Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong

by Robert Bryce

Overview

In the face of today's environmental and economic challenges, doomsayers preach that the only way to stave off disaster is for humans to reverse course: to de-industrialize, re-localize, ban the use of modern energy sources, and forswear prosperity. But in this provocative and optimistic rebuke to the catastrophists, Robert Bryce shows how innovation and the inexorable human desire to make things Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper is providing consumers with Cheaper and more abundant energy, Faster computing, Lighter vehicles, and myriad other goods. That same desire is fostering unprecedented prosperity, greater liberty, and yes, better environmental protection.

Utilizing on-the-ground reporting from Ottawa to Panama City and Pittsburgh to Bakersfield, Bryce shows how we have, for centuries, been pushing for Smaller Faster solutions to our problems. From the vacuum tube, mass-produced fertilizer, and the printing press to mobile phones, nanotech, and advanced drill rigs, Bryce demonstrates how cutting-edge companies and breakthrough technologies have created a world in which people are living longer, freer, healthier, lives than at any time in human history.

The push toward Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper is happening across multiple sectors. Bryce profiles innovative individuals and companies, from long-established ones like Ford and Intel to upstarts like Aquion Energy and Khan Academy. And he zeroes in on the energy industry, proving that the future belongs to the high power density sources that can provide the enormous quantities of energy the world demands.

The tools we need to save the planet aren't to be found in the technologies or lifestyles of the past. Nor must we sacrifice prosperity and human progress to ensure our survival. The catastrophists have been wrong since the days of Thomas Malthus. This is the time to embrace the innovators and businesses all over the world who are making things Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610395472
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Edition description:	First Trade Paper Edition
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	955,019
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Robert Bryce is the acclaimed author of five previous books, including Smaller, Faster, Lighter, Denser, Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong, and Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Austin Chronicle, Guardian, and National Review.

He has given over 300 invited or keynote lectures to groups ranging from the Marine Corps War College to the Sydney Institute and has appeared on dozens of media outlets ranging from Fox News to Al Jazeera. Bryce is also the producer of a new feature-length documentary, Juice: How Electricity Explains the World. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Lorin.

Table of Contents

List of Graphics, Tables, and Photos xi

Author's Note xv

Introduction: Moving Beyond "Collapse Anxiety" xix

Part I The Push for Innovation, Its Consequences, and the Degrowth Agenda

1 Panama: Digging a Faster Cheaper Way to Travel 3

2 The Trend Toward Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper 9

The Brain 9

The Printing Press 10

The Vacuum Tube 12

The AK-47 17

The Haber-Bosch Process 19

The Diesel and the Jet Turbine 21

The Telescope and Microscope 26

The Pearl Street Power Plant 30

The Roller-Cone Drill Bit 33

Digital Communications 37

3 Never Have So Many Lived So Well 41

4 Back to the Past: The Push for "Degrowth" 50

Sidebar: Bill McKibben's Energy-Starvation Plan 55

Part II Our Attosecond World: How We Got Here, Where We're Going, and the Companies Leading the Way

