These trends could potentially work together
As Levi explained when I interviewed him last year, his book is actually about two different energy revolutions going on in the United States — each with its own set of supporters. On the one hand, US oil and gas production has been surging since 2005, thanks to hydraulic fracturing and other drilling techniques. But at the same time, alternative energy sources like wind power and electric vehicles had been making surprising advances. Different camps often claim that one or the other technology is the best solution to America's energy and climate woes. Levi's book, meanwhile, focused on how these trends could potentially work together.
Yet it was unclear how this battle would ultimately shake out. Environmentalists and energy companies were at an impasse over how best to deal with the water and air pollution caused by fracking. It was also uncertain whether the glut of cheap shale gas would help tackle climate change (by displacing coal) or just make things worse (by undercutting clean energy).
Since the book came out, more than a year has passed — and quite a lot has changed. So, recently, Levi decided to write a new epilogue for the paperback edition of his book, looking at some of the more unexpected energy developments over the past year, like the emergence of Tesla or the disruptive rise of rooftop solar power. (He listed a few of them over at his blog.)
I caught up with Levi — who is the David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment at the Council on Foreign Relations — to revisit what we've learned about how the oil and gas boom is changing America. A transcript is below:
