Robert Bryce is a Texas-based author, journalist, film producer, and public speaker. Over the past three decades, his articles have appeared in numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, National Review, Field & Stream, and Austin Chronicle.
His new documentary, Juice: How Electricity Explains the World, which he produced along with Austin-based film director Tyson Culver, premiered in mid-2019. A review of Juice in Birth. Movies. Death said the message of the film “is delivered with ease and precision through smooth editing, narration, and interviews with succinct information from the past, present, and potential ideas for the future. Filled with beautiful aerial shots and poignant scenes on par with images out of National Geographic magazine, Culver’s documentary debut is enlightening and powerful.”
Bryce has published five books. His first book, Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron, received rave reviews and was named one of the best non-fiction books of 2002 by Publishers Weekly. His second book, Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America’s Superstate, was published in 2004. His third book, Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of “Energy Independence,” published in March 2008, was favorably reviewed by more than 20 media outlets. The American magazine called Gusher “a strong and much-needed dose of reality.” A review of Gusher by William Grimes of the New York Times said that Bryce “reveals himself in the end as something of a visionary and perhaps even a revolutionary.”
In 2010, Bryce published Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy, and the Real Fuels of the Future. In a review of Power Hungry in the Wall Street Journal, Trevor Butterworth called the book “unsentimental, unsparing, and impassioned; and if you’ll excuse the pun, it is precisely the kind of journalism we need to hold truth to power.”
In 2014, he published Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong. In National Review, John Daniel Davidson wrote “the other big theme of Bryce’s book: The enemies of innovation, by and large, are environmentalists who claim to be defenders of the ‘natural’ world — so long as it does not include humanity….The data, which Bryce applies in heavy doses, add up to this: In almost every corner of the global economy, innovation is increasing efficiency and in the process driving up profits and creating wealth and prosperity.”
In March 2020, his longtime publisher, PublicAffairs, will publish his sixth book: A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations. Here’s the summary:
In the ancient world it was guns, germs, and steel that determined the fates of people and nations; now, more than ever, it is electricity.
Although global demand for power is doubling every two decades, electricity remains one of the most difficult forms of energy to supply and do so reliably. Today, some three billion people are still living in places where per-capita electricity use is less than what’s used by an average American refrigerator. How we close the enormous gap between the electricity rich and the electricity poor will affect everything from women’s rights and health care to warfare and climate change.
In A Question of Power, Robert Bryce tells the human story of electricity and explains why some countries have successfully electrified while so many others remain stuck in the dark. He shows how our cities, our money—our very lives—depend on reliable flows of electricity. Electricity has fueled a new epoch in the history of civilization. A Question of Power explains how that happened and what it means for our future.
Bryce has given over 300 invited or keynote lectures to dozens of groups including the Marine Corps War College, Sydney Institute, Jadavpur University, Northwestern University, and a wide variety of professional associations and corporations. He has also appeared on dozens of TV and radio shows including NPR, BBC, MSNBC, Fox, Al Jazeera, CNN, and PBS.
He spent 12 years as a reporter for the Austin Chronicle. From 2006 to 2010, he was the managing editor of the Houston-based Energy Tribune. From 2010 to September 2019, he was a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
He lives in Austin with his wife, Lorin.
Public Speaking
Bryce is an engaging and experienced public speaker. Email him at robert [at] robertbryce.com for more info.
For a partial list of recent speaking engagements, click here.
Click here for the Power Hungry Podcast
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