Pipeline – my second novel

By Peter Schechter Thursday, 09 October 2008 00:00

Pipeline – my second novel – is to be published in March 09.  It is a thriller about America’s energy addiction to foreign sources and a nightmare scenario of our country depending on Russia for natural gas. 

It begins with hellish scenes in California due to statewide blackouts from severe natural gas shortages.  Everything is affected – from streetlights to electric fences surrounding maximum security prisons.  An increasingly desperate US president, inheriting thirty years of America’s energy policy paralysis, now looks toward Russia’s abundant natural gas reserves as a possible solution to America’s long-term needs.  But attempts to lure Russia’s gas to America goes awry as the President discovers that he has been unwittingly swept up and blackmailed by the dark, nationalist powers in control of Russia’s energy sector.

In short, it’s about natural gas, a resurgent Russia, energy dependency and Alaska (and a beautiful Alaskan woman CIA director!).  I guess I got a couple of those subjects right as I was writing a year ago.

We enter a new era in 09.  A New Year, new President, new economic lows to rise from and new leadership vacuums to fill.  Few issues are as important to get right as the energy issue.  It is the long term structural problem which affects our pocket books, our geo-politics and, of course, our planet.