Road & Track magazine looks at peak oil

I have been reading Road & Track for over 35 years. It is ironic that the last issue I will receive under my recently cancelled subscription addresses the future of fuel for automobiles. Unfortunately, it is an overly optimistic, simplistic “technological fix” perspective that glosses over economic, monetary, and several other critical issues related to peak oil,, most of which our resident peakoil’ers are acutely aware. I’m looking forward to my new subscription to Harper’s Magazine for a more comprehensive and balanced approach to such issues.

Dennis Simanaitis, Road & Track’s long-time Engineering Editor, titled his October, 2004 column “Technology Update: Fill ‘er Up…But Whatever With? And Wherever From?” The concluding paragraph states: “The end of the Petroleum Age is inevitable. Yet, despite anxieties of Hubbert Curves, political instabilities and potential chaos, there is a promising transition already taking place. New technology will succeed not because it’s forced on us, but because it’s better. The Stone Age didn’t end because of a lack of stones; it ended because of bronze.”

Here’s a link to the story in a single-web-page printable form:

http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?print_page=y&section_id=20&article_id=1502&page_number=5&preview=

Dave van Harn