Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future - Hardcover

Goodell, Jeff

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0618319409 ISBN 13: 9780618319404

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006

Synopsis

In the tradition of Rachel Carson and Eric Schlosser, the veteran journalist Jeff Goodell examines the danger behind President George W. Bush's recent assertion that coal is America's "economic destiny."

Despite a devastating, century-long legacy that has claimed millions of lives and ravaged the environment, coal has become hot again -- and will likely get hotter. In this penetrating analysis, Goodell debunks the faulty assumptions underlying coal's revival and shatters the myth of cheap coal energy. In a compelling blend of hard-hitting investigative reporting, history, and industry assessment, Goodell illuminates the stark economic imperatives America faces and the collusion of business and politics -- what is meant by "big coal" -- that have set us on the dangerous course toward reliance on this energy source.

Few of us realize that even today we burn a lump of coal every time we flip on a switch. Coal already supplies more than half the energy needed to power our iPods, laptops, lights -- anything we use that consumes electricity. Our desire to find a homegrown alternative to Mideast oil, the rising cost of oil and natural gas, and the fossil fuel-friendly mood in Washington will soon push our coal consumption through the roof. Because we have failed to develop alternative energy sources, coal has effectively become the default fuel for the twenty-first century.

About this title

Review:

Goodell has a talent for pithy argument - and the book fairly crackles with informed conviction.

Goodell, in this well-written, timely and powerful book, makes it crystal clear what the stakes are

Goodell does a first-rate job of balancing environmental concerns with interviews from the human faces associated with "Big Coal"

"Jeff Goodell's incisive, gripping firsthand report on the second coming of King Coal impacts everyone and everything on earth." --Ralph Nader

"ƯA¨ compelling indictment of one of the country's biggest, most powerful and most antiquated industries . . . well-written, timely and powerful."

"Big Coal gives its readers a clear sense of the tradeoffs we face in our feverish quest for inexpensive energy, and that's more than enough for one book." --Book World

"Big Coal's greatest strength lies in Goodell's ability to tell human stories -- how individuals, families and communities are affected by the mining, production, and consumption of coal." --Rocky Mountain News

"Without overloading the reader with scientific jargon or overhwelming statistical information, Goodell does a first-rate job of balancing environmental concerns with interviews from the human faces associated with 'Big Coal.'"

"Lucid, penetrating, and long overdue, Big Coal should be required reading for anyone, from policymakers to consumers, who wants to understand what really drives energy politics in America." --Paul Roberst, author of The End of Oil

"Big Coal is an absorbing, urgently important book. Jeff Goodell does a marvelous job exposing the hidden workings of a deeply entrenched industry and showing how our use of coal poses a grave threat to our collective future." --Barbara Freese, author of Coal: A Human History

About the Author:

JEFF GOODELL is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and a frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Our Story: 77 Hours That Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith, based on the terrifying hours nine Quecreek miners spent trapped underground; he appeared on Oprah to talk with the miners about their experience. Goodell’s first book, The Cyberthief and the Samurai, was about the hunt for the notorious computer hacker Kevin Mitnick. His memoir, Sunnyvale: The Rise and Fall of a Silicon Valley Family, was a New York Times Notable Book.

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0618319409
• ISBN 13: 9780618319404
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 324