5 Angstroms and Attoseconds 67

6 How Our Quest for Faster Drives Innovation 72

7 Faster Lighter Doper 77

Sidebar: Tour de Doper 83

8 The Engines of the Economy 85

Smaller Faster Inc.: Ford Motor Company 101

9 From ENIAC to iCloud: Smaller Faster Computing 106

Sidebar: The Incredible Shrinking Circuit 114

Sidebar: "Green" Computing Can't Power the Cloud 118

Smaller Faster Inc.: Intel 121

10 From LP to iPod 125

11 From Kublai Khan to M-PESA 129

Smaller Faster Inc.: Safaricom 136

12 Density and the Wealth of Cities 141

13 Denser Cheaper Food Production 146

14 The Faster the Bits, the Freer the People 152

Sidebar: Smaller Lighter Cheaper Phones 158

15 From Monks to MOOCs: Faster Cheaper Education 159

16 Smaller Faster Cheaper Medicine 164

Part III The Need for Cheaper Energy

17 The Faster the (Drill) Bits, the Cheaper the Energy 171

Sidebar: We're Running Out of Oil… 180

18 The Tyranny of Density 182

Smaller Faster Inc.: Clean Energy Systems 185

19 Smaller Faster and the Coal Question 188

Sidebar: India Is Not Going "Beyond Coal" 193

Sidebar: GOOG < Coal 198

Smaller Faster Inc.: Aquion Energy 200

Part IV Embracing Our Smaller Faster Future

20 Getting Energy Policy Right 211

Reject Wind and Biofuels 211

Wind Energy's Incurable Density Problem 212

Sidebar: Debunking the Big Fibs About Wind and Solar 220

Biofuels are 'A Crime Against Humanity" 223

21 Climate Change Requires N2N (N2N is SFLDC) 235

Sidebar: We Need to Reduce Gas Flaring 245

22 Embrace Nuclear Green 247

Sidebar: Make Atoms for Peace a Reality 258

23 SX Smaller Faster: Why the United States Will Dominate the Smaller Faster Future 261

24 Conclusion: Moving Past Fear 275

Appendix A SI Numerical Designations 279

Appendix B Energy and Power Units and Equivalents 281

Appendix C Gravimetric Power Density from Humans to Jet Engines 283

Appendix D Five Leaders in Online Learning 284

Appendix E Wind Energy's Noise Problem: A Review 287

Appendix F Areal Power Density Data for Sixteen Wind-Energy Projects 290

Appendix G Major Players in Nuclear Energy 292

Notes 295

Select Bibliography 351

Index 355

Editorial Reviews

03/24/2014
Manhattan Institute senior fellow Bryce (Power Hungry) asserts that for centuries we have been making goods and services smaller, faster, lighter, denser, and cheaper, and that due to these innovations, we “never have so many lived so well.” But he poses the question: “Will we continue innovating, embracing technology, and getting richer, or will we listen to those who are advocating degrowth?” Though Bryce jumps from topic to topic—from the printing press, to rock n’ roll, to digital communications, to doping at the Tour de France—it becomes clear that these examples bolster his deeply held views that natural gas and nuclear energy are keys to future global prosperity. He expounds at length in the third section of the book, noting that, “In the wake of the 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant… the prospects for nuclear energy have never been brighter.” He does not hide his disdain for the “Green Left,” repeatedly criticizing organizations like the Sierra Club and Green Peace. Bryce’s exploration of innovation and companies pursuing the titular creed may hold some interest for general business readers, but this provocative work is ultimately about energy policy, and as such, may suit a more specialized audience. Agent: Dan Green, POM Inc. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Don't be misled by Robert Bryce's very breezy style. His new book makes important and positive observations about the world's energy future. You don't have to agree with every one of his attitudes or conclusions to hope that the reporting and arguments in the book are taken seriously, and that the innovators and start-ups he vividly describes get the support they need.” —James Fallows

"[Bryce's] new book constitutes a direct assault against the policies of "degrowth" advanced by those who peddle what he calls "collapse anxiety". The book is also a sustained argument against the fundamentally pessimistic worldview that underlies those policies. . . . The claim that we can and should replace fossil fuels with renewables such as wind and solar is, Bryce says, a "damnable lie" that obscures the far more important question of what we should do to make more energy available to more people, especially 'the more than two billion people who are still living in abject energy poverty."—John Daniel Davidson, National Review

“The author of four books on oil and energy, Mr. Bryce has written a new book well worth reading…Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper…captures the headlong rush of Western culture's endless drive for ever better technology. It is an extraordinary impulse that has created a world in which more people live longer and more comfortably than ever before.”—Fred Andrews, New York Times

“For years, Robert Bryce has been calling for rationality on energy policy. In this book, Bryce goes beyond energy to explain why the innovation that drives entrepreneurs is the way of the future. I'm an unapologetic capitalist. Reading Smaller Faster has only fortified my belief that the best way to address poverty is through entrepreneurial capitalism that produces more innovation and progress.”
—John Mackey, co-founder and co-CEO, Whole Foods Market, and co-author of Conscious Capitalism

“Robert Bryce may be our finest observer of the energy scene. Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper displays all the virtues — the contacts, the technical savvy, the wit and clear thinking – that make Bryce indispensable.” —Charles R. Morris, author of The Dawn of Innovation and Comeback

"A book brimming with well-founded enthusiasm about the amazing present and the prospects for a more amazing future...exploding with fascinating energy facts and...super-fun to read....Bryce takes his appreciation of innovation and uses it to illuminate the past, present, and future of innovation across the board."—Forbes

“So what went wrong — or, rather, right? Why is the human race in much better shape than it was 200, 100, or 50 years ago? Robert Bryce reminds us of the answers in his sprightly new book and promises that even better times lie ahead…Bryce's new book is an enlightening stroll down the sunny side of the street.” —Hiawatha Bray,the Boston Globe

“Engrossing survey”—Arthur Herman, the Wall Street Journal

“A celebration of innovations that have produced cheaper and more abundant energy, faster computing, lighter vehicles and other technological benefits…..Bryce [is a] booster for business and technology; he makes many intriguing arguments in this ‘rejoinder to the doomsayers [and] rebuttal to the catastrophists who insist that disaster lurks just around the corner.'”—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2014-03-31
A celebration of innovations that have produced cheaper and more abundant energy, faster computing, lighter vehicles and other technological benefits. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Bryce (Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future, 2010, etc.) vehemently rejects the views of catastrophists (from Bill McKibben to Greenpeace and the Sierra Club) who cry out about scarcity and shortage and warn against technology and industrial development as threats to the planet. Instead, he argues that entrepreneurs and innovation are creating a world where "more people are living longer, healthier, freer, more peaceful lives than at any time in human history." Innovation is allowing us to do more with less, he writes: "We are continually making things and processes Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper." Bryce surveys innovations from the printing press and the jet turbine to digital communications and new medical technologies, examining each in terms of its smaller-faster-etc. attributes. Due to widespread innovation, for example, computers are smaller and faster; food packaging is lighter, farms are denser, and goods and services are cheaper. And so on. In time, cheaper computing, high-speed Internet connectivity, wireless communications and 3-D printing may foster yet more innovation. "[O]ur future depends on embracing technology," he writes. The author's huge compendium of innovations and his fresh way of looking at them will interest many readers. His topics include the Panama Canal, oil drilling bits, the density of cities and online learning, and he writes at length about the critical importance of cheap, abundant, reliable energy, emphasizing the need for more natural gas, oil, nuclear energy and coal. Though Bryce often sounds like an unabashed booster for business and technology, he makes many intriguing arguments in this "rejoinder to the doomsayers [and] rebuttal to the catastrophists who insist that disaster lurks just around the corner."

Kirkus Reviews