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Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak

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This succinct book is an engaging view of Peak Oil by a gruff, no-nonsense petroleum geologist. It is not just a concise overview of the origins of oil and the significance of the Peak. Think of the Peak as that era when the price of oil soars because supply can no longer meet demand, no matter how hard the effort to increase production. For the mathematically literate, Deffeyes gives the best popular explanation yet of the Hubbert method of calculating Peak Oil. Deffeyes curve-fit puts the peak at 2006 - hence his sense of urgency.

Yet the major emphasis of the book is on the energy alternatives. Coming from an academic geologist deeply rooted in the culture of the energy industries, the chapters on natural gas, coal, nuclear, tar sands, and oil shale are most welcome. Most of the books on Peak Oil are not by geologists, so their assessments on these subjects are second hand. Deffeyes 2001 book, Hubbert's Peak - The Impending World Oil Shortage, focused mostly on conventional oil.

There are two extremes to the views on Peak Oil. Some people, often termed "cornucopians", say not to worry - technology will come to the rescue, energy alternatives will take over as soon as the price is right. Others, the "prophets of doom", predict the collapse of industrial civilization and human population via environmental degradation, warfare, disease, and famine. Or at best they predict a return to a primitive 19th century style of existence with far fewer people on the planet. Deffeyes predicts tough going, but he also outlines a way for us to scrape through a few more decades until more sustainable technology can be developed and scaled up. The kind of civilization that can be sustained over the long haul is still an open question.

His short term fixes (p. 183) include small diesel cars that get 90 miles per gallon, coal fired electrical power plants, wind turbines, and nuclear power plants. It also looks like the old Fisher-Tropsch process for coal gasification will be revived to produce aviation and diesel fuel. On the one hand environmentalists alarmed by global warming can hardly wait for Peak Oil in order to cut back on green house gases. On the other hand, the use coal, the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, is even more alarming. Deffeyes advocates pumping the carbon dioxide waste underground, but currently it mostly goes up the smokestack. However unpalatable some of these fixes may be to many citizens, I must confess that they seem quite likely, based on current politics and economics.

A few errata and quibbles: On p. 16 the permeability increases 100 times, not 1 million times, when the grain size increase by 10, according to the quadratic law he cites. For the P and 1/P equations in the graph on p. 41, delete the + sign. On the bottom of p. 40 he claims that the actual peak must happen at or before the peak of the model curve (a logistic), which is a very close fit to the historical data from 1958 to the present. However this is just a model - due to economics or politics the actual peak could happen either before or after the model peak.

In fact, since the market for oil is global, prices will be far more important for the world peak oil than for country-level peak oil. Suppose there were an oil shock right now. Then financial hardship would force a sharp drop in oil usage over the next few years while there would be an all-out effort to quickly drill even the most costly and marginal oil fields. This would, of course, cause a peak right now, but it could soon lead to an excess of supply over demand, a drop in oil prices, then a renewal of latent demand that could drive production to a higher peak in the future. That is, the period of peak oil would be stretched out to become more like a jagged plateau. However by extracting more of the remaining oil sooner rather than later, the subsequent drop off would be even more severe.

Even without an oil shock, over a short time frame, current data trumps modeling. It normally takes many years from oil discovery to production, so it is already known what is in the pipeline. One recent UK study identified many major oil fields coming online through 2007 but few thereafter. A study of peak oil for major oil companies predicted 2008 on the average. This may explain why Colin Campbell's peak oil date is 2008. Nevertheless the logistic curve has a logical derivation in this context and it is the solution of a simple and widely applied nonlinear differential equation, so it is quite convincing as a rough model. I expect Hubbert's Peak to become a standard example in future texts on mathematical modeling. The cornucopians faith in technological and free market magic is soon to be sorely tested.

In this follow up to his previous book on Hubbert's Peak/Peak Oil, Deffeyes gives us some engrossing info on such subjects as the Alberta tar sands, the Green River oil shale and nuclear power. Out of all the peak oil books I've read so far, this one is the only one that gives a very concise and knowledgable summary on these and other "alternatives" to cheap oil. Most other peak oil writers aren't old school geologists with hydrocarbon strings pumping in their veins instead of blood, so you don't get the feeling they really know what they are talking about. Several books I've read casually dismiss the Alberta tar sands and the Green River oil shale and shouldn't. Deffeyes doesn't. I'm actually a bit more hopeful and optimistic about the world's energy future after reading this book. (Not by much, though.)

