Powering the Future: How We Will (eventually) Solve the Energy Crisis and Fuel the Civilization of Tomorrow - Hardcover

Laughlin, Robert B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465022197 ISBN 13: 9780465022199

Publisher: Basic Books, 2011

Synopsis

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Robert Laughlin examines how we will power our society once fossil fuels are gone. In "Powering the Future", Laughlin transports us two centuries into the future, when we've ceased to use carbon from the ground, and pointedly asks: What has happened? Whether humans have banned carbon-burning or fuel has simply ran out, Laughlin boldly predicts that nothing earth-shattering will have taken place. Nothing at all. Six generations from now there will still be soccer moms, shopping malls, and too many business trips. People will still drive cars and ride in airplanes. Firesides will still be snug and warm. In considering the end of fossil fuel, Laughlin foresees the birth of a conventional synthetic fuel industry. Present-day oil companies already have the catalytic synthesis technologies capable of converting any carbon-containing substance-coal, trash, trees-into conventional fuels. Meanwhile, energy from the sun and wind is likely to be cheaper than energy made from biomass. However, long-term storage facilities must be built for this power to last. If countries don't build them, they will go nuclear out of necessity, whether they like it or not. Since nuclear energy won't disappear, the price of electricity will drop, even as the price of transport fuel rises sky high. It might get warmer, but life will go on. As Laughlin sees it, the energy problem is simply a matter of engineering, of keeping the lights on when the gas begins to run out. The remaining cards will fall as they may. The energy choices people must make are now becoming clear, and Laughlin gives us the honest truth when it comes to moving forward. "Powering the Future" is an objective yet optimistic tour through alternative fuel sources, set in a world where we've burned every last drop of petroleum and every last shovelful of coal.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Laughlin is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Physics at Stanford University, where he has taught since 1985. In 1998 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the fractional quantum Hall effect. He is the author of The Crime of Reason and A Different Universe. He lives in Stanford, California.

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465022197
• ISBN 13: 9780465022199
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304