Big Coal
The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future
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Big Coal
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Narrated by:
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Peter Larkin
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By:
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Jeff Goodell
About this listen
Long dismissed as a relic of a bygone era, coal is back -- with a vengence. Coal is one of the nation's biggest and most influential industries -- Big Coal provides more than half the electricity consumed by Americans today -- and its dominance is growing, driven by rising oil prices and calls for energy independence. Is coal the solution to America's energy problems?
On close examination, the glowing promise of coal quickly turns to ash. Coal mining remains a deadly and environmentally destructive industry. Nearly 40 percent of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year comes from coal-fired power plants. In the last two decades, air pollution from coal plants has killed more than half a million Americans.
In this eye-opening call to action, Goodell explains the costs and consequences of America's addiction to coal and discusses how we can kick the habit.
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Cadillac Desert, Revised and Updated Edition
- The American West and Its Disappearing Water
- By: Marc Reisner
- Narrated by: Joe Spieler, Kate Udall
- Length: 27 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 574
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 484
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 484
The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruptions and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants to transform the West.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Too much mouth noise in narration
- By AES on 07-23-19
By: Marc Reisner
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Windfall
- The Booming Business of Global Warming
- By: McKenzie Funk
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 59
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Story4 out of 5 stars 59
Global warming's physical impacts can be separated into three broad categories: melt, drought, and deluge. Funk travels to two dozen countries to profile entrepreneurial people who see a potential windfall in each of these forces. The melt is a boon for newly arable, mineral rich regions of the Arctic, such as Greenland - and for the man-made snow trade. Drought creates opportunities for private firefighters working for insurance companies as well as for fund managers backing south Sudanese warlords who control local farmland.
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4 out of 5 stars
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unintended windfalls mixed with obvious perils
- By Andy on 02-09-14
By: McKenzie Funk
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The Quest
- Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
- By: Daniel Yergin
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 29 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 902
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 754
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 754
A master storyteller as well as a leading energy expert, Daniel Yergin continues the riveting story begun in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book, The Prize. In The Quest, Yergin shows us how energy is an engine of global political and economic change and conflict, in a story that spans the energies on which our civilization has been built and the new energies that are competing to replace them. The Quest tells the inside stories, tackles the tough questions, and reveals surprising insights about coal, electricity, and natural gas.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Best nonfiction book of 2011
- By Joshua Kim on 05-06-12
By: Daniel Yergin
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The Alchemy of Air
- A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,582
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,353
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,349
At the dawn of the 20th century, humanity was facing global disaster. Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the worlds scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Book Thoroughly Researched
- By Terry A. Gray on 10-21-11
By: Thomas Hager
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Getting Green Done
- Hard Truths From the Frontlines of Sustainability Revolution
- By: Auden Schendler
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 82
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4 out of 5 stars 55
Soccer moms drive Priuses. Sport utility vehicles are going hybrid. Families are using hemp shopping bags. More and more companies are developing "green" buildings. What's more, the business consultants say going green is easy and profitable. In reality, though, many green-leaning businesses, families, and governments are still fiddling with the small stuff while the planet burns. Why?
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4 out of 5 stars
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Green's Dirty Little Secrets
- By Martin on 07-10-09
By: Auden Schendler
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Sellout
- How Washington Gave Away America's Technological Soul, and One Man's Fight to Bring It Home
- By: Victoria Bruce
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
American technological prowess used to be unrivaled. But because of globalization, and with the blessing of the US government, once proprietary materials, components, and technologies are increasingly commercialized outside the United States. Nowhere is this more dangerous than in China's monopoly of rare earth elements - materials that are essential for nearly all modern consumer goods, gadgets, and weapons systems.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Uncovering unsung heroes of modern America
- By Ben DeNardo on 08-24-17
By: Victoria Bruce
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Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper
- How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong
- By: Robert Bryce
- Narrated by: Steven Menasche
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 75
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 61
In this provocative and optimistic rebuke to the catastrophists, Robert Bryce shows how innovation and the inexorable human desire to make things Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper is providing consumers with Cheaper and more abundant energy, Faster computing, Lighter vehicles, and myriad other goods. That same desire is fostering unprecedented prosperity, greater liberty, and yes, better environmental protection.
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1 out of 5 stars
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I thought I was getting a book on the future.
- By Grant on 08-02-14
By: Robert Bryce
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Simply Electrifying
- The Technology That Transformed the World, from Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk
- By: Craig R. Roach
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4 out of 5 stars 59
Simply Electrifying: The Technology That Transformed the World, from Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk brings to life the 250-year history of electricity through the stories of the men and women who used it to transform our world: Benjamin Franklin, James Watt, Michael Faraday, Samuel F.B. Morse, Thomas Edison, Samuel Insull, Albert Einstein, Rachel Carson, Elon Musk, and more. In the process, it reveals for the first time the complete, thrilling, and often dangerous story of electricity's historic discovery, development, and worldwide application.
