Humans have a trait that distinguishes us from all other species: the ability to use fire. We turn on a switch and light comes into our homes. With the turn of a key, vehicles take us where we want to go. We adjust a thermostat in our homes to make us warm or cool. These are everyday events we hardly think about. It took centuries of vision, science and engineering to achieve this comfort-point in our long evolutionary journey. Today, an average person lives better than kings lived several centuries ago. As we revealed the facts behind global warming in our last book, The Resilient Earth, we take the same tack in out latest work, The Energy Gap. In its pages, we present the hard science and engineering that will close a looming energy gap for our country and the world. There is also a warning. If we chose the political route, the activist route, the human race will slide backwards for the first time since the Industrial Revolution. If we choose the correct path, as revealed in The Energy Gap, our species will continue its forward march towards a brighter future for all on Earth