Rising Chinese demand and low U.S. fuel inventories have fueled oil's rally which has pushed prices up by $12 a barrel, or more than 50 percent, from this time last year.
The International Energy Agency said there was no relief in sight from high prices.
"The hike in futures prices during the past several months implies that recent oil price rises could be sustained. If that is the case, the macroeconomic consequences for importing countries could be painful," the IEA said on Monday.
Sciscoop interviewed David Goodstein just over a month back, in part about his new book Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil. Having made some poor assumptions about what he'd actually written, I was prompted to buy a copy - read on for the review...
Update [2004-5-14 6:46:39 by apsmith]:Reuters reports prices are now at a 21-year high (not adjusted for inflation though). Russia has hit its production ceiling, and Krugman points out the lack of spare capacity makes the current oil crisis quite distinct from the last one.
In this slim and subtly illustrated volume Dr. Goodstein, physics
professor and vice provost at Caltech, explains in clear and simple terms
why the fossil fuel age is coming to an end.
A "massive, focused commitment" is needed to develop alternatives, and
every year of delay in that commitment adds immeasurably to future
human suffering.
In years, or at best a decade, we will reach the global "Hubbert's peak"
for conventional oil, when production starts to decline even with rising
demand. Such a peak was reached for US production in 1970.
"Foreign oil" has sustained us until now, but Goodstein shows
why it cannot for much longer.
A number of books on this subject have come out in recent years,
some very pessimistic about the future (for example Heinberg's
"The Party's Over", which warns of a greatly decreased
world population). Goodstein offers some hope in alternatives,
substantially based on the analysis of climate scientist and space solar
power advocate Martin Hoffert.
Solar-based renewables and fusion are the only long-run energy
solutions. According to Goodstein, natural gas and nuclear
fission can help tide us over. All of these have problems,
with the most scalable (solar power from space) still the least mature.
The longest chapter discusses thermodynamics
and the physical laws that explain usable energy and
its relation to entropy. As a physicist, I was pleased and surprised to
learn something from Goodstein's clear explanation here.
Goodstein also discusses global climate problems with continued use
of fossil energy, particularly an increasing dependence on coal.
He concludes: "Civilization as we know it will come to an end sometime
in this century unless we find a way to live without fossil fuels."
We can only hope our economic and political leaders read and
understand this plain-speaking scientific prophet.
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