Power play

I was hoping for an interesting mostly hard science fiction book.
But the new technology, magneto hydrodynamic power didn't ring true.
I either missed or they didn't explain how it magically burned high sulfur coal and produced no CO2 or SO2.
But what did me in was that the hero of the story was interested in two women. His relationship was mostly about whether they would have sex with him or if they had had sex with the other men in the story and so on.
This managed to make both him and the two women too boring to continue.