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33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A must read Introduction to the biggest problem we face, November 12, 2002
It would be easy to criticize this book. 175 pages deal with problems, and only 75 with solutions. Furthermore, hydrogen is not a natural source of energy, but rather, an increasingly important means of storing and transporting energy. But such criticisms would not place this important book in proper context. The problems facing society are very real. We are running out of fossil fuels. We are exacerbating that problem by flagrant miscalculations of the costs and effects of fossil fuels, as well as miscalculation of how much remains. These miscalculations seem to be carried by a deep current of denial flowing throughout society. In this regard, our relationship to fossil fuels may be turning more into an addiction than a harnessing of nature's abundance. Rifkin distils and presents the barest facets of the problem in an engaging and powerful presentation. There can be little doubt that hydrogen, though not the next source of energy, will become a rallying cry, and an icon of renewable energy in the public mind. Rifkin is straightforward in explaining that hydrogen is not the source, but rather, the medium of the next big shift in energy technology. Thin treatment of solutions after a depressingly thick presentation of the problem accurately reflects the real dilemma. The problem is huge, and at this point in time, solutions are little more than a flickering hope. The Hydrogen Economy by Jeremy Rifkin is the opening salvo in a public debate that must widen and deepen quickly if we are to have even the slightest chance of a timely solution to what is looking more each year like a disasterous finale to the fossil fuel age. If taken litteraly, Rifkin's application of entropy to human society will seem strained to the thermodynamically astute. As a metaphore it is elegant. Clearly, Rifkin hopes, above all else, to promote the possibilities of hydrogen as a socioeconomic equalizer. I share this hope. But under the circumstances, its like hoping you'll have steak and eggs for breakfast as you watch the Titanic sink. I'll take a solution anyway we can get it. But first, we've got to open our eyes, face the problem, and discuss it. Reading this book is a good first step. Don't be surprised if there are a lot of negative reactions to this book. Everone feels uncomfortable when confronted while in denial. Its worse when the denial is collective and more so when it is global. You're not supposed to "feel good" about a book like this. Denying the conclusions is bound to be a frequent reaction, but its not a healthy reaction. It will undoubtedly be better recieved outside the US where fossil fuel addiction is less accute.
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28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
I really wanted to like this book., November 5, 2002
By A Customer
As undeveloped societies throughout the world become industrialized, their energy needs, coupled with growing energy consumption in the West, will stress the capacity of energy providers, political and social systems, and the environment.The first part of the book traces the history of energy use in the Western world from the fourteenth century on. By 1700 the forests of Europe were becoming depleted of wood and people began burning coal. In the middle of the 1800s, oil began to replace coal. Each fuel in this progression has a smaller carbon to hydrogen ratio than the preceding one. Scientists call this evolution "decarbonization." Rifkin shows how each energy source in this progression uses more sophisticated methods for its exploitation, with the oil industry using the most complicated technology. Exploration, drilling, refining, brokering, delivery, all must all be coordinated, and each part of the process consumes as well as provides energy. Each step also further removes the end user from the manufacturing process. This, with a short detour into the causes of Islamic militancy, is basically the first 157 pages of the book. Rifkin's major source of information about patterns of future energy use is the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). In 1971, the US Senate wanted to create an agency to research the nation's energy needs, and the energy industry organized EPRI as an alternative. Presumably, the governmental organization would have been subject to congressional oversight, while the industry-organized EPRI is accountable only to the energy industry. In assuming the inevitable progression from oil to hydrogen, Rifkin quotes officials of the EPRI and their publications continually throughout the book, and he accepts their pronouncements uncritically. In my opinion, he hasn't made his case. Hydrogen is called a secondary energy source, because it can only be obtained by using some other source of energy. The source could be primary, such as coal, natural gas, oil, or wind, or it could be a process like electrolysis. But to become an independent energy supplier, the end user would have to somehow generate hydrogen. How would this be accomplished? Rifkin says individual consumers will generate hydrogen using fuel cells in automobiles. But the end user cannot obtain fuel cells independently of manufacturers or suppliers. Rifkin claims that there are already in place organizations that can help individual end users become autonomous energy producers. He claims that Common Interest Developments (such as Homeowners' Associations) can be major players in establishing distributed energy, thus contributing to the empowerment of the individual energy consumer. But the author of a book Rifkin cites to support this claim, Evan McKenzie, concludes that Common Interest Developments do not exist to empower individuals over whom they exercise authority. And the idea that such agencies "provide a bottom-up organizational structure" is nonsense. Despite their democratic structure, all powers, legislative, judiciary and administrative, are concentrated in the hands of their boards of directors. Rifkin also cites the Mondragon cooperative as an example of an agency that has empowered individuals, but doesn't mention any of the problems Mondragon has encountered. Does the author think readers won't notice things like this? I bought this book to learn about issues related to switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, but was disappointed. In fact, it was hard to finish reading this book. A better book is "GeoDestinies," by Walter Youngquist.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Three Important Points, One Misleading Title, September 5, 2003
