Review 522: BOOM

BOOM: Oil, Money, Cowboys, Strippers, and the Energy Rush That Could Change America Forever by Tony Horwitz
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

This is a short book. Horwitz traces where the XL Pipeline was proposed to carry the oil from the tar sands in Canada. Starting out in Canada he talks to people who are working on mines in the oil tar sands. Two tons of these sands will produce one barrel of oil, and daily they produce about 3 million barrels a day. That is an enormous amount of sand processed. The size is unfathomable, but Hortwitz does try to describe what the giant mine looks like.

After talking to mainly workers and others, he starts to follow the pipeline location, although it hadn’t been started yet. Most of the people he tries to talk to are land owner who’s land it will be sitting on, and we get their opinion. For the most part people seem to be for this venture, for the jobs and the money it will bring in.

There are some that are completely against it, and Horwitz talks to some of those people too, but there is not a balance. It felt to me that the majority included in this book are for the pipeline for what it will bring. Maybe I didn’t keep close enough track.

This is a journalist travel narrative, with the expected notes on things such as the border crossing and his rental car, along with some other local flavor and experiences.