This book, the first in an energy trilogy, stems from the need to reconcile, in a single structured writing, the different relationships that energy has to society, politics, economics, the environment and technology by presenting a wide-ranging panorama both in the analysis of each individual energy source and in the examination of global and local players. Free of ideological bias, it is characterized as a picture of the current situation to understand the future evolution of energy and society and to confront the inherent theme of complexity.