I have just finished reading Kenneth Deffeyes's new book "Beyond oil: The view from Hubbert's Peak" (2005) .

I almost didn't buy this book. I assumed it would not add much to what I had learned from Deffeyes's earlier book on the same subject, "Hubbert's Peak: The impending world oil shortage". What a mistake that would have been!

"Hubbert's Peak" remains an extremely valuable book for those who want to understand *why* Hubbert's hypothesis may be correct, but "Beyond Oil" is much better at explaining the hypothesis and showing us that the data supports it overwhelmingly. The great new value in "Beyond Oil" is to be found in Chapter 3, The Hubbert Method.

In "Hubbert's Peak", Deffeyes presented only qualitative and graphical descriptions of Hubbert's theory in the main text. He describes what the theory means and why it was important. Reader's may believe him because the rest of the book makes his credentials unmistakable: Professor Emeritus of Geology at Princeton, obvious encyclopedic knowledge of petroleum geology, 50 years in the oil business or consulting to it, friendship and collegial association with Hubbert himself. But his editor did not let him put any equations in the main text. When he does get to the equations in the notes at the back, their presentation is too concise, they require too much math knowledge for most readers, and lack the associated explanation that would make their relationship to the theory easy to understand, even for many readers who have the necessary math knowledge. It's all there, but you have to be committed and sophisticated to dig it out.

In this new presentation, Deffeyes has performed a brilliant act of creation in constructing a quantitative explanation of Hubbert's theory that can be completely understood by anyone who can read graphs and do elementary high school algebra. (The success of Hubbert's Peak must have persuaded his editors to let him put a few equations in the text of this book.) Instead of understanding merely the results of Hubbert's theory, and accepting them on Deffeyes's authority, you can understand, completely, the sequence of thought that leads from data to theory and back to data to check the support for the theory. The effect is compelling. Hubbert did not seem to understand his own theory this clearly until a decade of so after his early publications in the 1950s, and he never explained it simply. His early arguments depended on educated guesses about the total volume of oil that could eventually be recovered from the oil provinces in question. To this day, his detractors criticize the theory incorrectly on the assumption that it depends on a separate and independent estimate of the size of the ultimately recoverable resource in order to predict the date of the peak of production. Hubbert removed this dependence, but his papers are apparently so hard to read that those who are looking for a way to refute the theory miss the improvement. The revised theory *generates* a robust estimate of the ultimately recoverable resource from historical production data. As history approaches the predicted peak, as now, the prediction of the peak becomes utterly compelling.

Deffeyes's renders Hubbert's theory transparently clear. It's essence is a guess, verified by appropriate analysis of historical production data, that the rate of oil production has depended and will depend mainly and linearly on the fraction of the ultimately recoverable resource that remains to be produced. The maximum possible production rate at any level of cumulative production is proportional to the product of the remaining fraction and the cumulative production. This dependence on the fraction of oil remaining is manifested by an ingeniously selected plot of the historical production rate data and the historical cumulative production data.

The theory's disregard of other factors on which production must depend, such as the price of oil, technological improvements in extraction, accidents of history, and geopolitical incentives and constraints, infuriates the detractors of the theory. The answer is that the production rate does indeed depend on these other factors, but the data demonstrates compellingly that it depends on them much less than it depends on the fraction of the ultimate total that remains to be extracted. The reasons for this dominance of the single factor is well understood by geologists. "Hubbert's Peak" explains this dominance much better than "Beyond Oil", so you'll need both books to argue against committed detractors. But anyone who takes the trouble to first understand Hubbert's hypothesis and what the data says about it will be looking to these explanations mainly to find reasons for the obvious empirical truth of the hypothesis.

Economists (and those who have been stupefied by economists' assertions) do not accept the hypothesis that the maximum production rate depends mainly on the remaining fraction, even though historical data provides overwhelmingly powerful support for the hypothesis and geological reasoning explains this support. I am convinced that the economists have the mistaken impression that Hubbert's theory is merely qualitative and descriptive and as such cannot defeat their own simplistic qualitative ideas about resource quality pyramids and supply and demand. Everyone who gives evidence of actually understanding Hubbert's theory seems to accept it. Those who repudiate it seem always to give evidence of not understanding it, or even of not caring to understand it.

