Bad Energy

Green energy and renewables are heralded as the only way to mitigate our ever-worsening ecological crisis. But that's not the whole story. 
In Bad Energy, award-winning journalist Joshua Frank argues that the green energy transition is driven not by an effort to save the planet but by profit incentives. We must stop burning fossil fuels if we have any hope of saving the planet, but the significant, haphazard expansion of green energy in recent years-from large solar projects to wind energy to mining for renewables-has destroyed communities and ecosystems. And worse, renewables simply cannot match our ever-expanding demand for energy, driven in no small part by the rapid proliferation of data centers in the world's wealthiest nations.
Taking readers from copper mines in Montana and Bolivia to wind farms in Wyoming to the geopolitical battle over deep-sea mining in the South Pacific, Bad Energy offers a stark assessment of the costs of the rush for renewables and the demand for endless growth. As Frank makes clear, we cannot consume our way out of climate chaos. What we need instead is rejection of the capitalist interests driving planetary collapse and a radical vision for a truly sustainable future.

Joshua Frank is an award-winning California-based journalist and coeditor of the political magazine CounterPunch. He is the author of Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America and a coauthor of several books, including The Big Heat: Earth on the Brink. His work regularly appears in TomDispatch, The Nation, Earth Island Journal, and other outlets.

PROLOGUE: Fossil Fuels Have Got to Go, But at What Cost?
CHAPTER ONE: Our Extractive Past, Present, and Future 
(a look at mining's impacts from Montana to Bolivia and the critical minerals needed for an energy transition)
CHAPTER TWO: Of Life and Lithium
(the lithium bonanza and EVs)
CHAPTER THREE: Biodiversity Versus the Solar Farm 
(huge solar projects' impacts on the desert)
CHAPTER FOUR: Deep Sea Blues 
(a look at deep-sea mining and geopolitical ramifications)
CHAPTER FIVE: Blowin' in the Wind 
(big wind developments, and impacts on communities and ecology)
CHAPTER SIX: It's a Dam Crazy World 
(geopolitical impacts of huge dams, and ecological/community impacts of hydropower)
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Fool's Errand for a Nuclear Future 
(why nuclear energy is bad news!) 
CHAPTER EIGHT: Eco-Colonialism and the Delusion of Endless Growth