Scott Montgomery

Scott Montgomery

Scott L. Montgomery is an author, geoscientist, and affiliate faculty member in the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle. He has 25 years' experience in the energy industry, where he worked on projects in many parts of the world. His many technical publications include papers, monographs, articles, and textbooks, mainly focused on cutting edge hydrocarbon plays, technologies, related impacts and issues.

Since 2010, his energy writings have moved to general audiences and a wide variety of topics of global concern. These have ranged from climate change to fracking, and included energy issues, technologies, and geopolitics in most parts of the world, as well as global trends and their relation to demographics. Scott’s writings have appeared in online journals such as The Conversation, Newsweek, Salon, Forbes, Fortune, and The Huffington Post. He also lectures publicly on these subjects and provides commentary for online and broadcast (radio, tv) venues both in the U.S. and internationally.

In addition to his popular writing and speaking, Montgomery has published 12 books on a range of subjects, including energy. These include, most recently, Seeing the Light: Making the Case for Nuclear Power in the 21st Century (Cambridge, 2017) and The Shape of the New: Four Big Ideas and How They Built the Modern World(Princeton), co-authored with Dan Chirot. The latter work was selected by The New York Times as one of the 100 Most Notable Books of 2015. Other works include Does Science Need a Global Language? (Chicago, 2013) and Powers that Be: Global Energy for the 21st Century and Beyond (Chicago, 2010).

Post Archive

18 September 2020
Scott Montgomery with a personal perspective on the unusually devastating fires displacing people and destroying property along the West Coast of the United States…
01 September 2020
Scott Montgomery argues that there are no silver bullets, yet there are silver linings to our post-pandemic energy landscape. There are few silver linings to the…
21 July 2020
Scott Montgomery worries that America's crumbling energy infrastructure is a sign of its waning global status.  I have been standing on a sidewalk, studying a telephone…
23 June 2020
In the wake of COVID-19 Scott L. Montgomery sketches the outlines of the world's plastic problem, providing some of its key details, and also some of the major challenges…
07 May 2020
Scott L. Montgomery shows why recent drops in global energy usage suggest that there can be no return to normal after the pandemic if we wish to tackle climate change. There…
17 March 2020
Scott Montgomery argues that, all things considered, ultra-cheap oil is not the world’s friend. Oil shocks happen when prices suddenly ascend or crash. In the past, a skyward soar…
31 October 2019
Beginning with South Asia, Scott L. Montgomery and Thomas Graham, Jr. introduce a two-part essay taking stock of contemporary prospects of nuclear conflict. Our world in the…
10 September 2019
Scott Montgomery explores “nuclear engineering” or, put another way, the strange history of attempts to use nuclear weapons for good ends. On first hearing it, I lost my…
30 July 2019
Scott L. Montgomery with a long read that provides analysis to the latest unfolding Iran crisis. Things have heated up once again between Iran and the West, the U.S. in…
23 April 2019
Scott L. Montgomery argues that current debates are overlooking the vital role fossil fuels must play in creating the conditions for their own abandonment. Is there a way to see…
27 February 2019
Scott L. Montgomery explores the Kingdom's nuclear ambitions. Much has been made in recent weeks about the Trump Administration’s attempted nuclear trist with the Saudis.…
05 November 2018
Scott Montgomery on why nuclear fusion deserves our attention. In the 1970s, when I was a graduate student in geosciences, the long-term future of energy had a single name:…
29 October 2018
Part 2 of this essay continues the topic of a post-carbon future but from an unconventional perspective. It delves into questions about how we conceive of “clean” energy and how…
22 October 2018
This is the first of a two-part column on the subject of a non-carbon energy future, a subject that is much discussed in energy circles and will continue to be. Part 1 outlines…
07 August 2018
Scott L. Montgomery argues that energy insecurity can blend with ideas of historical purpose, national identity, and global ambition to deadly effect. As a global power, China…