Burned out

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Burnt out is a thriller by Andreas Eschbach from 2007. The main character of the novel is the young, determined German Markus Westermann, who dreams of setting up his own company in the USA with the help of OPM ( other people's money ) and OPI (other people's ideas) , put into action - initially with great success, but then a global oil crisis struck him in the midst of a whirlpool of events that dramatically change lifestyles worldwide and that almost cost him his life.

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The book is not structured chronologically. Due to the different time levels, the reader learns about important events later and only understands the plot in retrospect.

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Markus Westermann is pursuing his childhood dream of founding his own company in the USA by taking a promising temporary job at the software company Lakeside and Rowe . He tries to attract his superiors so that he can stay longer in the American branch and not have to return to Germany. He succeeds, but shortly before starting his new job, his superior is promoted and his successor dissolves the agreement. Markus is supposed to use up his accumulated overtime for the last two weeks before the end of his working hours in the USA. Disappointed, he uses the remaining time for a tour through the vastness of the country.

In the process, he met the Austrian Karl Walter Block by chance, who promised that his method would enable him to find new oil fields where others were unsuccessful. During the lecture by the oil expert who had not studied at a congress in Chicago , he referred to his find at Steyr in Upper Austria and explained that with his method, which deviates from the scientific theory, he will still find a lot of crude oil : “With this method I will be able to to find enough oil that mankind need not worry about anything for the next thousand years. "

Both decide to set up something together under the name Block Explorations . With the conclusion of a contract and the founding of a company, Markus sees a chance to realize his seemingly utopian idea of ​​founding his own company with the help of OPI and OPM. Via the CEO of Lakeside and Rowe , the duo succeeds in establishing contact with the financially strong investment company Peak Performance Pool . The investors are to be convinced with a lecture. During the lecture there, Markus also met the influential Asian American Amy-Lee Wang and from then on spent many hours with her.

Immediately after the financial commitment from the Peak Performance Pool , the search for new oil fields begins. After several trips to oil production facilities all over America, Block decides in South Dakota, in the center of the USA, to drill for oil, contrary to the findings of science - with success. The front pages of the press print the heads of the duo and prophesy that the Austrian "oil guru" Karl Walter Block will secure oil for thousands of years. After this success, a surprising request came from Saudi Arabia : Block's method should be used in the Saudi desert. Everyone wants to get hold of the method, for example, the CIA agent Charles Taggard and Amy-Lee's extremely rich father are trying . But the mysterious block method, largely based on intuition, which tries to explain the oil deposits as a product of bacteria, remains unsuccessful at all Saudi drilling sites at all depths. Block spends hour after hour looking for oil fields and believes the Arab scientists have rigged the search. When Block suddenly disappears without a trace, the future of Block Explorations is in jeopardy. When Markus returns to New York, investors announce that they will withdraw all funds if he is unable to explain the block method.

Since Markus had only received some general information from Block, he is now trying as quickly as possible to get hold of documents from Block in Cleveland . Markus had a serious traffic accident because his tank was empty. His brother Frieder had him transferred to a German clinic under a false name, where Markus was in a coma for a long time. When he comes to, Frieder tells him that Markus is being wanted in the USA for fraud and drug offenses.

After an alleged attack on a Saudi oil port, the world gets into an oil crisis, which triggers an immense increase in the price and shortage of oil. It turns out that Ghawar , the largest oil field in the world, has dried up due to excessive production . Unrest breaks out and US troops occupy Saudi Arabia to secure the oil wells.

After Markus has recovered halfway, he returns to the USA undercover to finally get to Block's documents and save his company. Taggard gets ahead of him, however, because Block and Markus were bugged by the CIA in Saudi Arabia. While searching for Taggard, Markus ends up in a sect-like organization called Bare Hands Creek in Idaho , which aims to isolate himself from the outside world without using oil. From Taggard he learns about the block method:

"[...] these documents are worthless at all. […] Yes, we have bugged you. Naturally. [...] We submitted these documents to experts. Many experts. Nobody could do anything with it. These four notebooks are filled from first to last page with absolutely incomprehensible stuff. [...] Then we played to these experts the recordings of the conversations that we had between you and Block. You know - the bacteria that make oil. Petroleonts. This pretty word, however, is the only thing that is new about the theory. "

- Burned out

When Markus contradicts him with the oil discoveries as evidence, Taggard explains the success in Upper Austria as follows: “[...] that in Austria, especially in the area around Steyr, oil was extracted as early as the 1930s, [...] but its exploitation is economical Not worth it. ”And the former CIA agent can easily explain the oil discovery in South Dakota. A researcher living there loved the area, wanted to keep drilling cranes away from the landscape and therefore falsified his geological studies. Block must have known about it and, desperate to find no oil in the desert, fled.

In order to maintain the secrecy of the isolated exclave , Markus is not allowed to leave the village. But one day he is suspected of raping the Reverend's daughter, the village's spiritual leader. Threatened by the death penalty, Markus tries to flee, but is caught and almost lynched. The shot intended for Markus hits Taggard. Taggard, who is lying on his death bed, informs Markus about the strange death of his father. As a child Markus didn't hear much about his father's work. All he knew was that in the basement, which the children were forbidden to enter, he was inventing an achievement with which he wanted to save the world. The former industrial spy Taggard obtained information that the US security organization National Security Agency (NSA) used as an opportunity to manipulate Markus' father's car and simulate an accidental death. It is also Taggard who helps Markus to escape from Bare Hands Creek with the remaining heating oil . Markus tries to get to the Farsight Institute where his father's stolen documents are. The country has changed completely because of the oil shortage, and Markus is having difficulty achieving his goal. At the institute he meets the heavily pregnant Amy-Lee, who reveals to him that she is expecting a child from him.

They get married and, together with Markus 'former work colleague Keith Pepper, try to further develop Markus' father's invention in order to solve the energy crisis. Meanwhile, economies around the world are going downhill. With the help of the American government, the invention is being manufactured on an industrial scale and alleviating energy problems. Nevertheless, society is changing fundamentally.

At the same time, the stories of Markus' brother Frieder Westermann, his sister Dorothea Utz and their family and the Saudi prince Abu Jabr are told as subplots. Everyone is grappling with the effects of the oil crisis in their own way. In addition, there are historical episodes that explain the background or deal with the ancestors of the people.

Relation to the end of petroleum

Eschbach describes in detail the predicament of having reached the end of the oil supply ( global oil production maximum ) in the everyday life of the Utz family. Like all company members, the family man Werner is forbidden to refuel in the company's own gas station. Carpooling is the only way to cope with the long commute. The mother Dorothea decides to take over a small village shop, which the citizens of the small town avoid at first and instead go to the shopping center located in the remote area. After the son Julian distributed a leaflet on which the astonishingly high travel costs to the supermarket were calculated, the store gained importance. The existence of the luxury house is also in danger with the rising oil price. The in-house swimming pool and the large rooms have to be heated with a lot of oil. Markus' sister and brother-in-law keep playing with the idea of ​​selling the house and moving.

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Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andreas Eschbach : Burned out . Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2007, ISBN 3-7857-2274-5 , p. 179 .
  2. ↑ a b Andreas Eschbach : Burned out . Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2007, ISBN 3-7857-2274-5 , p. 470 .

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