Smaller, faster, lighter, denser, cheaper : [how innovation keeps proving the catastrophists wrong] / by Robert Bryce ; summarized by arrangement with Gildan Media.

Format:

Sound recording

Author/Creator:

Bryce, Robert, 1960- author.

Contributor:

Gildan Media Corporation, producer.

Audio-Tech Business Book Summaries, Inc., producer, distributer.

Series:

Audio-Tech Business Book Summaries (Series)

Audio-Tech business book summaries

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Technological innovations--Popular works.

Technological innovations.

Genre:

Popular works.

Sound recordings.

Physical Description:

1 audio disc : digital ; 4 3/4 in.

4 3/4 in.

Edition:

Abridged.

Place of Publication:

Willowbrook, IL : Audio-Tech Business Book Summaries, ©2014.

System Details:

digital

rda audio file CD audio

Summary:

"In the face of today's environmental and economic challenges, doomsayers preach that the only way to stave off disaster is for humans to reverse course: to de-industrialize, re-localize, ban the use of modern energy sources and forswear prosperity. But in this provocative and optimistic rebuke to the catastrophists, Robert Bryce shows how innovation and the inexorable human desire to make things Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper is providing consumers with Cheaper and more abundant energy, Faster computing, Lighter vehicles, and a myriad of other goods. That same desire is fostering unprecedented prosperity, greater liberty, and yes, better environmental protection."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Part I The Push for Innovation, Its Consequences, and the Degrowth Agenda

1 Panama: Digging a Faster Cheaper Way to Travel 3

2 The Trend Toward Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper 9

The Brain 9

The Printing Press 10

The Vacuum Tube 12

The AK-47 17

The Haber-Bosch Process 19

The Diesel and the Jet Turbine 21

The Telescope and Microscope 26

The Pearl Street Power Plant 30

The Roller-Cone Drill Bit 33

Digital Communications 37

3 Never Have So Many Lived So Well 41

4 Back to the Past: The Push for "Degrowth" 50

Sidebar: Bill McKibben's Energy-Starvation Plan 55

Part II Our Attosecond World: How We Got Here, Where We're Going, and the Companies Leading the Way

5 Angstroms and Attoseconds 67

6 How Our Quest for Faster Drives Innovation 72

7 Faster Lighter Doper 77

Sidebar: Tour de Doper 83

8 The Engines of the Economy 85

Smaller Faster Inc.: Ford Motor Company 101

9 From ENIAC to iCloud: Smaller Faster Computing 106

Sidebar: The Incredible Shrinking Circuit 114

Sidebar: "Green" Computing Can't Power the Cloud 118

Smaller Faster Inc.: Intel 121

10 From LP to iPod 125

11 From Kublai Khan to M-PESA 129

Smaller Faster Inc.: Safaricom 136

12 Density and the Wealth of Cities 141

13 Denser Cheaper Food Production 146

14 The Faster the Bits, the Freer the People 152

Sidebar: Smaller Lighter Cheaper Phones 158

15 From Monks to MOOCs: Faster Cheaper Education 159

16 Smaller Faster Cheaper Medicine 164

Part III The Need for Cheaper Energy

17 The Faster the (Drill) Bits, the Cheaper the Energy 171

Sidebar: We're Running Out of Oil... 180

18 The Tyranny of Density 182

Smaller Faster Inc.: Clean Energy Systems 185

19 Smaller Faster and the Coal Question 188

Sidebar: India Is Not Going "Beyond Coal" 193

Sidebar: GOOG < Coal 198

Smaller Faster Inc.: Aquion Energy 200

Part IV Embracing Our Smaller Faster Future

20 Getting Energy Policy Right 211

Reject Wind and Biofuels 211

Wind Energy's Incurable Density Problem 212

Sidebar: Debunking the Big Fibs About Wind and Solar 220

Biofuels are 'A Crime Against Humanity" 223

21 Climate Change Requires N2N (N2N is SFLDC) 235

Sidebar: We Need to Reduce Gas Flaring 245

22 Embrace Nuclear Green 247

Sidebar: Make Atoms for Peace a Reality 258

23 SX Smaller Faster: Why the United States Will Dominate the Smaller Faster Future 261

24 Conclusion: Moving Past Fear 275.

Notes:

"August 2014."

ISBN:

1610392051

9781610392051

OCLC:

890800948

Publisher Number:

8142 Audio Tech