Powering the Future
How We Will (Eventually) Solve the Energy Crisis and Fuel the Civilization of Tomorrow

While there are certainly interesting bits to this book, mostly, he repeats his primary thesis (we will use fossil fuels until they run out and then use what's cheapest) over and over and over again. Perhaps most aggravating is his almost total dismissal of the implications of climate change while e......more

Such a crazy cool book. Laughlin uses first principles thinking as well as common-sense benchmarks to describe in laymen’s terms how we are likely to create and store energy as our fossil fuels run out (in about 200 years). For energy generation, his bet is on our creating synthetic petroleum, thanks......more

This is weird overall. You could skip chapters 2 and 3 entirely. Not really of much help except for the part about fast breeding nuclear reactors.......more

Sadly, most of the energy landscape is littered with confusion from hidden interests by certain groups or individuals. This confusion gets extrapolated and permeates much of the discourse even at the top levels in most organizations that deal with energy, climate, electricity, environment, etc. This......more

The author, a professor of physics at Stanford, discusses various possible ways of obtaining and storing energy in the future. I remain skeptical about many of his forecasts, but one insight that I suspect is true is his assertion that we as a species will always opt for whatever source of energy is......more