(Books) The Power Surge (Council on Foreign Relations)
www.cfr.org/energy/power-surge/p29746
Everything we once knew about American energy seems to be changing," writes Michael A. Levi, CFR senior fellow and director of the program on energy security and climate change, in The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future. "The United States can strengthen its economy, improve national security, and confront climate change if it intelligently embraces the historic gains unfolding all across the energy landscape."
In his new book, Levi offers an intricate portrayal of the rapidly evolving American energy landscape—one defined by surging oil and gas production, a thriving renewable energy industry, and falling oil consumption—and illuminates the consequences of these changes for the economy, national security, and the environment.
The book includes on-the-ground reporting and eye-opening analysis of the country's energy choices, cutting through heated claims made by all sides in America's energy fights. On natural gas, Levi writes: "People who claim that natural gas can propel the U.S. economy in the twenty-first century, if only pesky environmentalists and other concerned citizens lay off, are exaggerating the benefits of the shale gas bonanza. But one needn't exaggerate on this front to conclude that shale gas is a big deal. Indeed the potential consequences go well beyond economics."
Levi also traces the origins of the U.S. energy debate: "[The] fundamentals of the fight over the future of American energy aren't new. Many of the details are novel, but the roots of the basic conflicts stretch back to the first modern oil crisis, which rocked the world in the autumn of 1973. It is no exaggeration to claim that most of the battle lines that define today's clashes were first drawn decades ago."
Levi's book debunks the idea that the fight over America's energy future is a zero-sum game between old and new sources of energy. "The right strategy for the United States would embrace opportunities in old and new energy alike," he concludes.