Power to the People: How the Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, Change Our Lives, and Maybe Even Save the Planet | 
| Author: Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 156730
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 0374529701
Dewey Decimal Number: 333
EAN: 9780374529703
ASIN: 0374529701
Publication Date: January 3, 2005
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Product Description
"By far the most helpful, entertaining, up-to-date and accessible treatment of the energy-economy-environment problematique available." --John P. Holdren, Scientific AmericanA fiercely independent and irresistibly entertaining look at the economic, political and technological forces that are reshaping the world's management of energy resources, Power to the People has been hailed as "as good a manifesto for the new energy world as you will find." (Fred Pearce, New Scientist). The Economist's Environment and Energy correspondent, Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran sees great opportunity in the energy realm today, and he documents an energy revolution already under way. From the corporate boardroom of a Texas oil titan who denies the reality of global warming, to a think tank nestled in the Rocky Mountains where a visionary named Amory Lovins is developing hydrogen fuel-cell technology that could make the internal combustion engine obsolete, Vaitheeswaran gamely pursues the people who hold the keys to our future. Avoiding the traditional divide that pits free markets against the wisdom of conservation and the need for clean energy, Power to the People debunks myths without debunking hope.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 20 more reviews...
 Wrong about Electric cars, half right about fuel cells, interesting about micropower plants. Free Energy will be the next boom. June 16, 2007
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
The next big boom will be free energy. Vijay, people want free energy and not cheap energy. Tesla proposed free wireless energy for the world which never happen. Micropower offers cheap distributed energy, not free energy. The motionless Electromagnetic Generator is a technology makes possible distributed free energy in massive quantities. Alternatives like ethanol, solar, wind, and fuel cell are expensive and produce insignificant amounts of energy. Why offer a marginal increase in available energy? People want free energy. The usage of this energy would be limited to their creativity, boundaries of logic, and available capital. Image a world where the consumer uses a 1,000 fold more energy and higher quality energy producing higher quality standards of life. People want more control of the energy generation and consumption behaviors. Technology stagnation can no longer be an adequate reason for high energy prices. Nuclear power will provide more energy. Utility companies had wait for regulatory permission to build the plant, factor in costs to finance monies, billions of dollars borrowed that raised the rates. Between 1969 and 1984 the rates rose 60 percent.
"Small is profitable", by Amory Lovins, is quoted, "Thus the grid linking central stations to remote customers had become the main driver of thoses customer's power costs and power-quality problems-which became more acute as digital equipment required extremely reliable electricity. The cheapest, most reliable power, therefore, was that which was produced at or near the customers..." Fuels cells have niched in reliable electricity near the customer, small power plants located near the customer. Fuel cell technology has been used to provide megawatt power for companies, provide backup power for computers, and small electronic devices. Fuel cell technology for automobiles, buses, and trucks remain cost prohibitive until the cost per kilowatt drops below 30 cents a kilowatt, it will be infeasible. Fuel cell technology for transportation does not make sense. "Progress has come only in fits and starts, but the trend is clear: the era of monopolization, centralization, and overregulation has started to give way to market forces in electricity." Micropower has been given a chance to blossom, prices are determined by markets not monopolies, and energy is serve the needs of ordinary people. "Forward -looking firms are already developing microgrids that can electronically link together dozens of micropower units, be they fuel cells or wind turbines." For example, Hydrogren uses 400 kilowatt, air-cooled phosphoric acide fuel cells to generate multi-megawatt systems, 6 - 30 megawatts.
However, centralized power production failed in providing free energy. Decentralized power produce is the solution either in the form of local community energy production using power micro generators or off the grid power generation, such as, home generators or home power plants.
Providing internet to poor nations does not remove poverty. Free energy removes poverty but providing increased mechanical work and logic to grow food, manufacture products, and entertain. Over a half a billion people have no access to electricity. Micropower is an attractive option, in such places. "One significant advantage of micropower is that is call allow generator owners to become producers as well as consumers- selling surplus electricity back to the grid when they do not need it."
Electric vehicles make the car an appliance. "Who killed the electric car" is a compelling story about how GM distorted customer demand statistics to scrap the EV1. Consumers wanted the EV1. The EV1 used Ovonic advanced battery technology to provide cruising speeds for adequate distances. EV hybrids could combine hydrogen reforming, battery, and an combustible engine. Even more significant are cars that run on water or air. EV1 cost 60 cents a mile to operate.
