Status
Available
Genres
Publication
New York : Nan A. Talese/ Doubleday, c2007.
Description
Oil on the Brain is a smart, surprisingly funny account of the oil industry--the people, economies, and pipelines that bring us petroleum, brilliantly illuminating a world we encounter every day. Americans buy ten thousand gallons of gasoline a second, without giving it much of a thought. Where does all this gas come from? Lisa Margonelli's desire to learn took her on a one-hundred thousand mile journey from her local gas station to oil fields half a world away. In search of the truth behind the myths, she wriggled her way into some of the most off-limits places on earth: the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the New York Mercantile Exchange's crude oil market, oil fields from Venezuela, to Texas, to Chad, and even an Iranian oil platform where the United States fought a forgotten one-day battle. In a story by turns surreal and alarming, Margonelli meets lonely workers on a Texas drilling rig, an oil analyst who almost gave birth on the NYMEX trading floor, Chadian villagers who are said to wander the oil fields in the guise of lions, a Nigerian warlord who changed the world price of oil with a single cell phone call, and Shanghai bureaucrats who dream of creating a new Detroit. Deftly piecing together the mammoth economy of oil, Margonelli finds a series of stark warning signs for American drivers.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member rakerman
Given the dramatic rise in oil prices, this is a timely book.
In brief, it takes a journey from Americans filling up their cars, with their irrational and (almost) unstoppable consumerism and lack of awareness about history and the world, through the chaos of oil-producing states (whose economies
What I like about the book is that the author shows a lot of respect for everyone involved, from the convenience store clerk to oil ministers. She tries to understand the very human and often quite emotional factors that make up each complex individual. She does a very good job of conveying how challenging all of their jobs are, and how each individual's interests and motivations fit within the larger and even more complex global oil system.
While the television media tends to oversimplify everything to the point of nonsense, this book drills down through the many layers that make up our global oil system, so many complex interactions that are behind the apparent simplicity of gasoline coming out of a hose at a gas station.
In brief, it takes a journey from Americans filling up their cars, with their irrational and (almost) unstoppable consumerism and lack of awareness about history and the world, through the chaos of oil-producing states (whose economies
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and governments have been hugely impacted by decades of US government, corporation, World Bank and IMF intervention), to the future of energy in China, which is trying (with very limited success) to hold back the tide of oil-burning car purchasers long enough to put in place a more sustainable system.What I like about the book is that the author shows a lot of respect for everyone involved, from the convenience store clerk to oil ministers. She tries to understand the very human and often quite emotional factors that make up each complex individual. She does a very good job of conveying how challenging all of their jobs are, and how each individual's interests and motivations fit within the larger and even more complex global oil system.
While the television media tends to oversimplify everything to the point of nonsense, this book drills down through the many layers that make up our global oil system, so many complex interactions that are behind the apparent simplicity of gasoline coming out of a hose at a gas station.
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LibraryThing member Stbalbach
Margonelli spent three years traveling around the world documenting different stages in the oil flow. The book can be divided in two parts, the first part in the USA in six chapters: 1) gas station, 2) oil delivery trucks, 3) oil refinery, 4) oil drilling, 5) oil futures market, 6) strategic oil
I learned a lot. While other reviewers enjoyed the earlier chapters, I found the later overseas chapters the most interesting, to learn about the history of oil states and how interconnected everything is. The vast majority of the worlds oil is owned by governments, and not by the Exxon's of the world which only have about 20%, thus Margonelli's focus on the oil states was spot on. In regards to who is to blame for high gas prices in the US, the best theory was from a oil trader in NYC who says its simple supply and demand, China and other countries are demanding a lot more oil.
4 stars: stylistically the prose was inconsistent. At times it flowed well, other times it was choppy with halting sentences, or tried too hard to be clever and endearing (how many ways can you say "the bolt is as big as (fill in the blank)"). I also thought some of the exposes were unnecessarily unsympathetic. The excellent information about oil made it worth the trip, Margonelli's three years traveling around the world to remote and often dangerous places (and probably often boring) has been a great help in understanding first-hand what is happening.
