Memories of the oil shocks of the '70s have grown very dim. Long lines at gas stations have been replaced with long lines of people at auto dealers buying gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles. The United States now imports more oil, over 50%, than it did prior to the first "oil crisis" of 1973-74. Yet our reliance on fossil fuels has not been tempered by history.

Fossil fuels -- petroleum, natural gas, and coal -- are finite, and eventually they will run out. They are not renewable, and they carry significant political and environmental complications. But there are alternatives. Sidney Borowitz presents a concise, coherent narrative of the major sources of energy currently in use today throughout the world, and explains, in a cogent, jargon-free manner, how these other energy sources -- nuclear, solar photovoltaics, wind, geothermal, fusion, hydrogen, and ocean currents -- can be developed.

To continue on our present complacent course is to court environmental and political disaster. This prescient book presents a clear-eyed, even-handed explication of solutions that will help us avoid future energy crises.