Free Review at UK independent newspaper - Rated 
For clarity Ive not read this book yet, (being delivered as I write) however I have read some others and I am very afraid for the world.
I read Leggetts article in the Independant which was the best article Ive read on the issue. Im sure this is a summary of this books contents and is enough to make you think about the world in a very different way.
For a free taster/review/section of this book go online the at the UK Independents newspaper site.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/what-they-dont-want-you-to-know-about-the-coming-oil-crisis-523830.html
I have spent the last 20 years working for the Oil industry drilling Oil/Gas wells and I know how difficult/ expensive these new finds are to drill. Even a Toyota Prius is useless without petrol in the tank.
Remember the Fuel Protests back in 2000 in the UK
In Only 48 hours and the country was paralyzed due to fuel shortages at the Petrol stations. 75% of all petrol stations in Scotland were closed, Ambulances, fire engines, police all affected. Supermarkets nearly out of food, no blood being transported to hospitals. The entire event lasted about 8 days before the Government stepped in with the Military to break the blockade and start the supply of oil again. Check out Wikipedia for a full reminder of what it was like.
This was a man made protest where people blockaded fuel depots to protest about the "high" cost of petrol.
Imagine what will happen when the shortage is not man made and Nature says "no more".
Look at some of the Poorer countries in the world now, £1 a litre is already way too much and their industries have shut down, rioting in the streets, starvation etc. In the UK ( and western world) people complain now its at £1 a litre, it if hits £2 a litre people could probably still afford it in smaller amounts, however bit by bit people round the world hit their point of no return where they, individually and then collectively as an economy, are unable to continue to function in their current state.
What this Book and Peak oil event is about is these Fuel shortages lasting for Years if not forever.
How long do you think your town / county can last without fuel. Fuel will most likely not stop over night, but reductions of even 5% a year will cause massive economic problems. Most large oil fields when they decline can drop 10- to 20% per year. The UK has dropped nearly 40% since its Peak in 1999. The Uk is now dependent on imported fuel.
Oil round the world is not evenly distributed around every country, some have it all, some have virtually NONE, eg western Europe and USA/Canada. Polite notice: before the "Tars sands to save the world" people jump on the band wagon, please do some research and see the real numbers for this Mining operation (its not an oil well field) and will never produce more than a few percent of the worlds needs even then with massive toxic results to Canada and the world. "Oil" from the tar sands in not actualy Oil, its tar, thick, heavy, poor quality and difficult to process and needs to be mixed with "Good" oil to make it usable.
Also a note for the "new technologies" will save the day brigade, all the solar, wind, wave and nuclear put together amount for about 5 - 10% of the worlds energy use. If the amount of money that has so far been spent invading Iraq and Afghanistan, was spent instead on developing solar, wind, wave power etc we might today be in a very much better position. However there are not many solar or wind powered tanks or fighter jets in use today, hence without oil there is no military.
On a final note,
- ask yourself about why you will never heard the worlds "Peak Oil" on the news on TV.
- ask yourself the next time you see the horrific pictures of people being blown up on TV in the Middle east due to the "War on Terror" - Is this about the terrorists who live in the Middle East or a last attempt by the West to install the military in the area of the world where 60% of all the worlds oil comes from.
Ask youself - If you were in charge (ie Cheyney/Blair) and someone said to you "... world production is about to decrease and will not meet our current energy needs, there is nothing we can do about it. Extra drilling will find some but not enough to offset the natural decline in production. No Alternative fuel (solar, wind, wave, hydrogen OR even Nuclear all put together) will be enough......Mr Cheyney/Mr Blair you have 2 choices...
1. Sit back, do what we can, and watch the us run out of fuel (no fuel = no military)
2. Invade now and try and secure the last drop and place the Military in the middle of the largest Petrol Station in the World.
What do you think they will do? What would you do! Im not even sure what I would do if posed the same question!
Ask yourself do you still think that the "War on Terror" is not linked with Peak Oil.
Sleep Well!
PS only 4 stars as Ive not read it yet, but based on Leggtets other stuff, its essential reading.
Half Gone: Half Good - Rated 
Read this book if you want to know about the mechanics of finding oil and read a well-rounded discussion of the peak oil phenomenon. This is in the first half of the book and reason enough to buy it.
Mr Leggett is not, however, a climate scientist, political specialist or a renewables energy expert, and the second half of the book he attempts to deal (broadly speaking) with these issues. Here he is weak. He brushes over the issues too quickly to be meaningful, and - crucially - does not really offer enough detail of what we can do about the problem that he has convincingly outlined at the start of his book.
The result is a lop-sided book: an excellent first 150 pages or so followed by a much less coherent last few chapters, which at times border on the conspiratorial. He also has the misfortune to write very pretentiously in the first and last chapters, in which he portrays the past and predicted future of the planet as if he were an extraterrestrial (humans become 'thinkers' and Earth becomes 'the blue pearl', and so forth).