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reserve. The second part examines overseas oil sources: 7) Venezuela, 8) Chad, 9) Iran, 10) Nigeria, 11) China. Within each chapter it is a human-interest story with Margonelli interacting with a main character (gas station owner, drill operator, oil warlord, Iranian minister of oil, etc..) with tangents to highlight encyclopedic facts about the history of the place or institution in a sometimes overly-wrought magazine-style prose.I learned a lot. While other reviewers enjoyed the earlier chapters, I found the later overseas chapters the most interesting, to learn about the history of oil states and how interconnected everything is. The vast majority of the worlds oil is owned by governments, and not by the Exxon's of the world which only have about 20%, thus Margonelli's focus on the oil states was spot on. In regards to who is to blame for high gas prices in the US, the best theory was from a oil trader in NYC who says its simple supply and demand, China and other countries are demanding a lot more oil.
4 stars: stylistically the prose was inconsistent. At times it flowed well, other times it was choppy with halting sentences, or tried too hard to be clever and endearing (how many ways can you say "the bolt is as big as (fill in the blank)"). I also thought some of the exposes were unnecessarily unsympathetic. The excellent information about oil made it worth the trip, Margonelli's three years traveling around the world to remote and often dangerous places (and probably often boring) has been a great help in understanding first-hand what is happening.
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LibraryThing member lmichet
Failed to woo me into a state of entrenched anti-westernism, though not for lack of example or effort. Plenty here that's interesting, but I feel like a real expert in the oil industry could have told me twice as much, given me three times as many opinions, and made it all ten times easier to
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relate to. Margonelli's attempt to 'demystify' oil for the common man only makes it a bit more confusing, and a hell of a lot more 'Calipurnian,' than it actually needs to be. Show Less
LibraryThing member nikitasamuelle
Lisa Margonelli has written a comprehensive account of the role petroleum plays in our lives, our economy, and our politics. Having worked in the petrochemical industry and being interested in world politics, I thought I was well-informed. Yet I learned something new in nearly every paragraph,
Margonelli starts her journey at the local gas station, researching and directly observing how U.S. consumers interact with petroleum at the pump. She moves on to tankers that deliver the fuel and the refineries that supply it, then NYMEX, and finally to the sources of our petroleum around the world. Her travels take her from Venezuela to Africa and the Middle East and finally to China. It's a fascinating and troubling journey.
Says Mary Roach, the author of Stiff, on the cover, "If you drive a car, you must read this book, but please not at the same time." I would argue that, even if you don't drive a car, you must read this book. The politics of petroleum is touching every person on the planet, whether we know it or not. We should all be better informed.
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often exclaiming and reading sections to anyone nearby.Margonelli starts her journey at the local gas station, researching and directly observing how U.S. consumers interact with petroleum at the pump. She moves on to tankers that deliver the fuel and the refineries that supply it, then NYMEX, and finally to the sources of our petroleum around the world. Her travels take her from Venezuela to Africa and the Middle East and finally to China. It's a fascinating and troubling journey.
Says Mary Roach, the author of Stiff, on the cover, "If you drive a car, you must read this book, but please not at the same time." I would argue that, even if you don't drive a car, you must read this book. The politics of petroleum is touching every person on the planet, whether we know it or not. We should all be better informed.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Devil_llama
The author sets out to trace the oil we use backwards from the gas tank to the point of production. She visits refineries, oil drilling sites, and gas stations along the way, then makes her way overseas to visit oil producing countries in the Third World. A good introduction to the subject, though
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the author tends to be a little naive at times, and might find her enthusiasm about BP a bit tempered by recent experiences. Show Less
LibraryThing member jcvogan1
Entertaining and mildly informative.
LibraryThing member BrianFannin
Great book. Depressing as all hell, but one that everyone on earth ought to read.
Subjects
Awards
Notable Books List (Nonfiction — 2008)