately lead to the collapse of anything resembling civil world order.
The basic concepts of finite resources, sustainability and exploitation are not new but the author's enlivening stories give them clarity and relevance as he informs the reader. His provocative vocabulary of ergamines, corpocrats, corpocracy and egosystems (to mention only a few) bring color and energy to the discussion. In fact it is Pierre's ability to vitalize that engages the reader in the human side of his subject. I believe that it is that very humanity which compels him to expose the underlying inhumanities of our current energy driven foreign policy.
For me the greatest appeal of this book, its most engaging aspect, is the way the author relates his professional odyssey by very personal (and at times literally poetic) means. In the process he coaxes the reader to walk in others' shoes and see through others' eyes. I believe the core concern of this author is best expressed in his own words: "If the United States and the rest of the industrialized nations cannot be convinced that energies provided by nature, not human labor, must be managed in the public sphere, we will be unable to avoid catastrophe."
A word of caution: While reading this book one must remind oneself that it is intended fundamentally as a critique of POLICIES. As such it is often harsh in its criticism of American energy policy, past and present. One should bear in mind that this is aimed at a POLICY and not a PEOPLE. I expect that readers will judge this book to be an honest and spirited effort to cast light in some very dark corners.

Oil Addiction is a great read and all the above comments apply in spades. His writing style reminded me of was another French writer, Antoinne Saint-Exuprey. Amid the facts, humor and poetry, a gentle humanity shines through.

I read the original version in French. Well researched and by an oil engineer who knows what he's talking about. Filled with facts most of us don't think about as we guzzle up oil to support our wasteful lifestyle; and laced with history and philosophy. Hang your heads, urban SUV drivers! A very worthwhile read.