Black Gold: The History of How Coal Made Britain

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Lyrical, empowering, and inspiring. An affirmation of the miracle each individual is.” —Yamile Saied Méndez, author of Where Are You From? and What Will You Be? It takes seven gallons of gasoline per person -- man, woman, and child -- to run the country each day. from all the ‘players’ in a ‘Special’ story that started in the early 1970s and went through to the end of 1986 with Ayrton The subject is petroleum, from history to the search for alternative energy sources. Many little-known facts are included. For example, during WWII only the US had developed 100 octane fuel, which gave a decisive advantage to Allied fighter planes.

In vivid detail it describes how Aboriginal people often figured significantly in the search for gold and documents the devastating social impact of gold mining on Victorian Aboriginal communities. It reveals the complexity of their involvement from passive presence, to active discovery, to shunning the goldfields. This is an extremely important issue — energy returned on energy invested (EROEI). The book doesn’t mention this. EROEI is also highly relevant to oil. Rubin and others note that in the good old days of high-profit gushers, it was common to invest one calorie of energy to produce 100 calories of oil (100:1). By 2010, typical EROEI was about 17:1, and some are predicting 5:1 by 2020. It is exciting to me that no matter how much machinery replaces the horse, the work it can do is still measured in horsepower ... even in the new age. And although a riding horse often weighs half a ton and a big drafter a full ton, either can be led about by a piece of string if he has been wisely trained. This to me is a constant source of wonder and challenge." This quote was from an article about Henry published in the Washington Post on November 28, 1997, in response to a query about her drive to write about horses.Germany and Japan learned the hard way that running out of oil is for losers. Everyone knows this today. U.S. presidents have poured trillions of dollars into maintaining control of oil, whilst jabbering about freedom, democracy, and weapons of mass destruction. For some mysterious reason, millions of Middle Eastern folks now loath and detest the U.S. My favorite part of the book was the history of nations and wars over/with/because of oil. As a young child I remember the oil cruch in 1973, and in hearing about the Iran controversery with Ayatollah Khomeini coming into power, then the American hostages held for 444 days, their release shortly after Ronald Regean became president, and the Iran/Iraq War. At the time I was too young to understand much; but this book put it all into perspective. I understand more of the role of OPEC and Saudia Arabia and what we as citizens of this world need to do to find new energy sources. It wasn't an exhaustive history and some aspects were dwelt on for longer than others - naval developments had much more coverage than railways and I was surprised that the traditional birthplace of the industrial revolution in Shropshire didn't get much of a mention. The technological developments were nonetheless covered in detail, along with the experience of working in mines (I had no idea there was a ballot for soldiers to work in the mines during wartime) and the changes in legislation and ownership of the UK industry. The rear end of Marrin’s book was annoying. The book is intended for use in schools. He recommends that the U.S. should become energy independent as soon as possible. The best solution, he says, is a combination of fossil fuels and alternative energy — solar, wind, biomass, hydro, geothermal, nuclear (no mention of sharply reducing consumption). The assumption is that independence is possible, and that the consumer way of life will be free to continue down the path of mindless self-destruction.

We learn that it was because of the eighteenth century need for bright and safe lighting fuel, and because of the rapidly depleting supply of whales for whale oil, and because it was discovered that kerosene could be extracted from petroleum, that smart and ambitious "Colonel" Edwin L. Drake was hired by a business group to drill for oil on Oil Creek in Titusville, Pennsylvania (a stream known for its oil seeps). I also recall, whilst in college, the miners strike of 1984/5. In my youth I didn't understand politics or sociology and was an immensely privileged, obnoxious right winger who was firmly on the side of the government in that struggle. Suffice it to say I owe to miners in general, and Scargill in particular, an apology. My world view is 180 degrees away from that I held in my 20s and I now deplore conservative ideology in general, and Thatcherism in particular which has led, pretty directly to the decline in public sector services and general social infrastructure currently afflicting the UK, exacerbated by BREXIT of course. But I digress. Middle Eastern oil-producing countries disliking us. Escalating fuel costs and steadily decreasing supplies. Global warming and massive pollution. Are we all doomed, or what?Rising prices enable the extraction of difficult and expensive non-conventional oil and gas. At some point, declining EROEI makes extraction pointless, regardless of market prices. Consequently, most of the oil in Canadian tar sands will be left where it is. The EROEI of tar sands now in production is about 3:1, and 5:1 for shale deposits. Over 798 images including almost every JPS related vehicle Race results for all John Player Team Lotus races