Much loud opinion misrepresents Hubbert's theory, or gives it a status roughly equivalent to that of, say, the opinions of Wall Street analysts. It seems likely that Deffeyes's saw that his "Hubbert's Peak" had not produced the popular understanding he had hoped for, that Hubbert is sound science. Thank goodness he has taken this second shot in "Beyond Oil".

David Delaney, Ottawa

Beyond Oil, The View from Hubbert's Peak, by Kenneth Deffeyes. Hill and Wang. 2005, 202 p, ISBN 13:978-0-8090-2956-3. Available from Amazon.com.

The follow-up volume to Kenneth Deffeyes very successful Hubbert's Peak, the impending world oil shortage (2001), this book (written in 2004) seeks to take up the discussion where his previous volume left off; namely, what alternatives are available if the world is about to experience the ongoing decline in the productivity and quality of major crude oil reserves. While this intriguing issue is a critical one for the current state of world affairs, and the future of the world economy, the early part of the book goes over some of the ground already discussed by the earlier book. One would have hoped that this was not necessary and that the space would otherwise be devoted to covering the new ground with greater depth of argument on new issues.

What is new in this volume is that Deffeyes examines the alternative energy sources and the issues associated with their use. His key point is that even if Hubbert is wrong, to do nothing, is the worst of possible alternatives. He sees great urgency in the next few years which previous generations have never had to face. Alternative energy strategies are required immediately or a major decline will put much of our fate in the hands of others. Indeed he suggests that the world of tomorrow will be a very unfamiliar place to those of us who have grown up with a relatively abundant oil supply. But to face this situation we are likely to have nothing more than the technologies we have already developed, not an attractive prospect.

Deffeyes oil peak is postulated as 24 November 2005 (`Thanksgiving' Day), after this date world oil will go into decline, slowly at first then more rapidly. Some of the impacts of this potential decline are already evident in market trends evident in 2004 and 2005. Record oil prices and periodic oscillations close to these peak prices are seen as the key indicators of oil imminent decline. While the reasons for such nominally high oil prices are multifaceted, their impact is likely to be repeated, if Deffeyes is even only half right. He sees recent record oil output (2003) being only 3% higher than 1998 - a trend of decreasing incremental growth is in Deffeyes views a sure sign that the peak is very close. A decline to 90% of peak capacity is suggested by 2019. The key vulnerability for the world is transport and trade; the movement of goods and the marketing of services will be the key sector where the major impact will fall.

In my view, the weakest aspect of his previous book was Deffeyes lack of insight into the potential of natural gas to be used as a substitute for oil based fuels (diesel and gasoline) in transport. This issue still remains a matter concern in my mind which I don't think this second book alleviates. Deffeyes deals with the issue in his second book in chapter four `Mostly Gas'. In this, chapter Deffeyes suggests that in North America natural gas markets are experiencing peak production, if not decline, similar to that of global oil production. What concerns me most about this argument is that gas markets in the rest of the world are not as well connected, integrated or mature as the North American gas market. In fact there is considerable spare gas capacity and undeveloped resources in the rest of the world. Unlike the global oil market, gas markets are still patchy and poorly connected with a deal of infrastructure lacking and hence greater potential for additional supply. Not all parts of the potential global gas market are developed or have the level of infrastructure necessary to reach peak capacity, and may not do so for much of the next 20 to 30 years. I thus differ greatly with Deffeyes with his argument that natural gas is likely to experience capacity limitations at the same time as the oil peak or that the gas capacity will be similar to that well evident for crude oil capacity. As a consequence, I see considerable potential for natural gas substitution for crude oil fuels in transport and this is where I would differ with Deffeyes. As a consequence I suggest we may not quite be in the bind which he suggests.

Deffeyes' consideration of alternative energy sources looks at both existing and alternative energy sources. The option of coal (abundant but a poor environmental record) has the advantage of established technology but as yet cannot be regarded as a viable alternative for petroleum. I do, however, agree with the thrust of Deffeyes views on tar, oil shale and other forms of low-grade petroleum; their extraction costs and productive capacity do not provide much comfort or potential to relieve the possible shortfall in crude oil production.