What this book WAS about:1. The world is running out of fossil fuels. (Rifkin's Grade: A+) No, really. And faster than you realize. Rifkin's thorough, satisfying treatment of what happens when world oil production peaks is required reading. Rifkin writes much on this topic, making his point but setting himself up for failure with his much flimsier treatment of hydrogen alternatives (see below). 2. Fuel sources -- their abundance and depletion -- account for the rise and fall of civilizations. (Grade A-) I found this to be the most fascinating idea in the book, and potentially the most important for its grand sweeping historical scope. Readers who savor "geodestiny" arguments such as those brilliantly described in Jared Diamond's Pulitzer-winning, "Guns, Germs, and Steel", or other "ultimate causes" of history (like Schmookler's profound "The Parable of the Tribes") will be chewing on this aspect of Rifkin's thesis for days. The degree to which Rifkin's "fuel-as-destiny" argument stands up to academic scrutiny, I'll leave to scholars to debate. But even if over-simplified, the argument has the unnerving effect of putting the notion of our cozy, stable, modern existence completely up for grabs. The startling, humbling "a-ha" is that we take much for granted -- our wealth, our security, our comfort, and our expectation of constant progress. Without sufficient fuel, all of these can only slide backwards, with the ultimate grim outcome of adding "modern civilization" to the long list of great civilizations who've come and gone. In short, when oil runs out, a second Dark Age might not require anything so random or dramatic as global pandemic or cometary impact. Why an A-? Rifkin's dependence on thermodynamic entropy is interesting but scientifically literate readers will cringe when he jumps casually from physics to culture using the same terminology. 3. The democratizing, decentralizing effects of distributed energy production. (Grade C) The second most important idea in this book, and worthwhile if only to inspire other writers or your own thinking of how the world might fundamentally restructure itself if all energy were produced locally. Rifkin's flimsy exploration of the topic (just one chapter) comes across as froth however, spastic arm-waving with little research or substance, particularly when taken together with the book's most damning shortcomings (see below). I'm unconvinced that distributed power generation will lead to one big utopian love-fest; I want to hear suggestions, with the same depth and insights as in Point #2, of how geopolitics will be rattled and reshaped from the ground-up. What this book SHOULD HAVE BEEN about: 1. Renewable sources as a solution to the energy *source* problem. (Grade: F) Out of 9 chapters, less than one chapter is devoted to this topic. In fact, according to the index, only *three pages* are about solar energy! True, Rifkin disclaims that hydrogen is only a good way to store and transport energy and that it's not a primary source. Unfortunately, he writes the rest of the book as though he has forgotten his own disclaimer. By constantly whooping up hydrogen's ubiquity ("the most abundant element in the universe," etc) and speaking of household-level, distributed generation, he misleads the casual reader into assuming that energy is there, free for the taking if, like fusion, we'd only get off our butts and harness it with technology. NOT TRUE!! How on earth are we supposed to get the hydrogen to every household in the first place? In tanker trucks? In hydrogen pipelines? (Both are net energy losses.) The only possible solution, which he, at best, only implies, is that *each home/building* needs to produce its own electricity via some renewable source. Presumably, a solar collector or windmill on every roof? Yet his coverage of the state-of-the-art and economics of these technologies is shockingly nonexistent. Again, these nascent technologies, the root of any true "hydrogen economy," comprise just a few pages in this entire book by that name. Moreover, even if every residential and commercial building deployed cost-competitive, next-generation solar/wind technologies, then why not just sell excess electricity back to the grid and dispense with household hydrogen altogether? The only answer is... 2. Hydrogen as gasoline replacement. (Grade: C-) If renewable energy sources solve the "source" problem (a big "if"), then electrical generation no longer requires fossil fuels. That leaves one last problem: cars. Cars need gasoline, not electricity. Electric vehicles powered by batteries are a dead-end. Fortunately, recent breakthroughs by companies like Ballard have made hydrogen fuel cells potentially economically feasible. The economics and technologies of hydrogen-powered automobiles easily warrant 2-4 dedicated chapters in any book called "The Hydrogen Economy." Rifkin's treatment was so lean (less than one chapter!) that we're left wondering basic things like how many miles a car can get from a gallon of hydrogen. Or for that matter, is hydrogen pumped into the car as a gas or liquid? Is refueling dangerous? Etc. Due to his brevity, he completely fails to paint a picture of a hydrogen economy in which cars run on hydrogen. Rifkin's only redemption on this topic was his encouraging, well-researched statistics regarding major hydrogen technology investments among the automotive manufacturers and oil companies. For a book so heavily front-loaded with the "why" of hydrogen, Rifkin's coverage of hydrogen's "how" is strangely almost non-existent. Most of the requisite technologies exist and are gradually approaching cost-competitiveness. But he chose to mention them briefly or not at all (Stirling engines anyone?). It's as though Rifkin ran out of pages, time, or ready knowledge, and needed to wrap things up quickly with a very rushed ending. Or perhaps, at the last moment, his publisher asked him to change the title of his nearly finished manuscript about fossil fuel depletion to something containing the word "Hydrogen." The identical book might have earned five stars if it were titled "The End of Oil." Perhaps not as marketable, but you'd feel less misled by the time you reach book's end. Read it only for the points mentioned above, if you're interested; not for insights into hydrogen's future.
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