Historian of Energy, Tech, & Environment, Professor @SIUE, Author of ETHANOL: A HEMISPHERIC HISTORY, and TACONITE DREAMS, Public & Oral Historian
Edwardsville, Illinois
Joined March 2008
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It's publication day for ETHANOL: A HEMISPHERIC HISTORY FOR THE FUTURE OF BIOFUELS. Want to know why the US turns 40% of its corn crop into fuel? How the US and Brazil became the world's two largest ethanol producers? Tom Rogers and I have answers.
oupress.com/9780806196015/et…
New chapter for an old industrial site: The former Alton Steel will become a data center in 2027. This site opened as Laclede Steel in 1911, a smaller, specialty mill. It was one of the mills that made steel for the WTC. Went bankrupt in the 2001 downturn
Coincidentally, I've been diving into steel history again and it's incredible how long the consequences of the 1970s energy crisis lasted. Much of the 1980s crisis among US integrated steelmakers was kicked off by the previous decade's high energy costs.
Thinking of my friends and colleagues in Alberta today as they vote on the separation referendum. Not my place to say how to vote, but I hope Alberta's future is guided by unity and sustainability, not grievance. (Here's my dog looking at the path ahead in Calgary.)
Saturday night in southwest Illinois. Art installation in an abandoned building, US Steel's Granite City Works in the background.
Some of the engineers at this refinery live in my neighborhood. I should offer a service to alert subscribers when I see them rushing out the door in coveralls, so you know prices are going up
One year since Tom Rogers and I published _Ethanol: A Hemispheric History for the Future of Biofuels_ with @OUPress. I've had some great conversations about energy and history since then, looking forward to more in the coming year.
Here's the link if you'd like to check it out for yourself! oupress.com/9780806196015/et…
When I saw that the H-Environment listserv needed a reviewer for a book on fishing in southern Illinois, I figured there can't be too many environmental historians in southern Illinois who also like fishing 😅 Here's the review. h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.ph…
I'm reading a lot of Gilded Age business material lately, and I'm struck by how writers in that era used "boom" as a verb to describe companies manipulating securities prices (eg, "a new pool was formed to boom the stock). Seems like something we should bring back.
From the archives: Senator Philip Hart's (D-MI) 1973 amendment calling for the US government to build seven new refineries to alleviate the energy crisis.
Rather than banning diesel exports, the feds should put a price cap on "old" diesel (refinery volumes before 2026), allow "new" diesel (volumes added after 2026) to sell at the world price, and let small, stripper refineries sell at uncontrolled prices.
On my little-used blog, I'm reposting an op-ed I wrote in early 2025 for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the madness of Trump's anti-Canada stance. It was unproductive then, and it's worse now. Midwesterners can't afford this nonsense.
jeffmanuel.com/blog-1/2026/0…
Jeff Manuel retweeted
For Offrange, I wrote about my dad's career as an oats broker and how he and others remade North America's oat supply chain 40 years ago. I hope you'll check it out! ambrook.com/offrange/perspec…
For Offrange, I wrote about my dad's career as an oats broker and how he and others remade North America's oat supply chain 40 years ago. I hope you'll check it out! ambrook.com/offrange/perspec…
I don't know how Amazon's algorithms work, but ETHANOL: A HEMISPHERIC HISTORY FOR THE FUTURE OF BIOFUELS is now 20 percent off in hardcover. It's a lot of energy history for less than five gallons of gas in California!
amazon.com/Ethanol-Hemispher…
Thanks to @adam_tooze for featuring the paintings of Paula Kamps, a friend and talented artist, in today's Chartbook.
adamtooze.substack.com/p/top…