Now, this is said in discussion of the point made by Sir Walter Marshall in his 1979 report on CHP - the feasibil- ity of one or more Heat Boards. With just a little more input from the international scene (it must not be forgotten that energy technology is ubiquitous) taking the step which puts heat into the picture, to think in terms of energy is a very small remove indeed.

Heat and power

Energy is both heat and power; elec- tricity is the smaller component and must remain so - fixed in its place by the laws of physics. The third and last step is to plan all energy strategy not with electricity as the primary consid- eration, but only as the by-product of the long-proven practice of public utility heat service distribution. It is not for nothing that these units now flourish, expanding as Local Energy Authorities, to become entirely re-

sponsible for all services - gas, water, street-lighting, district heating, tele- phones and electricity, and often all other municipal engineering services i n c l u d i n g sewage and r u b b i s h collection/incineration.

That Martin Ince should have mis- sed - or avoided - this basic point does not entirely spoil his book, odd though that may seem. The probing and questioning done here is long over- due, and the process must not stop.

A conclusion Mr Ince's book points to is that no single energy industry should dominate the scene. There is no longer any need for an Electricity Council, as he hints; what he has not quite got around to is suggesting that an Energy Council should take its place. And that, although another story, fits the same words and music.

Norman Jenkins International Energy Strategy Whitehill, Ewshot, Surrey, UK

Oil data handbook OIL ECONOMISTS HANDBOOK 1984

by Gilbert Jenkins

Applied Science Publishers, London and New York, 282 pp, 1984

This is an interesting and unusual book, the title of which is a bit of a misnomer. It is made up of two sections: first, a collection of strange and useful statistics, and second, a dictionary of terms - followed by an

eight page chronology of events be- tween 1919 and 1983.

The author, Gilbert Jenkins, has used, in a disaggregated fashion, the historical data in the annual BP Statis- tical Review of Worm Energy. The data are thus quite reliable. For this reviewer - who for years searched for some of the tables Jenkins supplies - this book is a real treat. It provides many interesting historical data - and also many that you will never need. I wonder how many people really want to know the price of naphtha in

Book reviews~Publications received

November 1976 in Rotterdam! Or what the gas oil demand in Finland was in the second quarter of 1968! That the book is called an oil econom- ist's handbook is also a little baffling. There is no oil economics in the book. Perhaps, the author felt that oil eco- nomists spend their lives running re- gressions and, therefore, would enjoy themselves playing with the monthly prices and quarterly consumption data provided.

The second section - a dictionary of terms is adequate, though much is missing, particularly in reference to the oil companies. This section is presumably being updated and im- proved every year.

As a handbook, I would still prefer the more standard industry texts, such as BP's Our Industry Petroleum, or Shell's The Petroleum Handbook. These will tell you a lot more about the industry, whether you are a tech- nical or non-technical person and whether you are new or old to the business. If you have a thirst for strange but interesting data, you will need Jenkins' book. For myself, if I had not received a free copy for review, I would have invested in buying such a book. I am not sure, however, if I would want to buy a new copy every year. For future years, the author might wish to think about reducing some of the old data and adding some useful petroleum econo- mic terms and concepts to the book. This should improve its value to the readers significantly.

Fereidun Fesharaki and Sharon L. Hoffman

East-West Center, Honolulu

Publications received Acid Deposition Causes and Effects: A State Assessment Model edited by Alex E.S. Green and Wayne H. Smith (Govern- ment Institutes, Inc, 966 Hungerford Drive, No 24 RockviUe, MD 20850, USA, 1983, 316 pp, $38.00, $41.00 surface mail)

Advances in Energy Systems and Technolo- gy edited by Peter Auer and David Doug- las (Academic Press, Orlando, FL 32887, 1983, 213 pp, $49.00)

Advances in Petroleum Geochemistry Vol 1 edited by Jim Brooks and Dietrich Welte

(Academic Press Inc, Orlando, FL 32887, 1984, 355 pp, £35.10, $49.50) Contains extended reviews by experts on recent advances in petroleum geochemis- try.

An Atlas of Renewable Energy Sources in the United Kingdom and North America by Julian Mustoe (Wiley, Chichester, UK, 1984, 202 pp, £37.00) Analyses the size and geographical dis- tribution of the eight principal renewable energy resources of North America and the UK.

Biogas Plants in Europe: A Practical Hand- book edited by M. Demuynck, E.J. Nyns and W. Palz, Solar Energy R and D in the European Community, Series E, Volume 6 (Reidel, Dordrecht, the Netherlands, 1984, 339 pp, Dr 130.00) This book is conceived to give guidance on the state-of-the-art and possible future developments relating to biogas plants.

Cambridge Energy Research Group Work in Progress, April 1984 by Richard Eden and other members of the Cambridge Energy Research Group (Cambridge Ener- gy Research Group, Department of Phy- sics, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, 1984, 31 pp)

ENERGY POLICY December 1984 481