Deffeyes does see some potential in the capacity of the nuclear energy industry for electricity generation. He suggests that wider use of nuclear-based electricity generation is an important option to the growing shortage of oil and natural gas. Deffeyes sees hydrogen fuel as a partial solution for the transport sector; natural gas is the preferred source for generating hydrogen, coal is the second favored source. But whatever the source he doesn't see the Hydrogen Economy of Jeremy Rifkin developing.

Whatever the options chosen, doing nothing is not an option. Major changes in all of the agricultural and industrial processes we have become used to are what Deffeyes sees as being most susceptible to change. In his view, there is not enough time to research alternatives, we have to start making major changes which generate immediate benefits; there isn't scope for an exhaustive search. Energy efficient automobiles, cogeneration and enhanced carbon dioxide oil recovery are just some of the necessary options.

While I am quite sympathetic to some of Deffeyes views and some of his possible solutions, I see a lot more potential in natural gas than he does and it remains the most readily available and least radical change with which we can and will have to cope with the consequences of the coming oil peak and subsequent decline. My view of the coming oil peak is that it is just another fuel-technology transition which the human race will face; like the many which have preceded it and the others which are likely to follow.

Like the skeptical environmentalist, I agree that the human race didn't leave the Stone Age because it ran out of stones. It also didn't leave the steam age because it ran out of coal; thus the human race will not be leaving the oil age because it runs out of oil. In each of these cases, the human race found new combinations of technology and resources which were more useful and efficient than their predecessors. Technology and resources are never static and they have and will always change and oscillate through human history. We will just have to used to the fact that our day will pass before some of the changes we anticipate come about.

I recommend both Deffyes' books as useful and interesting works, both with some limitations, which hopefully we can all forgive him for, while also being thankful and appreciative of his efforts and the lifetime of experience which they embody.

Dr Ian Lavering
Adjunct Professor
MBT Program UNSW

"Hubbert's Peak" is at the top of the bell-shaped curve of world oil production, just at the spot where production starts to decline. Geologist Kenneth Deffeyes sets a likely date: Thanksgiving Day, 2005. I have read other sources and they agree that half the oil in the ground will be out of the ground by a similar date or not later than about 2010. True, there are others who give it another decade or so, but they are in the minority. At any rate, Deffeyes has his old mentor's curve to support his view. M. King Hubbert was the guy who predicted with startling accuracy when US oil production would peak (early 1970s). Deffeyes uses the same methodology to predict the peak for world oil production.

The bugaboo here of course is that world oil demand will not decrease, but with the rapid industrialization of places like China and India, it will increase, perhaps dramatically. The result? Higher oil prices, of course. In fact, Deffeyes's book, written last year, effectively predicted the current spike in oil prices! Clearly he is a man to listen to. But the salient point is in his title: "Beyond Oil."

Metaphorically, he sees us gazing down from Hubbert's peak (which is exactly where we are) looking back and looking forward and asking, just what will the world be like "beyond oil"? Ah, yes, like the baby suckling the bottle, we will soon or late, abruptly or with planned gradualness (but always with some kind of real discomfort), have to give up our dependence on cheap oil and switch to something else.

What Deffeyes does so very well in this intriguing and thoroughly enjoyable book is first give us the background on oil, where it came from, and explain in detail why it's clear that production is about to decline. It is interesting to note that the Hubbert/Deffeyes method allows us to chart how much oil is left simply by gauging past and current production. I was surprised at this, because who is to say how much is left in the ground; but Deffeyes's point is that oil exploration and production has been so extensive world-wide that just by reading the production we can realize what is left. In other words, if the oil were there, it would have been discovered and drilled for. This is not to say that there are not some (small) fields left undiscovered. There are a few, no doubt, but like puddles added to a great lake, they won't affect the overall picture.

Then he explores the extent to which we can switch to natural gas and/or coal to create electricity and to run our transportation systems. The US has some of the largest coal reserves in the world along with China and Russia. But the problem with coal is pollution and toxins and the cost of filtering them out at the smokestack. China right now uses coal for almost everything, including cooking family meals, and the clouds, reminiscent of those that choked London during the Industrial Revolution, are gathering thickly over Chinese cities. But Deffeyes notes, "...we likely will be forced to choose either increased pollution from coal or doing without a significant portion of our present-day energy supply." (p. 98)

Next he looks into the possibility of greater production from tar sand, heavy oil and oil shade. Canada has huge reserves, we have substantial ones, but the question is cost of extraction and refinement. Deffeyes delineates the difficulties.

