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This comprehensive new dictionary comprises over 1300 definitions and brief articles to provide an extremely useful ready-reference work on solid, liquid and gaseous fuels, including information on the scenes of production of many fuels, such as major coal reserves and large oil and gas fields. Economics are addressed with entries included for all the major indices for oil, coal and natural gas pricing. The political perspective is also dealt with, covering the oil-producing countries and OPEC; environmental issues also feature, as do entries on chemical compounds, trade names, industrial processes and much more.
The book carefully traces fuel usage since industrialisation with information provided on some 19th century events such as the Drake Well. However, there is a correct balance of entries in terms of the periods to which they relate and thoroughly modern topics such as enhanced oil recovery are featured. Users of the Dictionary will gain an appreciation of the development of fuel and energy technology and sense the continuity or, in some cases, revival of ideas. As an example, what is now known as 'BTU conversion' and often treated as if it were novel is, in fact, a return to gasification technologies that were used a century or more ago.
