Fuels Books

This title provides a comprehensive history of fuel injection with some technical details for various types. There is no fault finding or trouble shooting section which makes it less than useful as a guide to vehicle repair. Unless your interest in fuel injection is simply academic do not buy this book.

This book purports to be about technologies for finding bombs, but actually is a vehicle to discuss the current state of the art in additives ( called 'taggants') to the zillion pounds of the various black and smokless powders manufactured yearly.

It actually has some value as a reference guide, and does state correctly that taggants should not be implemented.

This book is very old and is mostly a critique of certain specific policies in air quality protection in the 70s. It was not useful to me in the research on the subject of air quality protection as a whole. Contains partisan bias.

In these pages are sown the seeds of the myth of the "liberal media". When you're far enough west, everything looks like it's east.

This book is translated from German original, and since I don't speak German I do not know if the original book is good. This book (English translation) is very hard for me to read due to lots of translation problems and mistakes. Since there's not so many books on GDI engines, this is still a rare source on the topic, but I would recommend you read any review paper if you want to learn more about GDI engines (some are in Prog. Energy Comb. Sci).

This presents a good overview of how these pumps work - but doesn't give repair information.

Good day I sent back this manual to you peaple bOUT 2WEKS AGO AFTER C ONTACTING YOUR CUSTOMER SERVIC AND YOU EMAILED ME A COMPUTER CODE FOR THE PARCEL hAVE YOU ANY IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON ?
bRYAN

that this author was either funded by or worked for the fossil fuel industry. I'll get to that after I go over what I liked about the book.

There is a lot of information about the spectrum of energy production in the US. The topics include (I'll just list the chapter titles)

1. Energy Concepts, Forms, Laws
2. Petroleum
3. Natural Gas
4. Coal
5. Gaseous and Liquid Fuels from Coal
6. Fuels from Oil Shale, Tar Sands, Biomass, Waste
7. Fossil Fuel Reserves Versus Consumption
8. Electric Power
9. Nuclear Energy
10. Solar Energy
11. Other Sources of Energy for Electric Power Generation
12. Energy Storage
13. Energy Use in Agriculture
14. Energy Use in Transportation
15. Pollution of the Atmosphere from Energy Use
16. Energy Conservation
17. Energy Supply for the Future

What I really enjoyed were the numbers that were given. Those make the time I spent reading this book worth it, but I wouldn't pay for this book. That is, I would be happy to get this book out from the library (again), but I would not spend any money to look at this book.

Now to why I think this book is tainted...

The first red flag was, keeping in mind that this book was full of statistics, that there is no mention of fossil fuel subsidies! (2006 subsidies were about $15 billion... that's a HUGE number to ignore!) Next, the book basically says global warming is a complete fluke, and then goes on to only focus on the Northern Hemisphere (ie, not GLOBAL warming); I would have thought that someone who specialized in energy would not have been ignorant on global warming in 1999. Lastly, some of the analysis seemed very much off and biased... here's an example...

"[2000-pound-class vehicle] are very unsafe on highways where most vehicles are much heavier... It would be difficult, even impossible, for the elected legislators to impose such a weight reduction against the wishes of their constituents. Furthermore, from safety considerations, informed legislators would not impose such safety hazards on their constituents." -page 346

The above quotation essentially summarizes what he says on the topic repeatedly in the book -- that people who are concerned about safety should drive large vehicles and those that don't are just asking to get hurt. There are a few problems with Wiser's analysis. First off, isn't there a government concern about those people in the small cars? Second, in his scenario he ignores the fact that vehicle weight would be lower, meaning it would be safer for smaller vehicles (and not substantially more dangerous for the larger ones in the accident). Third, he NEVER mentions the rollover dangers of large vehicles, which was a major concern at the time of the book's writing.

This repitition of the dangers of small cars and negligence in not mentioning the issues above is ludicrous. Wiser takes a very irresponsible perspective on this topic.

If it was just one topic when Wiser aired on the side of the fossil fuel industry or just 50% of the time, I would not be questioning the spirit of the book. However, it seemed whenever there was an opportunity for Wiser to comment, it was either neutral or in favor of the fossil fuel industry. Even when a comment seemed unwelcome, Wiser was there with (occasionally negligent) commentary. Also, don't be fooled by the conservation chapter -- it was pretty much worthless relative to most websites on energy conservation.

On top of this, the book is outdated. "Cost competitive" of the year 1999 means nothing to today's high energy prices, both oil and electricity, meaning a lot of the cost comparison in this book are useless.

Basically, this book is, at best, outdated, and, at worst, corrupted. Look elsewhere unless you can get your hands on this book for free (and even then, be warned about the apparent bias).

This review was written on August 20th, 2006.

Although the info section states "Previous edition: c1989.", this book was actually published in 1983. You will see this if you scroll further down to Product Details. This is old, outdated information. Spend your money on something more up to date.

When I checked this book out of the library since it appeared to be the *only* book that would discuss the history of the coal mining industry in terms of how it revolutionized standard of living. The United States of America is considered the Saudia Arabia of coal. I wanted to read about how anthracite coal went from a pile of useless black rocks to a cheap, efficient, abundant and relatively clean energy source. Unfortunately, this book greatly fell short of my expectations in this regard.

The chapters on Josiah White's discovery of the utility of anthracite coal and the entrepreneurship of John Leisenring are very exciting to read. However, this book contains too much emphasis on the impact of labor unions in the coal industry. While I am not questioning the veracity or the importance of this information, I perceive that it just does not make inspiring reading material. I decided to not finish the book.

Tragically, this still might be the best book on the productive geniuses behind the coal industry to date.