No matter what the price of gas is this month, the United States is on a verge of a crippling energy crisis that could undermine our economy and  change our way of life. In Who Turned Out the Lights?, Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson, editors of the award-winning nonpartisan Web site PublicAgenda.org, offer a much-needed reality check.  Neither “Drill, Baby, Drill” nor “Every Day is Earth Day” is an effective energy policy, and these kinds of ideological roadblocks have left us spinning our wheels for too long. If we don’t get our act together and do something now, we'll be scrambling to get the energy we need to make life as we know it possible.

But while the topic is serious, learning what you need to know about it doesn’t have to be. Featuring chapters entitled “Dam It: Hydroelectric Power” and “Time for the Nuclear Option?” and sidebars like “This little piggy went to market while this little piggy passed laws,” this book will be anything but dry. By applying the same winning approach they used to irreverently explain the federal budget crisis in Where Does the Money Go?, Bittle and Johnson will use pop culture to help define the fundamental concepts that shape the debate and explain the three risks we face: that we won’t be able to afford the energy we need, that we’ll be dangerously dependent on foreign energy, and that we’ll destroy the planet before we have a chance to solve the problem. They will also help readers understand the pros and cons of a range of ideas on the agenda, including alternative fuels, nuclear power, clean coal, electric cars, fixing up our houses, taxing carbon emissions, and many more.

In the end, the authors take one position: the country must change the way it gets and uses energy, and there’s no more time to waste. Beyond that, they’ll leave how to get from here to there as an open question—one Americans simply have to understand better and tackle head on.