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$20 per Gallon author Chris Steiner in TIME Magazine

Chris Steiner’s fantastic book $20 per Gallon published yesterday and is generating plenty of positive attention. He was on NPR’s Talk of the Nation yesterday, and has reviews published in Publisher’s Weekly, Newsweek, the Miami Herald, the Kansas City Star, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Chris’ publisher Grand Central has gotten behind the book in a big way as well, running significant ads yesterday in both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. And here’s a snippet from a TIME Magazine piece that ran yesterday, as well:

In researching this book, what surprised you the most?

Perhaps nothing more than some of the paths our food takes around the world: Norwegian Salmon, for instance, can go from Scandinavian fishing boats to China, where the fish are gutted and cleaned by workers making so little the cost is almost negligible. From there, the fish travel back to their home country, neatly packaged as “local” to smitten shoppers in Norway’s supermarkets.

You mention the relative successes of Shai Agassi, of A Better Place, and Tom Casten, of Recycled Energy Development. What’s been holding back other people with big ideas about energy efficiency?

Breaking through in a big way with an idea revolving around alternative energy or efficiency is hard because, in most cases, these projects don’t assume to be profitable for years. Agassi has found success because he was already a giant in the world of software. Coming up with $100 million for an electric car project would be a nearly impossible task for anybody without the clout of Agassi. It’s interesting to watch how Tom Casten and his son Sean, who run Recycled Energy Development, can get almost frustrated when they explain how much energy we leave on the table in just about everything we do. They can walk into a steel plant and immediately find 50 megawatts worth of wasted juice and design ways for it to be captured. There aren’t many people who can do what the Castens do. As the price of gas goes up and our energy crunch becomes more acute, however, more companies like RED will surely pop up.

Congratulations, Chris!

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