click to enlarge

The Tipping Point: 
Opportunities in the Coming Energy Revolution

     The Tipping Point is conceived to be written for everyday readers, and explains, in simple terms, why an energy revolution is upon us.  The book is the brainchild of Harvard-trained investment banker William Knoke, author of international bestseller Bold New World:  The Essential Road Map to the Twenty-First Century now translated into 12 languages.

     The Tipping Point takes the controversial position that the world is not on the verge of a fossil fuel shortage.  Historically, as prices have risen, new technologies and reserves are found, even when all hope is lost that stocks will run out.  Despite the power of OPEC in manipulating prices, the underlying costs of extracting fuels remain remarkably cheap compared to their usefulness.  Left unchecked, the increased use of coal and petroleum seems inevitable, resulting in an increasingly severe environmental problems.

     To Knoke, the solution is in technology.  His seminal work provides a tour de force showing how technology is consistently lowering the costs of alternate sources of energy.  Ultimately, it is these incremental technological advances that will win the global war against fossil fuels, and allow us to remove manmade carbon dioxide from being a cause for global warming.

     Knoke opens with a colorful history of energy, highlighting pivotal turning points in our evolution by putting a face to key events spanning Faraday to Edison, from Hughes to Einstein.  Each person has moved us inexorably forward, but the story is still unfolding.  The main thrust of the book is the stunning advances currently underway in photovoltaics, wind turbines, biomass, and more; each providing lockstep price advantages, only just now about to hit the marketplace.  These extraordinary technologies, looked at through Knoke's trained investment-banker eye, are seen to be advancing faster than those in fossil fuels.  We are about to enter… a tipping point, a major shift in how the engines of progress are powered.  He identifies the winners and losers, the appropriate public policy, and how all of us can benefit from the opportunities just ahead.

     The Tipping Point is conceived to follow best-seller formats.  The design is rich in colorful stories about real people and companies building beachheads for the coming revolution.  The book is meant to fill a void between the unreadable techno-jargon books (with words like “quads” and “megajoules”) and impractical eco books (with pleas for everyone to bicycle).  The Tipping Point makes arguments for change based on the all-predictable effect of self-interest:  the emerging energy structure will be cheaper, more diversified, more stable, and healthier than anything yet experienced.

     Knoke unveils the pathway to the tectonic shifts just around the corner.  The Tipping Point concludes with opportunities for investors, users, politicians and entire new industries who turn towards the light that has for so long been hidden from view.