Customer Reviews

Geodestinies: The Inevitable Control of Earth Resources over Nations and Individuals

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The issues raised and developed in GeoDestinies should be required reading for all college or university students - no matter what their majors - and discussed in high-school, college, university, media, and business seminars throughout the country. The global economic system is absolutely dependent on geologic resources for its health and survival. Serious economic and social problems will face us by the middle of the 21st century, primarily because the petroleum window for the planet, which has driven the tremendous economic growth of the past 140 years, will begin to close. Alternatives for petroleum, in all of its myriad uses, will have to be found. And, this problem is only the most obvious and immediate of our challenges.

Sustainability is the current buzzword for the future of humanity. Under what conditions, and at what quality level, can humans persist on Earth indefinitely? The question arises because of two specters that are lurking too far behind the scenes for many of us, but that need to be faced: population growth and unfettered consumption of Earth's resources.

Population growth cannot be sustained in a closed container such as "Spaceship Earth" without ultimately overwhelming the container. This mathematical truth is finally becoming recognized internationally. Current projections by international population prognosticators, based on evidence of declining birth rates, suggest that planning for a world population stabilized at about 10 billion people by 2050 may be reasonable.

If we stabilize near that number, we have only won half the battle. We then need to consider how to feed, clothe, house, entertain, and employ a population of that size. Central to this question is the source of the energy that runs our factories; lights and heats our houses, municipal buildings, and business structures; and propels our cars, trains, and airplanes. For most of the developed world, the great bulk of this energy comes from fossil fuels, particularly from petroleum.

Calculations by several independent investigators agree that in the first few decades of the 21st century, world petroleum production will peak. By the end of the century, or shortly thereafter, petroleum will be effectively lost as a major source of the world's energy. The United States is already depended on imports for more than half of its petroleum needs. What will be our energy options when the oil runs out? Can we wean ourselves from this oil dependency? What are the realistic alternatives? Also, we need to recognize that petrochemicals, from pharmaceuticals to plastics to tires, are derived from nonrenewable oil and gas and have no reasonable alternative source.

Consumer demands from an ever-growing human population threaten to deplete many other nonrenewable geologic resources; already, renewables such as water and topsoil that are essential to our agricultural well-being in many areas of the world are being stressed.

GeoDestinies is written for the intelligent layperson. The presentation of issues and alternatives is well balanced, and both illustrations and tables are clear and relevant. The writing plods a little, and information occasionally turns up in more than one chapter, but these slight imperfections shouldn't detract from the importance of the massage. Key chapters focus on the "Petroleum Interval," alternative energy sources, water and topsoil use and abuse, myths and realities of mineral resources, and sustainable utilization of Earth's resources. GeoDestinies also contains useful background chapters on how mineral resources have been used and where they are located; mineral economics; and the central importance of mineral resources to the history, growth, and development of the human enterprise. One useful chapter summarizes myths and realities, which are also dealt with in more detail elsewhere in the book. Some of the key myths are:

- alternative energy resources can readily replace oil,
- alternative energy sources are environmentally benign, and
- biomass can be a major source of liquid fuels.

This is a very important book for everybody because it lays out quite nicely the real problems we face in the next century as population and consumption catch up with the supply of key natural resources. Buy it, read it, and discuss it with your friends.

A. R. (Pete) Palmer
Institute for Cambrian Studies

GeoDestinies is an exceptional reference for all people, regardless of their education or profession, who are intrigued by our civilization's rapid changes over the past century and how geology has played a symbiotic role. The text is written in laymen's terms and can easily be understood by all that have pondered the questions, "How have we achieved so much in so short a period?" and "What is our position in regards to our planet's non-renewable resources?" I can not stress enough how important the information contained in this book is to the future of our country and planet. If one is to look at the timeline of our industrial civilization and relate that to the timeline of the creation of the natural resources that we are using at a phenomenal rate, it is practically unconceivable to most people. If you are pondering the reading of this book, then you are not 'most people'. Read the book and share what you have learned with all who will listen.

GeoDestinies helps to identify the forces that will determine our future. Some of these include the exponential population explosion, the ever-increasing demand and use of fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources, the degradation of our soils and groundwater, the truths and misinformation concerning alternative energy sources, and the relationships between natural resources and politics, economics, and our culture as a whole.

Upcoming Review in Evolution and Ecology

This book is intended as a completely interdisciplinary undergraduate text demonstrating the causal linkages through which the amount and value per unit of geological resources produced in a nation affects the value of the currency, and the economic health and political power.

While some of the content will be familiar to some readers of this journal, there is nothing in existence like it, and the best-informed living people would find at least a quarter of the book a complete surprise. The book links geological resources of nations, history, economics, political science, international relations, culture and religion like nothing else I have ever seen.

