Oil is hitting the headlines once again. The big increases in oil prices over the past two years are upsetting consumers and puzzling producers. The reasons are difficult to understand, since few people are familiar with the complex workings of the price regime for oil in international trade. It is said that sluggish investment is a major cause, but what are the reasons for inadequate investment in oil producing and refining plants during the last 20 years? Does oil have a future? We are told that oil production will soon peak because the rate of production is higher than replacement rates. Climate change problems are casting a shadow over the future of fossil fuels. There may, however, be a solution to the nefarious CO2 emissions in, for instance, technologies that sequestrate carbon. Oil's stronghold is the transport sector: cars, trucks, railway engines, planes, ships. The demand for oil would suffer a fatal blow if technical innovations in car engines make it possible to use an alternative fuel to petrol or diesel. New energy sources - wind, solar, tide, waves, geo-thermal - are both renewable and environment-friendly. Do they represent a threat to the future of oil? An international team of experts addresses these highly topical questions in this comprehensive volume.

Every generation leaves both assets and liabilities to the next. Alert people can see we are going to leave our children and grandchildren with a nearly unsolvable test of energy supplies; waste polluting the air and water; and the appalling problem of a huge and uncontrollable explosion in world population. Energy, Environment, Natural Resources and Business Competitiveness addresses itself to those having a professional, academic or general interest in these issues: - Energy sources, their nature and contribution, - Environmental problems associated to power production and usage, - Financing and control of energy-related projects and processes, - Future direction of agriculture produce now used as energy, - Complex social and technical issues resulting from lack of family planning - and, therefore, of demands for energy, - Impact of energy and an exploding population on pollution, - Truth and hype about the most talked about environmental subjects. In this fourth book for Gower, Dimitris Chorafas reviews Europe, America and Asia's energy needs in the coming decade, pointing out that current policies are inadequate at best, and more likely disastrous for the economy. Governments persist in having their own agenda and priorities as well as plenty of constraints and taboos, yet when he critically examines the challenges Dr Chorafas concludes that no government can solve all current energy problems by acting alone. The book confronts current thinking, and its after-effect on policies and practices. Readers accustomed to mainstream books and articles which blame fossil fuels for a deteriorating world environment will find this a contrary opinion.

The spike in the oil price to almost $150 per barrel in summer 2008 was the last great excess of the crazed noughties bull markets, staged even as stock markets crumbled worldwide. Contrary to entrenched establishment opinion still embraced by many, 'Petromania' proves this oil price blowout was a classic speculative bubble, but driven primarily by new modes of financial speculation. Demolishing widespread, oft-repeated but incorrect arguments that such trade in paper barrels cannot move oil prices, 'Petromania' details how this financialisation of the oil markets meshed with other trends to create a moment that saw investment banks and hedge funds collectively wield more power over the price of black gold than OPEC or any multinational oil company. It also shows how regulatory blindness to the 'dark matter' of modern finance caused so many to confuse fantasy with reality for so long. 'Petromania' matters not just because fortunes were won and lost in oil's dizzying ascent and crash, but because this bubble spelled misery for ordinary people worldwide, destabilised developing world governments, and delayed interest rate cuts desperately needed to address the ongoing global recession. 'Petromania' matters because while all eyes are on the crippled banking system, we risk ignoring valuable lessons about twenty-first century markets from this other great boom-and-bust - even as the forces that blew the bubble are once again at work. And 'Petromania', this tale of black gold, dark matter and paper barrels, is written by one of the few commentators who correctly called the bubble before it burst.