Energy and Electricity in Industrial Nations: The Sociology and Technology of Energy by Allan Mazur (review)

In this relatively short and mostly non-technical book, Allan Mazur seeks to reach several audiences simultaneously: sociologists (and allied social scientists) who know little engineering, and engineers, who know little about the way social forces are constructed and organized or how they work. Mazur has degrees in both fields, so he is well qualified to bridge the two domains of knowledge. My sense is that the book is not aimed at highly trained professionals, but rather at a more general audience, or possibly students. It would work well in an undergraduate seminar or graduate-level energy policy course.

There is little question that energy problems have been, and will continue to be, of paramount importance. There are few issues that the world will face over the next half-century that equal in magnitude that of climate change. Energy usage, its magnitude and composition, will be a major determinant of the outcome. It is therefore admirable that scholars such as Mazur are attempting to educate individuals on both the basics and the intricacies of energy and electricity issues.

There is much to like here, but I do have a few concerns. The book is not long, and this presents severe challenges for the author, particularly since the subject is so broad. A substantial amount of material must be left out or treated cursorily. The book claims to cover energy and electricity in industrial nations, but it actually is very U.S.-centric. With the exception of some comparative charts, there is only the briefest treatment of other developed countries. Japan gets slightly more attention (about seven pages) in part because of the infamous Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident and because of its strange bifurcated electricity grid. One can argue whether or not China should now be considered a “developed country,” but it is problematic to refer to it as third world. There are only a few pages devoted to energy issues in the second-largest economy in the world, and one that clearly has a large and growing energy footprint.

There are five sections. The first three, roughly 60 percent of the book, cover topics like the importance of electricity, its impact on the quality of life, the various fossil and non-carbon fuels, and two chapters on power grids. The material is informative and accurate but is presented in one short section after another, sometimes in an almost random order. It reads like a whirlwind tour of energy facts and issues, not bad, but nothing examined deeply. From my perspective as an economic and business historian, the fourth section, Energy Controversies, was the most interesting and satisfying. The chapters on rationality (engineering and economic) and media news coverage of disasters were instructive, but the (eleven-page) chapter on the technical disputes surrounding climate change issues (among both scientific experts and laypersons) was really excellent.

The final section is a folksy discussion of some of our most intractable energy problems. While recognizing that solving the world’s problems is made exceedingly difficult because of vested interests, special interests, and downright idiocy, as well as honest scientific differences of opinions, Mazur remains cautiously optimistic that at least some of these impediments can be overcome and that some progress toward a sane energy policy can be reached. He concludes with ten “signposts” toward our energy future. These signposts, suggestions really—for example, that we should not foreclose any plausible source of energy, that energy is priced too low in rich countries, and that journalists should be less fearful of calling out blatantly false scientific claims—are eminently reasonable.