Needed: politically biased "data" on energy use

April 2, 2012 7:27 PM

My brother is asking for research help, and it's definitely not my area of expertise. Can anyone help him out? He needs books on energy use, but he wants them biased. Yes.

His actual request:

"Two books on energy use, preferably with some economic analysis. Ideally one from a liberal author and the other from a conservative author. I want to compare their "data". The leanings of the author is where it gets challenging. Oh, and I need to be able to get them within a few days, I have some resources but I need to have a rough draft in in two weeks or so."

So, no ILL. We're in southeast Virginia, so if you happen to know anything available at William & Mary, or University of Richmond, or anywhere else reasonably close, we can work with that.

posted by timepiece to science & nature (5 answers total)

energy use, like how it relates to renewable resources and climate change? another angle?
posted by nadawi at 7:40 PM on April 2, 2012

Has he looked through the archives of Dot Earth? While Andy Revkin tries to be fairly balanced, he often links to and talks about figures on all sides of the environmental debate. If nothing else, his blogroll might offer some other research leads.
posted by jetlagaddict at 8:03 PM on April 2, 2012

The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight
posted by euphorb at 9:58 PM on April 2, 2012

May not be completely what you're looking for, but Dust to Dust by Art Spinella was published a few years ago by CNW, a publisher with long-term ties to the auto industry. This was the study that claimed the Hummer was better for the environment than a Prius. He came to this conclusion using parameters in the life cycle analysis that were very much in the Hummer's favor.

I don't know a study with competing claims, but Toyota would be a good place to start.
posted by OHSnap at 11:06 PM on April 2, 2012

More clarification from my brother:

The topic is energy use in general, not just automotive. The Dust to Dust book looks promising. Climate change and energy independence are going to be the primary topics in the paper.

I have found a great deal of cherry picking in the data I have looked at; Al Gore's book has a lot of that type of stuff in it. Therefore I wanted to find some competing information so I can point-counterpoint in the paper and look for a middle ground.

For instance, is the Prius better for the environment after accounting for toxic waste generated in production and disposal of the battery? That may be in the Dust to Dust book. I'm sure there is a popular book saying man-made climate change is a myth or is acceptable. Do we avoid building coal plants in the US because they are dirty but sell coal to a third world country that will burn it in a primitive plant that is far less efficient and far less clean than what we build here? We don't build solar cells here, we buy them from China. Is China dumping the waste from the manufacturing into the Yangtze river? I'll probably have to find several books to find the requisite counter arguments so I can firm up my opinion.
posted by timepiece at 10:08 AM on April 3, 2012