The Carbon Rush

The Carbon Rush traces America's dramatic history of energy discovery, innovation and combustion from colonial times to the 21st century. The journey begins in 1620 when the Pilgrims were swarmed by pods of right whales off Provincetown and began devising the world's greatest whaling fleet. By the early 1700s, America's unrivaled forests fueled shipbuilding and iron working industries that proved vital to the colonists' success in the Revolutionary War. Throughout the westward...
More Description

The Carbon Rush traces America's dramatic history of energy discovery, innovation and combustion from colonial times to the 21st century. The journey begins in 1620 when the Pilgrims were swarmed by pods of right whales off Provincetown and began devising the world's greatest whaling fleet. By the early 1700s, America's unrivaled forests fueled shipbuilding and iron working industries that proved vital to the colonists' success in the Revolutionary War. Throughout the westward expansion, America tapped her vast wood and coal reserves to fire a potent fleet of steamships and locomotives. Beginning in California Gold Rush days, the great American tycoons John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Henry Ford founded their fortunes and the nation's modern infrastructure on first coal, then petroleum, and finally natural gas. Each carbon energy source presented its own challenges, and rewarded technological innovation with wealth and power. Once the Industrial Revolution had been accomplished, America's 20th Century carbon demand continued to accelerate with the country's manufacturing prowess, escalating standard of living, and massive fleet of personal automobiles. America's carbon rush changed dramatically in 1970 when the nation's petroleum production peaked and the country shifted to imported petroleum to quench its expanding energy demand. Forty years later, America exports a billion dollars a day for crude oil and controversies rage over domestic oil reserves, natural gas fracking, biofuels, global warming, and coal power. The Carbon Rush shines refreshingly bright light on these controversies by peering deeply into the flames of America's energy past and present.