Energy at the Crossroads: Global Perspectives and Uncertainties

If you liked Vaclav Smil's "Energy: A Beginner's Guide" and "Oil: A Beginner's Guide," you'll love this book, which is much broader and deeper and more interdisciplinary than those two primers. This is an excellent text on energy for students, educators, business people, legislators, government officials and ordinary citizens who want to be energy-literate. This 428-page book (373 pages of narrative) contains 136 helpful charts and diagrams, and an excellent bibliography. Highly recommended.

Smil makes a powerful case for planning without forecasting. Uncertainty does not imply inaction, and the most important plans we make are sometimes the ones that do not get implemented.

Read this for a Global Energy course, and I might I write that this is one book that I would not recommend to any one that is not working or investing in the industry. This read was very 'heavy' for the passive reader, and covered a large amount of numbers and forecasts that the author himself disputes.

Great content for technical energy matters. It has a lot of helpful examples and resources to better understand energy needs and evaluate options.

Regardless of your position on global warming, this is a very scholarly and informative must-read book.