Oil on the Brain: Adventures from the pump to the pipeline / Lisa Margonelli
This was a clever book, well written. The author devoted a chapter to the long supply chain of petroleum: a gas station, a fuel delivery truck driver, refinery, the strategic petroleum reserve, NYMEX futures exchange, a domestic oil well being dug. As well as several foreign oil producing nations: Nigeria, Chad, Venezuela, Iran. Ending with China — destined to be the largest oil consumer of them all. She really illuminates how the politics are intertwined with petroleum — think US involvement in Iran: Mossedegh, the Shah, and the present tussle over nukes there.
She also “gets” that consumption of petrol carries with it unseen costs, and supports the view that a so-called Conservation Bomb represents our best hope:
Anyway, $3.22 [the price of gas that particular day in 2006] doesn’t’ begin to account for all the hidden pennies and costs of oil through the supply chain, from pollution to human rights to military expenses in the Gulf. Gas prices do a good job of telling us what today’s risk are, but they don’t predict the next risks. How stable is Chad? Are American fuel pipelines secure from catastrophe and from terrorists?…