Finally he comes to nuclear power. His expression strongly suggests that we need to rethink our attitude toward the nuke (and possibly learn to love it!).

There is also a chapter on the so-called "hydrogen economy." I have read a couple of books on the prospects for fuel cells using hydrogen as a "clean air" replacement for gasoline and I can tell you that for several reasons we are long, long way from that reality. Deffeyes succinctly reiterates that view.

The final chapter, "The Big Picture" is most interesting. Deffeyes, who is a gifted teacher as well as being a seasoned geologist, points to another, perhaps more acute shortage (albeit many years in the future): mineable phosphate. He brings this up to make the point that the coming oil shortage is just another obstacle along the way that we clever humans will have to negotiate. He also notes that global per capita oil production peaked long ago in 1979! (p. 177) We are producing people faster than oil. Another topical point: world oil consumption is about 25 billion barrels a year; US consumption about a fourth of that. The reserves in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge equal about 5 billion barrels, or as Deffeyes puts it, the equivalent of world use for two or three months.

Some Deffeyes-isms:

"Trade in your Hummer or Porsche Cayenne; find some other way of publicizing your testosterone." (p. 8)

On his discovery of "queueing theory" (well-known to phone companies and others who have to regulate traffic): "All I knew about queueing was that the word had five consecutive vowels." (p. 31) (Actually "queuing" is an acceptable spelling.)

Commenting on freshmen studying environmental issues "through literary, philosophical, ethical, spiritual, or other humanistic perspectives" (instead of getting out in the field): "We've elevated scientific ignorance to an art form." (p. 169)

"All policy wonks and all futurologists need to keep a geologist around." The implication being, somebody who isn't afraid to get his or her hands dirty, and somebody who knows that the oil peak "is just one of the geological constraints on our future society." (p. 141)

On a very efficient oil drilling site: "The crew on site will consist of a driller and a dog. The driller is there to feed the dog. The dog is there to bite the driller if he touches anything." (p. 26)

Deffeyes flushes out many of the themes raised in his earlier book, Hubbert's Peak, and gives us a bleak view of the future. No or only very expensive petro products and no good alternative. Deffeyes is a well credentialed scholar and oil industry geologist. While many of the details are more than I wanted to know about natural gas, oil shale, nuclear power, etc., the information is fascinating and seems to be very credible. The lack of a good short term replacement for petroleum is frightening: Deffeyes does not provide any sort of solution beyond "move closer to work" or "learn to grow and enjoy local vegetables and give up your dependence on imported goods." At least Deffeyes spares us the usual pep talk: the American people can get their elected officials to support [fill in the blank.] In fact, Deffeyes suggests that we have missed the time in which to find an oil substitute that can be implemented.

Deffeyes is witty, writes well and certainly appears to know his subject, something we would all be better for understanding.

Deffeyes is Professor Emeritus at Princeton and has decades of experience with Shell Oil. The book is timely, informative, and humerous - what more could you ask for?

His key point is that Hubbert's (famous U.S. geologist) 1969 prediction that world oil production would peak in 2000 is close and should be taken much more seriously - Deffeyes himself predicts 2005. Deffeyes also bolsters Hubbert's credibility by pointing out that his 1956 prediction that U.S. production would peak in the early 70's proved accurate. Deffeyes then poses a thought-provoking series of supportive questions: 1)Why have no new refineries been built in the U.S. since 1976? 2)Why is the number of oil tankers declining? 3)Why is there little new oil drilling? 4)Why is '03 production only 3% greater than that of '98? (0.6% growth/year)

Yes, there are others predicting that the peak will not come until as late as 2036 - obviously Deffeyes (and others) disagrees.

The REAL cause of the Soviet Union's collapse was not increased American defense spending, but increased Saudi oil production, according to Deffeyes. The Soviets exported 2 million barrels a day until '85, and produced at a rate 3 times that of the Saudis. Then the Saudi's increased production and drove prices down to a level less than the Soviet's cost of production and transportation. After 6 years of no hard cash, the Soviet economy collapsed.

Deffeyes then points out a number of facts that undermine thoughts of easy escapes from "Hubbert's Peak."

1)About half the oil in a field cannot be recovered. Experts have been trying for many years, and spending over $1 billion/year in research. Meanwhile, the major producers are selling off their partially depleted fields.

