Now we have a set of books that are mates for BEHEMOTH. Earth - the Sequel, the subject of this review — along with Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance and An Inconvenient Truth — bracket, like a second bookend, the story of the approaching end of the petroleum age. It tells the story of the new inventors, their inventions, and the entrepreneurs who are anteing up the financial muscle to make these inventions blossom into replacement components for the oily infrastructure of our world.

The authors are eminently qualified to make this survey and bring voice to new opportunity writ large — to mark one of the major turning points of history. Even without global warming, our world is awakening to new beginnings. With the impetus of the possibility of soon blundering into a tipping point — a point of no return — with global warming, a perfect storm of change is brewing.

The book is as current as late 2007, but at the exponentially accelerating pace of inventive talent being refocused and the depth of the money flowing into this sector of the world economy, updates will likely be warranted soon. Like the story of Rocky Balboa, sequels will undoubtedly spring like perennial daisies from this fertile ground. In other words this version of the book is likely to have a relatively short shelf life.

Not to worry! It has extreme current value for a world mired in the pessimistic outlook for a struggling oil based economy that may well be provoking global warming and ruination of the planet. A theme of the book is the growing flood of budding solutions to the energy and emissions dilemma brought about by having oil as the base of our economy.

One of the most heart-warming aspects of the material covered is the emerging picture of the incredible potential that awaits the exploitation of many new ideas — not only for the public at large, but for the financial fortunes of the individuals who brave this new frontier. Many technologies, surprisingly, are much farther along in development than is obvious to the casual observer.

It describes new advances, even “quantum” leaps (and bigger ones), in solar cells, wind power, batteries, auto design, harnessing of biological agents to make new (non-corn ethanol) biofuels, ocean energy, geo-thermal, nuclear fusion and coal cleanup. There are new building designs for saving and even generating energy. There are ideas for redistributing both the inputs and outputs of the national electric grid. There are new attitudes on push-back conservation policies and practices. These attitudes are even manifesting themselves in various southern hemisphere governments with regard to the remaining tracts of rainforest and other natural treasures that act as carbon sinks. A surprising number of corporations are implementing changes that are having positive effects on carbon emissions, such as new techniques for scrubbing flue gasses for power plants. Many more exciting advances are discussed too numerous to list here.

The U.S. Government policy promoting corn-based ethanol is discussed at length. After in-depth analysis it comes to light that one unit of energy (much of it very carbon positive) only produces 1.3 units of corn ethanol output energy, while at the same time the dislocations caused by the food base being converted to fuel production has added dramatically to the explosion of prices. This is seen in the grocery store at home and especially in poor countries where world competition is causing food aid supplies to dry up. As one pundit put it, “people are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states.”  

This is an example of the level at which we don’t want our government involved. Rather than our legal representatives passing counter-productive laws from afar, attempting to mandate given strategies for energy production and use, it would be far more efficient and effective to loosen the market forces of the entire country (and the world) on the emissions and energy crisis we face.  How would the government do this?

By setting specific reduction goals for carbon emissions and assigning specific tonnage limits for various types of activities. If a corporation engages in their activity at less than these limits they would accrue carbon credits that they could sell, thereby earning more money. On the other hand, if a corporation could not meet their set limits, they would have to buy credits on the carbon exchange market to cover their shortfall. The market would be free to buy and sell credits for carbon savings similarly to transactions on a stock exchange regulated by the government.

The beautiful part of all this is that capital would flow to the efficient industries and away from the inefficient ones and our economy would adjust itself toward energy efficiency and a sustainable future in the fastest possible way. This policy is called “Cap and Trade.”              

Earth – The Sequel is a great read for anyone who would like to raise their eyes to a brighter future than we’ve had any right to expect from many of the trends we daily observe. There are areas I would like to have seen explored a bit more. For example, a recurring theme is the idea that carbon dioxide emissions should be captured and sequestered (buried) in deep holes in the earth or ocean — out of sight, out of mind, and hopefully, safe and secure.

However, it occurs to me that carbon, in addition to being ubiquitous and in massive supply, can be a very useful material. I’m familiar with a few high-quality items made with it: arrows for archery, fishing rods, exercise machine parts, use in metallic alloys, use to raise greenhouse tomatoes, etc.  I suspect that it could be used in the manufacture of many other products that we now use petroleum based plastic for — building materials, counter tops, roofs shingles, wall studs, etc. It seems to me that the best way to keep it out of the atmosphere is to make something useful with it. If we could substitute it for many wood products we could leave the forests to sponge up more of it already in the atmosphere. So, why are we dissing this valuable resource?

The other question I have is on the comprehensiveness of this survey. My concerns are on the section on long-term behavior modification to avoid generation of carbon emissions in the first place. For example, “…automobile related innovation is focused on reducing the amount of driving — currently projected to increase in the United States by 60 percent over the next two decades. These increases threaten to overwhelm the gains won through more efficient vehicles alone.” The book goes on to discuss the desirability of changing real estate development patterns (read high-density housing near working-shopping) would save 85 million tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2030.

So what about a policy of promoting a reduction of that projected population growth to half or one third? If successful, imagine the reduction in carbon emissions that would be realized through no further effort!

But all in all, Earth – The Sequel is a book anyone who cares about the future should read. Like one of the blurbs on the back cover says, “Twenty years from now some thirty-five-year-old is going to say the reason he’s a billionaire is that he read this book when he was fifteen.” I give it four stars.                           

© 2008 R. Leland Waldrip