A compelling and heart-wrenching study.
An account of the failure of a major utility company and how it serves as “a harbinger of challenges to come as climate change exacerbates the vulnerability of the [power] grid.”
In this intensely researched, deeply unsettling chronicle of Pacific Gas and Electric, Blunt, a San Francisco–based Wall Street Journal reporter who covers energy and utilities, digs deep into the company’s erosion and collapse. The author begins in the 19th century when the electric light and a massive migration west attracted entrepreneurs, including the founders of PG&E, who built dams to serve California’s exploding population. Even though most states gave utility companies monopolies in their areas, they were still private businesses with stockholders. Guaranteed a modest profit, they remained a stodgy but reliable investment. In 1996, reacting to America’s conservative swing, California’s legislature deregulated the power industry. Suddenly, investors could make big money in the power market, and many sleazy operators did so (see: Enron). Matters improved after a few years, but the industry remained fragmented and fiercely competitive. As always, profit ruled. Investing in capital improvements increases profits, while investment in maintenance is “money out the door”—as such, the infrastructure continued to deteriorate. Over the past decade, warming temperatures, drought, and deteriorating power lines have produced record numbers of catastrophic wildfires, killing hundreds and destroying thousands of homes and millions of acres of forest. Multibillion-dollar lawsuits drove PG&E into bankruptcy in 2019, from which it is now emerging. Most industries suffering massive liabilities go out of business, selling buildings, machinery, and inventory to pay creditors. A utility, legally bound to supply power, can’t do this. It must either borrow money, which customers eventually repay, or bill customers directly. California electric rates are rising steadily, and Blunt delivers detailed accounts of complex, ongoing political, business, and courtroom maneuvers that would overwhelm readers if not for her abundant journalistic skills. But even this plugged-in author cannot deny that PG&E’s problems may be insoluble.
A compelling and heart-wrenching study.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-33065-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
A remarkably thorough and thoughtful case for the reconciliation between science and faith.
A duo of French mathematicians makes the scientific case for God in this nonfiction book.
Since its 2021 French-language publication in Paris, this work by Bolloré and Bonnassies has sold more than 400,000 copies. Now translated into English for the first time by West and Jones, the book offers a new introduction featuring endorsements from a range of scientists and religious leaders, including Nobel Prize-winning astronomers and Roman Catholic cardinals. This appeal to authority, both religious and scientific, distinguishes this volume from a genre of Christian apologetics that tends to reject, rather than embrace, scientific consensus. Central to the book’s argument is that contemporary scientific advancements have undone past emphases on materialist interpretations of the universe (and their parallel doubts of spirituality). According to the authors’ reasoned arguments, what now forms people’s present understanding of the universe—including quantum mechanics, relativity, and the Big Bang—puts “the question of the existence of a creator God back on the table,” given the underlying implications. Einstein’s theory of relativity, for instance, presupposes that if a cause exists behind the origin of the universe, then it must be atemporal, non-spatial, and immaterial. While the book’s contentions related to Christianity specifically, such as its belief in the “indisputable truths contained in the Bible,” may not be as convincing as its broader argument on how the idea of a creator God fits into contemporary scientific understanding, the volume nevertheless offers a refreshingly nuanced approach to the topic. From the work’s outset, the authors (academically trained in math and engineering) reject fundamentalist interpretations of creationism (such as claims that Earth is only 6,000 years old) as “fanciful beliefs” while challenging the philosophical underpinnings of a purely materialist understanding of the universe that may not fit into recent scientific paradigm shifts. Featuring over 500 pages and more than 600 research notes, this book strikes a balance between its academic foundations and an accessible writing style, complemented by dozens of photographs from various sources, diagrams, and charts.
A remarkably thorough and thoughtful case for the reconciliation between science and faith.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9789998782402
Page Count: 562
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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