First Half is better than the second - Rated
Jeremy Leggett delivers an argument in two parts. Firstly, he informs us that we have used half of the petroleum that ever existed, that oil production has peaked (or very soon will - he was writing in 2005), and that no amount of exploration will find new reserves sufficient to change that. As the oil industry in particular and business in general have avoided confronting this inevitability, the belated realisation will trigger, he suggests, an economic depression disproportionately greater than the subsequent long slow fall in oil supply will merit. In making his first assertion Dr Leggett is dealing in his area of expertise, as a former oil-industry geologist and consultant. As for his second argument it should be pointed out that he is not an economist, and that we are currently dealing with "triple digit" oil prices without economic meltdown, but nonetheless he makes the argument effectively.
The second part of Leggett's argument is a rehearsal of the standard man-made global warming one. He uses what appears to be the Michael Mann "hockey stick" graph from the third IPCC Report some years after it was pretty thoroughly discredited, although (cleverly?) he uses a version from the Meteorological Office. In talking about a 50 metre rise in sea levels caused by the melting of ice he might be said to out-Gore Al Gore, but the arguments are essentially those of the IPCC's report, put succinctly and effectively. It will come as no surprise to learn that Leggett was also Greenpeace's chief scientist for some seven years. The point of this second point of the argument is to remind us that, even if oil was not running out, we should be doing all we can to avoid burning more of it anyway.
Leggett then goes on to explain what we should do about it. He advocates a massive investment in energy efficiency and alternative energies of all types (he is currently CEO of a company promoting solar electricity!) except nuclear - which he deems "inadequate" for a number of reasons. I might be more inclined to go with Lovelock on nuclear energy, but Leggett's arguments about the potential for accident and the difficulty of waste disposal are substantial ones. One might, however, struggle with his argument that nuclear is not viable because of the time it will take to deliver nuclear power stations: nuclear fission is at least a proven technology, unlike many of the alternatives he proposes, and particularly the power storage devices that he acknowledges we need and proposes we develop alongside them. He also wants to have his cake and eat it by first arguing that energy will become vastly more expensive once we have realised we have passed "peak oil", while then saying nuclear energy is still too expensive.
I found what Leggett had to say about peak oil illuminating. There is no doubt that we will reach this stage at some time in the near future, and we have to hope that its economic consequences are not as devastating as he thinks they will be. I am prepared to take his arguments about global warming as read for the sake of the final part of the book, what we should do about it. Here I fear that while he makes many sensible recommendations he closes his mind to several important options - nuclear, carbon sequestration - while he is too ready to ignore potential limitations of his preferred ones, especially wind and solar. It is hard not to suspect that it is the green activist rather than the scientist who is speaking to us here. Notwithstanding these cavils, I do heartily recommend reading Dr Leggett's book. It is clearly and humorously written, and, while they may irritate some, I did like his asides about "Number One Consumer", "Oil Producer Number Fifteen" and the "Not-so-thoughtful Thinkers".
Incidentally, after reading Dr Leggett's book I got a quotation, from one of the installers supplied by his company SolarCentury, for the installation of solar PV panels on the roof of my house. My family uses about £5-600 of electricity each year, and solar panels that would supply substantially all of that power (and which would just about fit on the roof) would cost about £24k, discounted to £12k if I managed to get one of the government's grants. A return of just under 5% is not entirely uneconomic, but of course the panels would not supply that electricity when I need to use it. We need to cut the cost, and deal with the storage issues, before we adopt this technology, and I suspect that that will take rather more than the fifteen years to build new nuclear reactors!
Brilliant - Rated 
This is a fantastic look at oil peaks and future energy supplies. As typical for Leggett, it is written very clearly and is completely engaging. It has the potential to change the way you view your dependence on oil and on how you live in the world. Most books of this nature tend to leave you feeling a little hopeless and depressed, but I'm delighted to say this isn't one of them. Jeremy Leggett manages to give you all the information you could need in an entertaining and informative way and leaves you feeling invigorated to go out there and make a difference. If you like this I highly recommend his other book, Carbon War, about the Kyoto agreement.
Half gone - Rated
This is a fantastic look at oil peaks and future energy supplies. As typical for Leggett, it is written very clearly and is completely engaging. It has the potential to change the way you view your dependence on oil and on how you live in the world. Most books of this nature tend to leave you feeling a little hopeless and depressed, but I'm delighted to say this isn't one of them. Jeremy Leggett manages to give you all the information you could need in an entertaining and informative way and leaves you feeling invigorated to go out there and make a difference. If you like this I highly recommend his other book, Carbon War, about the Kyoto agreement.
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