Darkness Falls, by Kyle Mills:
Erin Neal has been living a secluded life in the Arizona desert since the death of his girlfriend and he isn't happy when an oil company executive appears on his doorstep. A number of important Saudi oil wells have stopped producing and Erin is the world's foremost expert in analyzing and preventing oil field disasters. ...
What would happen if the world's oil supply, like 90%, was nailed by eco-terrrorists? Scary question and this is a fun page turner that provides an answer (chaos and death!). Read it as a break in between 700 page tomes. The coolest thing is that Mills gets the economics right, and economists love to ferret out mistakes. For example (page 85 of the paperback):
All the economists has said the same thing: ANWR just didn't produce enough fuel to affect the U.S. economy. There would be an initial panic and the ensuing run on gas stations would create a temporary shortage that would last no more than a few days ...
And:
Reynolds frowned deeply. "A lot of books out there say the loss of oil is going to be a disaster for the world. That everybody's going to freeze or starve ---"
"Yeah," [Maverick environmentalist ]Erin said. "The peak oil Chicken Littles. In my mind, oil prices were set to rise slowly and we would change our behavior and find power substitutes as they became economically attractive. ... "
"Yeah," [Maverick environmentalist ]Erin said. "The peak oil Chicken Littles. In my mind, oil prices were set to rise slowly and we would change our behavior and find power substitutes as they became economically attractive. ... "
I'm sending this one on to Tim. He reads way to much 19th Century English literature.
