"The Bottomless Well"- Alternate Title "Yes America Really is Better Than the World"

Every once in a while a book comes along that makes you feel happy and optimistic and smug all at the same time. Generally, these books consist mainly of pictures of midgets using comically oversized tools, but occasionally the book will instead be shedding light on the energy issue at the forefront of American politics. One such book would be The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, The Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run out of Energy. I'm not going to lie, the book rocked my face clean off, and then riverdanced all over my exposed skull.

What fuels Michael Flatley? Enriched uranium, and power bars.

The bulk of the book organizes itself around seven key topics, or as the authors describe them- "The Seven Great Energy Heresies." I found this to be slightly humorous, since the proper thing to do with heretics is to burn them, much like fuel. Anyway-

1. The cost of energy as we use it has less and less to do with the cost of fuel- If you're running a wood stove, the cost of your fuel is basically the wood. If you're like Charles and running a Civic, the cost of your fuel is compounded by all the additional mining, refining, and taxes that go on top.
2. "Waste" is virtuous- This doesn't mean it's okay to leave the lights on, it means that most of the energy we use is used up making energy usable. Only a few percentage points of the total energy mined, drilled, pumped, or burned ever ends up turning the wheels on your car, or heating up your toaster- the rest goes back into satisfying the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Sure you can try to make things more efficient, but it won't lower the total amount of energy used because...
3. The more efficient our technologies, the more energy we consume- light bulbs don't convert enough energy to light, so we make LED's (more efficient!), but then a strange thing happens- we put LED's into a host of things we never put lightbulbs in. Individual power consumption- down, total power consumption- up. Think 2 million PS2's vs. 1 Eniac. The only way to conserve power is to make things less efficient, not more.
4. Competitive advantage in manufacturing is now swinging back to the good old US of A- We're in the midst of a third industrial revolution- the first was steam power, the second was internal combustion and electricity, and now the third is solid-state devices. I'd explain more, but the shit's complicated, so buy the freaking book.
5. Human Demand for Energy is insatiable- energy lets us do more things, faster and better. Things can always be done faster and better, and I want to do them that way now.
6. The raw fuels are not running out- As fast as we use it, we just find more. We used to dig 100 ft oil wells, then mile deep wells- now we drill through four miles of rock, two miles below the ocean, and then another six miles horizontally, all for less than a sixty-foot well cost a century ago. Humanity currently uses around 350 quads of energy a year, global coal deposits hold at least 200,000 more quads, oil shale deposits another ten million quads, and the sea 10 trillion quads of power in the form of deuterium- which we will eventually know how to use. Granted- Charles has some valid criticisms about how we extract the energy, and hopefully he'll explain them in the comments.
   
7. America's relentless pursuit of high grade energy does not add chaos to the global environment, it restores order- Wondering why I felt smug? Here's why- America adds no net carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, we're actually a carbon sink thanks to reforestation. We plant 3 million acres of trees a year, we add lumber quality trees 30% faster than we harvest them- to quote the authors, "For the first time in history, a Western nation has halted, the reversed, the decline of its woodlands. Within a generation, if current trends continue, America could return to levels of forestation last seen by the Pilgrims." So when Charles starts complaining that it's unfair we use so much more energy than the rest of the world- that's why, because we're so much more responsible and totally sweeter. Suck on that Europe, you carbonerous bastards.

Anyway, you should totally go out and buy this book before you start making statements like, "I wish more people drove hybrids", or "Let's start our own Luddite club at school. And I said buy, not thumb through at Border's like Charles.