Low Impact

I’ve spent the Christmas break reading Amanda Little’s book “Power Trip – The story of America’s love affair with energy”.  It’s an impressive book, and has a lot to recommend it.

The book is in 2 broad sections – the first explores how intertwined energy (and particularly oil) is with the American way of life.  The second explores the work that is currently going on to reduce this dependency.  Each of these broad themes is further broken into different sections such as the energy requirements to wage war, the issues caused by America’s aging electricity grid, current directions and developments in home and office building, electric and hybrid cars and many more.

I expected to enjoy “Power Trip” – it’s gathered a collection of positive reviews since its initial release – but I was surprised by just how much it drew me in.  Even though my bookcase is already well-lined with books on environmental issues and energy usage, I learnt a lot from “Power Trip”.  Part of this is down to the style of the book – Amanda Little appears to have scoured the USA for people with a perspective on energy usage, ranging from oil executives to scientists to NASCAR enthusiasts to architects to church leaders.  It’s an eclectic and wide ranging mix with the result that you can’t help but learn something new.

The book, as is made clear from it’s subtitle, is almost wholly focussed on the US experience.  As an Australian, this did keep me at a bit of a distance from some of the stories (although an Australian architecture firm is mentioned in there – go us!).  However, this isn’t a big issue: the anecdotes of the early oil prospecting days, or how the tramlines were ripped up in favour of roads might be US specific but are interesting nontheless.  And the more general aspects on how plastic is produced, factors the military need to consider in managing the logistics of their energy usage, developments in hyrbid cars, or directions in smarter, lower impact architecture are as relevant here as they are in America.

A key message out of “Power Trip” is the fact that reducing dependence on fossil fuels is a goal that should appeal to most people, regardless of politics or religion.  An individual may be concerned with the climate change effects caused by burning fossil fuels, or the national security implications of being beholden to other countries for their energy requirements, or simply taking care of creation.  Or perhaps all of the above! There are plenty of books and articles out there which can be more divisive in their delivery, so this was a welcome aspect.

“Power Trip” is a good read that is full of interesting facts about how the US got to where it is today in terms of fossil fuel usage, and the activities that are currently going on to change that direction. It’s very readable, with an almost chatty style – a million miles away from a dry tome of facts and statistics. Definitely worth a look.

Disclosure: Low Impact was provided with a publicity copy of “Power Trip” for this review.