2)Ethanol production consumes more energy than it creates.

3)Neither hydrogen, fuel cells, oil shale, nor tar sands offer realistic hope of relief in the short-term (5 years) relief.

4)2019 oil production will be 90% of that in 2005.

5)Global per capita of oil peaked in 1979.

6)ANWR would postpone world production decline by only 2-3 months.

7)The world-wide supply of natural gas is unclear - however, prices have already risen rapidly already in recent years.

Suggested Near-Term Solutions: Deffeyes begins by pointing out that 75% of oil is used for transportation. Thus, we should be pursuing much more efficient European diesel auto technology - up to 90 mpg. Less than 5% of electricity is generated from oil - that can be replaced with more nuclear energy and wind power; coal is another alternative, but it also creates global warming and pollution.

Bottom-Line: The end of relatively cheap oil is near - what are we going to do about it?

"Beyond Oil" by Kenneth Deffeyes is one of a flurry of books about [the consequences of] reaching the maximum production level of conventional crude oil. What makes this book stand out from the crowd?

First, it falls in the right category (at least for me). I have no respect for those authors that take the apocalyptic approach claiming that "the end of the world is nigh". Not Deffeyes. Yes, we have a serious problem but there are plenty of solutions.

Second, Chapter 3 is an instant classic and vintage Deffeyes. I have a copy of King Hubbert's 1956 presentation to the southern district of the API but never managed to explain Hubbert's theory other than by showing people the symmetrical bell-shaped curve. No longer! As Deffeyes puts it "this chapter is an easy opportunity to join the exclusive club of people who actually understand Hubbert". And I fully agree; in 16 pages and with a few simple formulas and graphs the author runs you through the full Hubbert methodology.

The remainder is fairly basic. Deffeyes discusses what role the other hydrocarbon resources (natural gas, coal, heavy oil, oil shale, oil sands) can play as substitutes for conventional oil. Nuclear and hydrogen are covered as well. For people interested in those alternatives, I would rather recommend "The End of Oil" by Paul Roberts which has much more depth in this area.

Overall, a pleasant book and certainly one of the better efforts in this domain.

Kenneth Deffeyes, a graduate of the Colorado School of Mines with a Phd from Princeton, started work in the Shell research lab in Houston in 1958. He makes the claim that global oil production is peaking and will decrease soon. He humbly lays out his credentials, he thoughtfully outlines his reasoning, and he provides a depth of background data and explanations.

While his basic premise is tremendously important for our economic and political future as humans addicted to cheap oil, Deffeyes makes his points with an easily readable combination of sound science and grandfatherly humor. He covers the mathematics of Hubbert's curve, the basics of mined energy sources (natural gas, coal, tar sand, oil shale, and uranium), and the basic physics of hydrogen as an energy carrier. These may seem like dauntingly complex issues, but Deffeyes covers them with clarity. Throughout the book, you get the impression that you are chatting amicably with a wise and friendly grandfather who has something very important to say.

Princeton University professor emeritus of geology Kenneth S. Deffeyes's "Beyond Oil" is a sobering assessment of the world's future with regards to energy sources. Deffeyes, a former petroleum geologist, believes that the world's oil production will reach its peak by the end of this year. Afterwards, the well - metaphorically and literally speaking - will dry up, forcing us finally to consider other potential sources of non-renewable energy. In a series of short chapters, Deffeyes reviews the origin of petroleum and the logic of the mathematics behind his former Shell Oil colleague M. King Hubbert's realization that the world's oil production would peak soon (He had calculated 2000 as the peak year; Deffeyes revises King's calculations to come up with 2005 instead.). Then he assesses the utility of Coal, Tar Sands, Oil Shale, Uranium and Hydrogen as energy sources in separate, relatively terse, chapters. He is convinced that our best options lie with increased Coal production - with the likely consequence of more global warming - and a substantial expansion of our use of nuclear power obtained from uranium. Our future prospects are not too promising, yet Deffeyes does not emphasize dire predictions, but offers some possible solutions, including the production of high-efficiency diesel-powered automobiles now available in Europe, and transforming agriculture so it will yield crops for both food and energy sources. I found this book an important clarion call of what needs to be done with regards to energy resources; indeed, Professor Deffeyes' book should be required reading by government officials in Washington, DC and state capitals throughout the United States.