Jumpstarting Energy Independence

Hubbert was accurate on that point, as anyone who recalls the long lines at gas stations in 1973 might attest. The gas shortage that year was brought on by declining reserves in the U.S. while the Middle East oil-producing nations withheld shipments because they were ticked off at U.S. support for Israel.

More recently David Goodstein, professor of physics at Caltech, in his 2004 book, Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil, looked at Hubbert’s research and more recent data and concluded that global demand for black gold will shortly exceed the world’s ability to produce it. Goodstein also predicts that alternative energy sources – of the type DOE is funding in this latest round of grants – may be too little and too late to stave off serious disruptions to our way of life.

“Civilization as we know it will come to an end sometime in this century unless we can find a way to live without fossil fuels,” Goodstein cautions.

In the face of such a calamitous possibility, DOE’s decision to fund innovative, early career scientists – to the tune of $150,000 a year for five years in the case of university researchers, and $500,000 a year for the same period for DOE’s up-and-coming, in-house talent – is an important step in the right direction. But we need to free up more bright young thinkers to tackle other looming crises – global shortages of clean water, potential pandemics, catastrophic climate change, and disruptions and shortages in food production.

Huffington Post