Vijay's book suggests that modern cars emit less population; gas will be the preferred choice of fuel for the next fifty years; energy is the biggest market in the world; fuel cells are doomed; electric vehicles failed to create customer demand; environmental green house crisis emphasis will emerge in politics and in the media; and micropower will not mean the end of giant power plants, instead, it will mean cheap power to areas without power. Vijay sees super Enron, "As energy markets liberalize, on-line energy-trading markets develop, and individual consumers win the right to select their energy suppliers, some people even see the emergence of virtual utilities. Microgrids would allow such firms to combine the individual efficiency of the micropower plants with the market power that is gained by bundling together their collective generating capacity."
 Excellent writing from one point of view September 25, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Power to the People does present a particular point of view. Many people do not like to read books on very political topics like this unless it matches their view. I guess I'm that way as much as anyone, maybe more than most.
But while I do not agree with all that Vijay Vaitheeswaran says, I did enjoy this book. It's thoughtful, but entertaining. Cleverly written, but perceptive. Some of the comments that stick in my mind may not be the most important points in the book. (Vaitheeswaran's account of when he met Cindy Crawford and she said "the three words men most want to hear" was pretty funny.) But the thoughts in the book as a whole all hang together. They persuade, if not necessarily convince.
Contrast this with Internal Combustion, by Edwin Black, a book that I also read recently. His book draws on a wealth of research. And I agree with many of the principles he builds up from the facts. But Black's book ultimately does not hang together. Black draws basic conclusions from the facts that the facts do not support. The book's faults pull it down.
All in all, while I agree with much of what others see as faults in Power to the People, my opinion of the book as a whole could not be higher. It's a gem.
 Has no solutions April 5, 2005
9 out of 19 found this review helpful
I expected something completely different when I read this book. I was expecting that this book would tell about different ways that the future would get energy to the people.
This book is nothing like that the first two thirds of this book is a diatribe on how everybody is using energy the wrong way. It tells that innovation and micro power is the wave of the future and condemns all government subsidies for energy. He does not explain why we will be going to micro power but says that's the way it is going to be.
I have to say I started reading this book and put it down for a while for the racist remarks throughout the book. It is told from an Indian viewpoint where he makes snide remarks about the British saying that the British East Indian Company was the ultimate in evil. He makes condescending remarks about the Americans not being smart enough to have back-up generator in Silicon Valley whereas in Bangalore India they have them.
He is obviously against nuclear power by making outrageous remarks about nuclear wastes not being safe for 100,000 years. I read nuclear renewal and the waste from the newer breeder reactors is a couple of 100 years and they will reduce that as time goes on.
He is all for the fuel cell and the book is very well written. He doesn't say how we are going to get the hydrogen that we will need and talks endlessly about the Kyoto Protocol like it was the only peace of legislation that mattered on global warming.
I thought there would be new ideas and processes for the future like biomass or solar chimneys. There is nothing new or insightful this book seems more like a list of grievances.
Something to look forward to February 26, 2005
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I almost didn't read this because of the title. In this day and age with many seemingly on the edge of reason I thought it was somewhat of an incendiary title.
I'm glad I did check it out - I loved it. This man is a seriously talented writer. The material is dense. Very dense. Lots of dates, places, people, times and tragic, infuriating, maddening events. It is rendered readable with Mr. Vaitheeswarans method of inserting ironic humor into the text just when your eyes start crossing.
I enjoyed the way he presented all of the sides that he perceives and the pros and cons for each one. Talking about the environment is a very emotional issue for some and I thought that he covered all of the bases well without making it sound like one particular answer is written in stone.
We have, at our fingertips such wonderful scientific advances. The trick will be to put them to use to solve the problems, not create more down the line from here. I think he pointed that out very well.
Wets Your Appetite, But Leaves You Wanting More October 26, 2004
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book is as excellent an introduction to the topic of the future of energy as any book on the market. This statement, however, is more a reflection of the lack of alternatives to Power to the People as it is of the book's own strengths. To be certain, it is a well-written and smartly researched book. One would expect nothing less from a writer from The Economist. It's strongest point is to so thoroughly make the case for why the energy sector must change in the next decades. The pollution and inefficiency that the modern subsidization of the carbon-based energy economy creates harms global welfare. However, its greatest weakness is to skimp on the details as to how the energy sector should transform itself. This book does not go into how solar energy works, or what government policies concerning wind energy should be. In fact in doesn't even survey the prospects for renewable energy, by say, arguing that solar cells are the future. Rather it puts forth a well reasoned case that the days of carbon-based fuels must end, and that governments must stop the carbon subsidy and research alternatives. End of story. In fact its most interesting chapters don't concern energy at all but have to do with reconciling the philosophies of capitalism with those of environmentalism, as task that the author does quite well. A good starting point for those interested in the future of energy, but if you're looking for more specific forecast of how global energy production will or should be composed in the future, look elsewhere.
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