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Best Petroleum Engineering

The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power
Deemed "the best history of oil ever written" by Business Week and with more than 300,000 copies in print, Daniel Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize–winning account of the global pursuit of oil, money, and power has been extensively updated to address the current energy crisis. The Prize portrays the interweaving of national and corporate interests, the conflicts and stratagems, the miscalculations, the follies, and the ironies." "Impassioned and riveting...only in the great epics of Homer will readers regularly run into a comparable string of larger-than-life swashbucklers and statesmen, heroes and villains."
Reviews
"It focuses on the effects of oil on the economies of both consuming and producing nations as well how access to oil affects the political power of nations."
"It makes no sense to export a precious finite resource, and it makes a lot of sense to use our enemy's supply first."
"This is the third copy of this book that I have purchased."
"The sentiments of various people and groups towards oil (good or bad) were negligible in the book which gave it almost a sterile feel. I now have a much stronger understanding of just how oil plays its enormous role in the global society. I can't say enough about how well this book informs its reader in an enjoyable and insightful way. It may at points be dry material, but in no way did i feel like this book was written over my head."
"Although concentrated on the oil industry, this book is really an incredible history of the twentieth century, which makes a lot of sense considering the paramount of oil to that era and now."
"This is a long book, but if you want to write a comprehensive story of oil and its impact on the economy spanning more than a century, it's going to be long."
"This is one of the best histories of the Oil Business."
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Oil 101
OIL 101 is a straightforward guide to oil and an essential read for anyone coming to grips with where oil prices, the economy and society are headed. A quick measure comes up with more than 10 ft of shelf space filled with books relating to the topic...of my collection only 8 books sit on my desk. ...It differs from them, however, both in being focused not just on oil, but also in explaining more of the financial matters that play such a significant part in the price we pay for oil and thereafter for the gas that goes into the tank.
Reviews
"A lot has changed about technology and production costs and the book in general writes off unconventional oil as a whole for the uneconomical nature (at the time)."
"I purchased this book strictly with the intention of learning more about the trading side of the business but was very pleasantly surprised to find that it started from the very bottom of the ladder and revealed practically every essential detail of the industry. I look forward to an updated version that perhaps expands some more on the world's oil balance given recent large discoveries in Brazil and Africa (East and West). Im not sure if the topic can be rightly squeezed into the same volume but a "Gas 101" might be a likewise appreciated accompaniment to this handy piece of work."
"This book is not written to impress academics with jargon, it is written to be accessible to the type of reader it is targeted for, which is good news for you if you are interested in investing in the petroleum business and want a background."
"Excellent coverage of oil and the oil industry."
"Almost everything else I've read seems like pure polemic (plenty of self-interest on both sides of the argument I guess). His measured responses to some, at best misdirected, comments following his piece make interesting reading too (...and in the unlikely event I ever make it to NY I'll be taking the author's book with me, and taking up his offer of a few Brooklyn Beers!"
"With this book, I now have a more wholesome understanding (but no definite investments yet)in the oil industry."
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Petroleum Refining in Nontechnical Language
William Leffler's Petroleum Refining in Nontechnical Language, Fourth Edition is designed to give the reader an overview of key refining topics by using relevant analogies, easy-to-understand graphs, formulas, and illustrations. He has authored multiple PennWell titles including the bestselling Petroleum Refining in Nontechnical Language (2000), Petrochemicals in Nontechnical Language (2001), and Deepwater Petroleum Exploration & Production: A Nontechnical Guide (2003).
Reviews
"For example, Leffler states that "the perforations permit the vapors to rise through the column and the liquids to fall" to explain how distillation perforated trays work."
"Good reading for the interested."
"Each of the refinery unit descriptions are very informative - without having to be a petroleum engineer to understand them."
"Exactly as advertised."
"Good book for the non-technical person."
"A good book for those who wants to understand downstream processes..."
"Takes the different processes and breaks them down into terms that lay people can use and understand."
"Loved the speed it shipped!"
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Best Energy & Mining Industry

