Out of Gas and the Quest for Renewable Energy Resources and Simpler Lifestyles During the 1950s - Term Paper Example

These changes transformed standards of living, where people evolved from being small-time energy users to ultimately becoming insatiable energy consumers. Second, Goldstein discusses Hubbert’s prediction on oil, coal, and natural production and consumption levels. Hubbert forecasted that the United States will reach the peak of its oil production in the 1970s. Furthermore, Hubbert also showed that the estimated two trillion barrels of oil in the world will run out too, and that the crisis will begin, not until people have consumed the last drop of oil, but when they reached the peak of its production.

Goldstein is arguing that people should wake up to the certainty that the world is running out of gas, and that continuously depending on fossil fuels alone would not be enough to respond to the energy needs of the future. He explores different alternative energy resources and explains the advantages and disadvantages of each source. He predicts that based on the rate-of-conversion problems, the production of existing alternative fuels will not be enough to substitute for oil demand, unless vast progress on their technologies can be attained in a few years.

Goldstein notes that ethanol is renewable energy, but is a negative energy resource, because of the production costs. . On the contrary, it presents considerable safety and nuclear waste issues. Moreover, it cannot power ordinary automobiles. Goldstein finds promising developments in hydrogen-based energy production and improving battery technology to power up the transportation industry. Cars can run on advanced batteries and transport people and goods over short routes. Hydrogen is clean energy, but further research has to be done to improve its efficient production.

Moreover, Goldstein is asking his readers to live simpler lives that will reduce energy consumption. I believe in the Hubbert Peak Theory, because the moment society reaches the peak of oil production, tumbling down becomes much faster, like the bell curve production that Hubbert generated. We just need to take a good look at our own lives and around us to see how much we use up energy. We use it in everything we do. In our cars, in lighting our homes and workplaces, in using our computers, tablets, cellular phones, and MP3 players, and even in producing gadgets that do not use up electrical energy like brooms and pens.

Multiply that usage across the world, and especially in booming economies, where energy expenditure rises like tidal waves, and we get a rough idea of what unbridled energy consumption means. Once we reach peak oil, gas, and coal production, by that time, our consumption rates must have increased too, as population rates soar and people grow older and use more goods and tools. As a result, our consumption exceeds the rate of oil production, and we plummet down Hubbert’s bell curve. And we do not get to rise up again in another bell curve of oil production, since oil reserves are not unlimited.

This is reality, a reality we have to face and to prepare