High Noon for Natural Gas: The New Energy Crisis

Rating:
Summary: A chilling expose into a very serious social problem
Review: Environmental researcher Julian Darley's High Noon For Natural Gas: The New Energy Crisis by Julian Darley is a highly documented and timely expose of the natural gas industry, American increasing dependency on natural gas, and the implications for environmental, political, and economic issues. A sharp wake-up call to the environmental and economic dangers of increasing dependence upon natural gas to generate electricity, High Noon For Natural Gas pulls no punches in its scrutiny of the history and future of national gas consumption. A chilling expose into a very serious social problem, one with the potential to shake the nation's future more severely than its dependence on oil. Highly recommended.


Rating:
Summary: lacking details
Review: I did not want to give a poor review. Unfortunately, this book was lacking on details of the natural gas business. There were many statements made, inferrences drawn, conclusions summarized, and solutions or predictions offered. But I found the arguments weak and lacking in supporting details.

In a good book, I expect to find a detailed analysis of the data or the observations. In this book, I did not find many details of the natural gas business: especially lacking were details about the natural gas fired electrical generating stations that were stated to be a major contributing factor in the coming demand boom. I wanted to see an entire chapter dealing with the specifics of this component. Throughout, there continued to be statements that were inadequately supported by a discussion of data and it's analyis.

This book had the feel of a newspaper article, expanded many times. The expansion was made by deviating from the natural gas supply/demand issues and filling in several chapters with general discussion of interrelated sub-topics. I was seeking to read a more narrow, focused, and detailed discussion of the natural gas supply and demand issues, and not to read another newspaper style overview filled with generalizations.

Still, there is some good content. Since I had previously read several books about the oil industry demand/supply issues, and since I already understand that there is a natural connection between oil energy and gas energy, I was able to make the connections that the author intended: there will eventually be a worldwide natural gas shortage, and this shortage will cause severe economic and social disruptions.