Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future

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Author: Iain Carson and Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran

Genre: Nonfiction

Subject: Alternative Fuel Technologies

Rating: ***** (5 Stars)

Summary:

Zoom, written by two correspondents for The Economist, is a discussion of the problems that result from our dependence on oil, and some of the solutions that are taking shape.  It discusses how the oil and auto industries grew together to become the giants they now are; why the Detroit automakers are suffering while Toyota experiences runaway success; and why the world’s dependence on oil is unsustainable for political, economic, and environmental reasons.  Zoom then explains some of the possible solutions and where they are being developed.  It’s hard to put this book in a nutshell, but here are some snippets to give you a picture of what it’s all about:

The authors are not anti-car.  They acknowledge that the car is a symbol of personal freedom and empowerment, and would be virtually impossible to eliminate.  Instead, they suggest that:

Oil is the problem, not cars.  That is why we must reinvent the automobile.  As engines of change, the clean cars of the future can help speed the world toward a more sensible approach to transportation.  The snag is getting from here to there.  Big Oil clearly has no interest in seeing its main product fall by the wayside, and the Detroit car industry has shown few signs of real innovation or long-term vision.  (Page 4)

Technologies now exist that if widely implemented could drastically reduce, if not eliminate, our use of oil as an automotive fuel, but Detroit and “Big Oil” are extremely reluctant to implement them, due to a problem economists call “stranded assets.”  These companies have invested enormous amounts of money in the infrastructure they now rely on, and change would be costly and difficult for them.  For that reason, technology is likely to come from newer, smaller companies that don’t have Detroit’s financial baggage.

I was surprised to learn that China, for all its problems, is in many ways more progressive than the U.S. and Europe when it comes to energy policy.  Although limited by its status as a relatively poor country, China is attempting to “leapfrog” forward by skipping the dirty and dangerous technologies of the early twentieth century in favor of cleaner and more efficient technologies that are now being developed.

Many observers are convinced that China is engaged in a new sort of Cultural Revolution, turning its back on the twentieth-century 3-D development model of develop-despoil-detox in favor of getting it clean and green from the outset.  New Energy Finance is a London business specializing in developments in Chinese energy.  Its founder, Michael Liebreich, sees progress across a broad front.  For instance, he and his team of researchers think that by 2020, China will be getting up to a fifth of its energy from renewables, up from the official 15 percent target and nearly three times the share in 2006, which at 7.7 percent already made China the world leader.  (Page 212)

Economists have observed that it is easier to change behavior by changing the incentive structure than by trying to persuade people to “do the right thing.”  With that in mind, Carson and Vaitheeswaran advocate a number of policy changes they believe would create the right market incentives for the development of sustainable transportation.

My Thoughts:

Zoom is more like a survey than an exhaustive study.  It tends to move fairly quickly and occasionally glossed over things I would have liked to explore in more detail.  The benefit to that approach is that it is highly readable and even entertaining, and is thus likely to be read and understood by a broader audience than a scientific study or think-tank proposal.

I thought the approach was extremely fair and balanced.  I found the book fascinating and encouraging.

Potentially Offensive Content:

None

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