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‘Our planet is now facing a crisis of unknown proportions and sitting
on the sidelines is no longer acceptable.’ This is not an extract from a
science fiction novella nor from a Greenpeace press release. The words are
those of Robert Malpas, chairman of PowerGen, the British electricity company,
and former managing director of British Petroleum. In Energy for Planet
Earth (W. H. Freeman, pp 140, £10.95/ $12.95 pbk), Malpas provides
the epilogue to a collection of 12 articles that consider the social and
economic factors that govern the way we use energy. The articles first appeared
in a 1990 special issue of Scientific American. They demonstrate how energy
efficiency can be improved at home and at work, and in the design of motor
vehicles. They confront the problems facing the developing world and the
countries of the Eastern bloc, and they gauge how fossil fuel, nuclear power
and the Sun compare as sources of energy. It is left to John Holdren, professor
of energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley, to tell
us the price we must pay for less polluting power. The anthology is a well
illustrated guide to the consequences of providing energy on tap.