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2 out of 5 stars
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decent, but ended up disappointing.
- By Alexander Douglass on 12-28-18
By: Craig R. Roach
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Uranium
- War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World
- By: Tom Zoellner
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 379
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 181
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Story4 out of 5 stars 187
Uranium is a common element in the earth's crust and the only naturally occurring mineral with the power to end all life on the planet. After World War II, it reshaped the global order---whoever could master uranium could master the world. Marie Curie gave us hope that uranium would be a miracle panacea, but the Manhattan Project gave us reason to believe that civilization would end with apocalypse.
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4 out of 5 stars
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GREAT book, awful narration
- By Carolyn on 03-30-09
By: Tom Zoellner
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It's Better Than It Looks
- By: Gregg Easterbrook
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
Most people who pay attention to the news would tell you that 2017 is one of the worst years in recent memory. We're facing a series of deeply troubling, even existential problems: fascism, terrorism, environmental collapse, racial and economic inequality, and more. Yet this narrative misses something important: by almost every meaningful measure, the modern world is better than it ever has been. In the United States, disease, crime, discrimination, and most forms of pollution are in long-term decline, while longevity and education keep rising.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Too political
- By Anonymous User on 07-12-18
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Energy
- A Human History
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 767
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 653
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 652
Through an unforgettable cast of characters, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes explains how wood gave way to coal and coal made room for oil, as we now turn to natural gas, nuclear power, and renewable energy. Rhodes looks back on five centuries of progress, through such influential figures as Queen Elizabeth I, King James I, Benjamin Franklin, Herman Melville, John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Ford.
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4 out of 5 stars
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No more accents, please!
- By Ned Gulley on 08-30-18
By: Richard Rhodes
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Garbology
- Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash
- By: Edward Humes
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 159
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 134
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 134
The average American produces 102 tons of garbage across a lifetime, and $50 billion in squandered riches are rolled to the curb each year. But our bins are just the starting point for a strange, impressive, mysterious, and costly journey that may also represent the greatest untapped opportunity of the century. In Garbology, Edward Humes investigates trash - what's in it; how much we pay for it; how we manage to create so much of it; and how some families, communities, and even nations are finding a way back from waste to discover a new kind of prosperity.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A phenomenal read & serious eye-opener
- By Andy Feicht on 10-07-18
By: Edward Humes
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Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy
- By: Tim Harford
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 367
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 314
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 312
Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy paints an epic picture of change in an intimate way by telling the stories of the tools, people, and ideas that had far-reaching consequences for all of us. From the plough to artificial intelligence, from Gillette's disposable razor to IKEA's Billy bookcase, best-selling author and Financial Times columnist Tim Harford recounts each invention's own curious, surprising, and memorable story.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Thought provoking
- By Paul Norris on 09-10-17
By: Tim Harford
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The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Revised and Updated
- The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late
- By: Thom Hartmann, Neale Donald Walsch - associate editor
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 80
While everything appears to be collapsing around us - ecodamage, genetic engineering, virulent diseases, water shortages, global famine, wars - we can still do something about it and create a world that will work for us and for our children's children. The inspiration for Leonardo DiCaprio's feature documentary movie The 11th Hour, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight details what is happening to our planet, the reasons for our culture's blind behavior, and how we can fix the problem.
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5 out of 5 stars
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One of the Most Important Books of our Time
- By Jana on 04-24-20
By: Thom Hartmann, and others
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Colossus
- Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century
- By: Michael Hiltzik
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 180
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 123
As breathtaking today as when it was completed, Hoover Dam ranks among America's greatest achievements. The story of its conception, design, and construction is the story of the United States at a unique moment in history: when facing both a global economic crisis and the implacable elements of nature, we prevailed.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Political Biography of the Dam
- By Roy on 02-20-11
By: Michael Hiltzik
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The Source
- How Rivers Made America and America Remade Its Rivers
- By: Martin Doyle
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
In this fresh and powerful work of environmental history, Martin Doyle explores how rivers have often been the source of arguments at the heart of the American experiment - over federalism, taxation, regulation, conservation, and development. Doyle tells the epic story of America and its rivers, from the US Constitution's roots in interstate river navigation, the origins of the Army Corps of Engineers, the discovery of gold in 1848, and the construction of the Hoover Dam and the TVA during the New Deal, to the failure of the levees in Hurricane Katrina.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great historical read without compare.
- By Thomas P Dore on 04-10-18
By: Martin Doyle