The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power
Deemed "the best history of oil ever written" by Business Week and with more than 300,000 copies in print, Daniel Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize–winning account of the global pursuit of oil, money, and power has been extensively updated to address the current energy crisis. The Prize portrays the interweaving of national and corporate interests, the conflicts and stratagems, the miscalculations, the follies, and the ironies." "Impassioned and riveting...only in the great epics of Homer will readers regularly run into a comparable string of larger-than-life swashbucklers and statesmen, heroes and villains."
Reviews
"It focuses on the effects of oil on the economies of both consuming and producing nations as well how access to oil affects the political power of nations."
"It makes no sense to export a precious finite resource, and it makes a lot of sense to use our enemy's supply first."
"This is the third copy of this book that I have purchased."
"The sentiments of various people and groups towards oil (good or bad) were negligible in the book which gave it almost a sterile feel. I now have a much stronger understanding of just how oil plays its enormous role in the global society. I can't say enough about how well this book informs its reader in an enjoyable and insightful way. It may at points be dry material, but in no way did i feel like this book was written over my head."
"Although concentrated on the oil industry, this book is really an incredible history of the twentieth century, which makes a lot of sense considering the paramount of oil to that era and now."
"This is a long book, but if you want to write a comprehensive story of oil and its impact on the economy spanning more than a century, it's going to be long."
"This is one of the best histories of the Oil Business."
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Best Niger & Nigeria Travel Guides

A Song of Africa
A SONG OF AFRICA: and the Roots of Boko Haram Thrill and Learn Fortune seeking engineer, Paul Jeffries, out to make millions on a state of the art telecommunications project in Nigeria reluctantly agrees to reach out to the idealistic American ambassador’s daughter who has fled into the besieged rebel enclave of Biafra to help refugees there in the mid 1960’s. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + To understand how the terrorist group Boko Haram has risen in Nigeria in recent years, one must be familiar with the history of that troubled nation, home to every fourth person on the African Continent. For example, it is intriguing how in an article in the Wall Street Journal, Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s mini bio of Abubakar Shekau, leader of the terrorist group Boko Haram, resembles the strategy of Uthman dan Fodio who led the first Jihad in Nigeria at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Would the air over the plain quiver with a colour that I had on, or the children invent a new game in which my name was, or the full moon cast a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or would the eagles of Ngong look out for me?” Isak Dinneson “Out of Africa” "This country is filled with foreign spies." Ronald Brian Wheatley depicts his setting as forcefully as his characters, from the idyllic plateau region Paul (Jeffries) calls home to the perilous mangrove infested tributaries in the South. Congratulations to Ron Wheatley for his independent presentation of a missionary perspective, affirming in advance that to which Benedict exhorts us - The message, the mystery, the value of human life, and the conditions in which it is lived."
Reviews
"The characters--among them a bright and somewhat cynical engineer and a stunning young woman, among many others--are deftly drawn, as is both the landscape and the turmoil of Nigeria (which continues to this day). The author's respect for the Nigerians coexists with a realistic, often tragic view of human nature, and is buttressed by his own experiences."
"We learn of the poor Nigerians (some of them with leprosy) and of expatriates who like the Fitzgeralds , Hemingways and Gertrude Stein in Paris in the 1920's, have it better. We discover that Christian missionaries are a problem in an oil-rich nation still unstable from the cultural and political points of view. We meet two foreigners--Paul and Maureen who look at Nigeria conditioned by their respective reasons for being there, despite the mutual attraction. As we familiarize with their relationship, we learn first-hand about the many-sided aspects of a country still having tribal feuds that echo those between the Sunnis and Shiites."
"Wheatley does a splendid job of telling an intriguing story set in Nigeria during the mid-sixties and civil war there."
"Here is an engaging quasi-historic/romantic novel by Ronald Wheatley, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria during the sixties."
"Good character development although there were a couple of underdeveloped or implausible situations."
"Deepens understanding of Nigeria's history."
"In his book “A Song of Africa,” Ronald Wheatley creates a love story set in Nigeria during the Biafran War in 1966."
"This is an interesting story about an expatriate American, a telecommunication engineer, who is installing a system in the torn-apart region of Nigeria in the mid 60's."
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Best Coal Energy

Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation: How Silicon Valley Will Make Oil, Nuclear, Natural Gas, Coal, Electric Utilities and Conventional Cars Obsolete by 2030
The same Silicon Valley ecosystem that created bit-based technologies that have disrupted atom-based industries is now creating bit- and electron-based technologies that will disrupt atom-based energy industries. Just like those technology disruptions flipped the architecture of information and brought abundant, cheap and participatory information, the clean disruption will flip the architecture of energy and bring abundant, cheap and participatory energy.
Reviews
"The difficulties seem nothing in comparison to the grand scheme of solar, storage and electric autonomous cars."
"Tony Seba points out that the rise in affordable solar power and self-driving vehicles will leave traditional fossil-fuel based energy systems and large hydro-electric developments behind, not because we run out of oil,but because these new technologies are significantly cheaper and better."
"Fantastic read about technology and innovation related to energy and its posible impact , a bit too bullish for my taste ... specifically when the author talk about the cost of solar energy he forgot the big subsidies that pressure budgets in countries such as Germany nowadays , he shallowly mentioned something ... but in any way receives similar treatment he gives to fossil fuels ."
"It is quite interesting to read this book and Daniel yergin's master piece The Prize, pioneers are identical, history repeats itself: in 1870 most did not believe in oil."
"The book is a treat, and even though I considered myself an optimist about the technologies, Seba made a case for even more optimism-- or perhaps pessimism if you are vested in the fossil fuel industry..."
"The book ties together the math of using fossil fuels vis-a-vis changing over to solar energy."
"Excellent reading with amazing gathering of data."
"Is an excellent book to learn how the world is/will be changing in how we produce and consume energy and how transportation will change."
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Best Natural Gas Energy

The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters
Far from the limelight, Aubrey McClendon, Harold Hamm, Mark Papa, and other wildcatters were determined to tap massive deposits of oil and gas that Exxon, Chevron, and other giants had dismissed as a waste of time. In just a few years, they solved America’s dependence on imported energy, triggered a global environmental controversy—and made and lost astonishing fortunes. It stretches from the barren fields of North Dakota and the rolling hills of northeastern Pennsylvania to cluttered pickup trucks in Texas and tense Wall Street boardrooms. GEORGE MITCHELL, the son of a Greek goatherd, who tried to tap rock that experts deemed worthless but faced an unexpected obstacle in his quest to change history. AUBREY McCLENDON, the charismatic scion of an Oklahoma energy family, who scored billions leading a historic land grab. MARK PAPA, the Enron castoff who panicked when he realized a resurgence of American natural gas was at hand, one that his company wasn’t prepared for. "Zuckerman’s fast-paced, densely interesting The Frackers is the first book to tell the stories of the obstinate, ravenous, methodical, sometimes rascally oil executives of the recent boom. —The New Republic “ The Frackers , [Zuckerman’s] second book, is told with care and precision and a deep understanding of finance and corporate politics as well as oil and geology.”. — Bryan Burrough, The New York Times. “Lovers of business and capitalism will appreciate The Frackers , … Zuckerman has done valuable and timely reporting on the men and independent companies that created the shale boom.”. — Associated Press “Colorful …compelling account [of] a revolution driven by stubborn entrepreneurs.”. — Reuters “An interesting and first-rate narrative… a dramatic tale… The book may be the definitive story of the innovative men behind the most significant energy discovery of our time.”. — Akron Beacon Journal. Wall Street Journal reporter Zuckerman…sets out to change that with his unique talent of translating complex aspects of finances and geology into prose that reads like a blockbuster thriller.” — Publishers Weekly (starred) “Zuckerman details [the frackers’s] epic adventure with skill that makes it required reading for anyone looking to understand fundamental forces at work in our world today.” — Forbes “Best Books of 2013”. “Greg Zuckerman tells the remarkable story of the larger than life entrepreneurs and deal makers behind this energy-industrial revolution. This is a story of innovation as perspiration… It is a reminder that innovation is neither easy nor cheap nor inevitable”. — The Times (UK) "Greg Zuckerman's The Frackers will long be considered 'The Bible' on fracking and the history of drilling in the US and the wildcatting billionaires who were the main players.
Reviews
"This book opened my eyes to a world I was vaguely familiar with but never truly understood its impact."
"Simultaneously, it sheds the cool light of reason on the much-maligned "fracking" industry, which has been the target of an incendiary environmentalist scare campaign built on deception and disinformation."
"It provides a wonderful insight into the tenacity and ingenuity of the entrepreneurs who took huge personal & corporate risks to unlock the treasure house of the shale oil & gas in the US."
"Underscores America's culture of risk-taking, technology orientated profit making and relentless optimism."
"Kudos to the author for laying out these stories in such a compelling, page-turning manner."
"Very interesting account of the development and history of fracking in the US."
"As an X-COO from a small independent O&G Company we drilled HZ wells in the Barnett, Marcellus, and Granite Wash during this period."
"This book tells the story of 6 men who played an integral part in revolutionizing the energy industry the the painful development of fracking."
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