Turning Oil into Salt: Energy Independence Through Fuel Choice
by Gal Luft and Anne Korin. Booksurge. 2009. 138 pages. Paperback. $14.99.
Current oil-consumption rates will require four new Saudi Arabias before the century is finished, according to the co-directors of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Potomac, Maryland.
Gal Luft and Anne Korin, in their new book Turning Oil into Salt, rate the odds of finding such bonanzas as virtually nonexistent. Instead, they hope that societies will embrace electric-powered transportation.
Supply issues aside, the switch to electric would advance global democracy, according to the authors. Oil dependence forced the United States to forge alliances with brutal dictatorships and support them while they oppressed their peoples. An oil-free United States could press these dictatorships to reform.
But energy independence will not happen, the authors conclude, until car designers develop electric cars with wide ranges and affordable batteries. The authors offer reasons for hope, such as promising outcomes from tests of several new batteries, potential for methanol and algae-based biofuels to provide cheap power, and the possibility of a scaled transition via plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
Turning Oil into Salt provides a balanced overview of where electric car technology stands now and where it might head. This is a worthwhile book for car enthusiasts, environmentalists, policy makers, and anyone who looks forward to a post-fossil-fuel world.
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