More and more and more : an all-consuming history of energy / Jean-Baptiste Fressoz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fressoz, Jean-Baptiste, author, translator.

Standardized Title:

Sans transition. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Energy transition.

Power resources--History.

Power resources.

Energy development--History.

Energy development.

Science--History.

Science.

Technology--History.

Technology.

Physical Description:

309 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London : Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2024.

Summary:

“It has become habitual to think of our relationship with energy as one of transition: with wood superseded by coal, coal by oil, oil by nuclear and then at some future point all replaced by green sources. Jean-Baptiste Fressoz’s devastating but unnervingly entertaining book shows what an extraordinary delusion this is. Far from the industrial era passing through a series of transformations, each new phase has in practice remained almost wholly entangled with the previous one. Indeed the very idea of transition turns out to be untrue. The author shares the same acute anxiety about the need for a green transition as the rest of us, but shows how, disastrously, our industrial history has in fact been based on symbiosis, with each major energy source feeding off the others. Using a fascinating array of examples, Fressoz describes how we have gorged on all forms of energy – with whole forests needed to prop up coal mines, coal remaining central to the creation of innumerable new products and oil still central to our lives. The world now burns more wood and coal than ever before. This book reveals an uncomfortable truth: ‘transition’ was originally itself promoted by energy companies, not as a genuine plan, but as a means to put off any meaningful change. More and More and More forces its readers to understand the modern world in all its voracious reality, and the true nature of the challenges heading our way.” (from the publisher)

Contents:

Introduction: A Symbiotic History of Energy

A History of Energy by Candlelight

‘The Age of . . .’: Material Stagism and Its Problems

Coal and Wood: A Tangled History

The Timber Palace

Liaisons carbone

The Carbon Fallacy

The Roots of Growth

The Pétrolization of Wood

Technocracy Inc.

Atomic Malthusians

The Invention of the Energy Crisis

‘Play the technology card’

Conclusion: The Weight of History

Notes:

"First published in French under the title "Sans transition: Une nouvelle histoire de l'énergie" by Éditions du Seuil." - title verso.

ISBN:

9780241718896

0241718899

OCLC:

1421924924

Publisher Number:

90100364672