What We Can Learn From the Fall of an American Energy Oligarch

The price of oil, energy sources, and energy policy, always seem to be a part of our conversations.

In part because the energy world is changing. The US is becoming less dependent on international oil, even as Europe becomes more dependent on Russian oil. Alternative energy holds great promise, but that transition is difficult, to say the least. Even Saudi Arabia is trying to get off oil as the bedrock of its economy

Amidst all of this, it's worth looking back at what history tells us about changing energy sources. How the world shifted from coal to oil, how new monopolies emerged and great wealth was created and sometimes lost.

This is part of the story that my guest Peter Doran tell in Breaking Rockefeller: The Incredible Story of the Ambitious Rivals Who Toppled an Oil Empire.

My conversation with Peter Doran:

Oil & Water

Oil and Water don't usually mix. But they do when we think about the two natural resources whose future scarcity could reshape our world. Today oil is central to our world and has played a role in the violent conflicts and in the divisions between rich and poor. Peter Maas, distinguished journalist and author of Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oilrefers to it as the oxygen of the global economy. And yet for years we have refused to talk about it honestly.

On the other hand, in the growing consensus over global warming and the cost of excess carbon, we are arguably overlooking the depletion of another precious resource: potable Water. In Heart of Dryness: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought journalist and water expert James Workman travels to the direst place on earth to see how, against all odds and under brutal government repression, an indigenous people draws on ancient wisdom to survive on extreme scarcity of water, and what we not only might learn, but must learn.

My conversation with Peter Maas:

My conversation with James Workman:

Surprise. Big Oil is not green

We all know that the Obama administration wants a greener energy future and that the world demands it.   It would seem that everybody but George Will is on board.... and of course the oil companies.  Hard to believe, but big oil is still resisting the obvious. The New York Times details on page one today.   

Earlier today, I spoke to Mariam Horn, journalist and a member of the Environmental Defense Fund about some of the unique efforts in alternative energy and about what the oil companies are up to:

My conversation with Miriam Horn about Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming

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