The end of oil

The Caltech professor of physics and applied physics [David Goodstein], who remembered all too well the upheaval caused by short-term oil crises in 1973 and 1979, immediately began to wonder how an ill-prepared world would cope with an irreversible fuel shortage in the near future. The self-evident answer: Not very well. "I thought, ‘I’d better find out what this is about, because it’s a prediction for worldwide calamity in approximately 2007.’ And, as I read up more on it, I began to think, ‘What can I do? I’m a physicist—I don’t really do anything that helps anybody,’" says Goodstein, who is also the Institute’s Gilloon Distinguished Teaching and Service Professor. “Then I realized - I can write a book.”

The Sage of the End of Oil, CalTech News about The end of the age of Oil by David Goodstein.