Seattle geologist and writer Scott L. Montgomery has authored a book under the above title from which many on the planet could learn a lot about energy.The book, as Montgomery puts it, tells "a great deal about the nature and direction of our global energy system, in nontechnical language."In various chapters Montgomery delves into crude oil, natural gas, coal, "peak oil," nuclear power, renewables, hydrogen, fusion energy, geopolitics and technology, and climate change."My task, as I understand it, is not to soothe a romanticism that may be living before its time. There are many reasons why oil is such a potent liquid and renewable resources—which, by the w...