Power to the People: How the Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, Change Our Lives, and Maybe Even Save the Planet

Vaitheeswaran argues that the worldwide energy market is at the verge of undergoing a sea change. He predicts that the business of energy is going to move into a true free market, which will completely transform the way energy is generated, distributed, and used. There are multiple factors that are going to lead to this inevitability. Petroleum is becoming an increasingly troublesome source of energy, not only because it originates in a politically sensitive region that has huge hiddens costs, but also because its adverse environmental impacts are being felt and realized by more and more people. The solution, according to Vaitheeswaran, lies in imposing a “carbon tax” to discourage polluting fuels and eliminate hidden subsidies to the oil sector, thus providing a level playing field to other energy sources. Then let loose the entrepreneurial innovations that will certainly unfold once the energy market is opened up. He believes that the cause of the failure of the Californian deregulation was not the concept of free market, but the failure of the government machinery to manage the deregulation.

Vaitheeswaran believes that hydrogen is the energy carrier of the future. In his opinion, highly distributed micro-generation of electricity will replace the mammoth monopolistic electricity utilities. This will kick in a chain of innovations, just as the distributed nature of the Internet did, which will lead to clean and sustainable sources of energy.

Impression: The book is well written and the arguments are pursuasive with both sides of the debates clearly presented. What I missed the most was the discussion of renewable, environmentally safe, sources of energy—most futuristic arguments were based just on hydrogen not on how the energy will be produced that will generate that hyrdrogen. Other than this slight gap, the book is enjoyable. The book is written in the characteristic Economist-style language, which is not surprising since Vaitheeswaran is The Economist's Environment and Energy correspondent.