Includes bibliographical references and index.

"In this book, David Goodstein, professor of physics at Caltech, explains the underlying scientific principles of the inevitable fossil fuel crisis we face, and the closely related peril to the Earth's climate. The discovery of any natural resource, oil included, rises rapidly at first, but the rate of discovery eventually reaches a peak that will never be exceeded, and declines forever after that. In the 1950s, when America's military and industrial might arose largely from the fact that it was the world's leading producer of oil, a geophysicists named M. King Hubbert, realizing that the discovery peak had already passed, predicted that oil production in the Lower 48 would reach its highest point around 1970 and would decrease rapidly after that. To the surprise of nearly everyone, he turned out to be right. Now a number of petroleum geologists have pointed out that worldwide discovery of oil peaked decades ago. As oil fields continue to be depleted and new discovery, including advances in oil technology, fails to keep up, the prospect of a global Hubbert's peak looms before us."--Jacket.

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