Despite Gibbon, Spengler and many others, none has yet put forth a completely satisfactory theory of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. This author shows how Roman power depended on gold and silver from various sources (e.g. Greece and Spain), and how when supplies ran out, the coinage was debased and Rome could no longer afford the costs of keeping the empire intact (e.g. mercenaries who fought for money, not patriotism).

Margaret Thatcher was the most popular leader in modern British history. Her power depended on surplus foreign exchange from exporting North Sea oil. The U.S. dollar and international prestige increase and decrease in value depending on the amount of oil imported, and the price per barrel.

One particularly gripping part of the book is a64-page treatment of proposed new alternate energy sources. All these imaginary panaceas turn to mists in a swamp at night when examined with the lenses of net energy and energy profit ratios. Nothing will replace what we are burning up quickly now. Every possible replacement has problems which have received little publicity.

Al through history there have been two responses to mineral wealth. One is to regard it as an infinite cornucopia, and create nothing of permanent value to outlast the minerals. Alaska is a startling example. A century from now it will be like it was a century ago. The other alternative is to recognize that a storage is being converted to a flow, and try to convert some of the flow to another storage. The author discusses what Stanford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Rhodes, and Guggenheim did with their wealth from mineral resources. My life was profoundly affected by two of these men, so the argument hit me. The pattern is that governments do not have a good track record of managing depleting storages. Individual wise people do very well at that job.

Of particular interest to readers of this journal will be Mineral Economics. Huge time lags separate the time when money is spent on mineral projects to the time when major profits appear. Income first began to flow from the Prudhoe Bay oilfield 30 years after the first money was spent on exploration. The risk to reward ratio is very high, and political instability in a country with great potential oil resources my be unacceptable. Taxing reserves discourages exploration. The author relates the oil business to "natural capital."

This book, together with many other recent writings, recent government statistics on the oil business (62 percent of all U.S. oil is imported; that % is rising 3% per year) and the wild recent gyrations in earnings and share values of companies in the oil field service industry are doubtless early warning indicators of huge price increases in oil within a few years. The implications are pervasive, very far-reaching, and very serious.

Kenneth E. F. Watt
University of California
Davis CA 95616

While the book reads more like a high school textbook, for the inquisitive mind, the information imparted more than makes up for it. Learning the principle of doubling time and it's portent for future populaiton growth and resource depletion, alone is worth the price of the book. The information presented in the book is sobering and thought provoking, and not a little depressing.
Let's all hope that technology can deliver us from most of the doom and gloom presented in the book. As a geologist I was familiar with the limitations on our mineral resources but did not construct the relational scenarios that were presented in the book. The "oil interval" of earth history is overlooked by most people even in the sciences. It's far reaching implications points out the severe case of myopia from which our society suffers. The fact that we comsume 60% of our soon to be precious oil for the luxury of being able to run to the convenience store for a pack of gum is also sobering. Buy the book impart the information to your kids.

There are many good books on peak oil, but none fly as high as Youngquist's "Geodestinies", giving you an eagle-eye view of how the world works from a resource standpoint. Far more than just the mineral of oil is covered. Youngquist also delves into the role of minerals and good health, their use as currencies, the distribution of minerals around the world, and the most precious mineral of all: topsoil.

The range of what is covered is so vast I can't do justice to this book, but among other things, you'll learn the role of minerals and wars, civilizations, politics, and overviews of alternative energy sources. You'll emerge with a better understanding of how the world really works, what to invest in, and a deep appreciation of the amazing lives we're leading at this peak of civilization.

After I read this monumental book, I was sad and angry that history was never taught this way while I was in school. If there is one book you should have on your shelf for those who make it through the bottleneck of the coming ecological crash, this is it.

I have read thousands of non-fiction books as I walk to work and back ten miles a day -- this is the most important and life-changing book of all of them.

This is one of those rare works that has the power to transform society. It is extremely well written, easily readable and cites an extensive list of references.

This book should be required reading for all college freshmen, and should be included in every high school, college and public library.

It is unfortunate that the book is often out of stock and difficult to find.

A very depressing book but a very important one if the author is correct. It covers resources of all types: water, metals, oil, arable soil, etc. as it relates to the various economies and lifestyles throughout the world. At the rate resources are being used up, in particular oil and gas, the standard of living outside of the Persian Gulf state could be materially affected in the next 50 to 100 years.

Read it at your own risk: it's going to paint a bleak picture of future mineral resources.

A book I pass around alot! If you are concerned about Earth's natural resources and our future, this is a must read. The author explains the coming world production peak in conventional oil and the facts of dealing with finite resources.

Don't be surprised by the problems we face just around the corner in the new century in energy, minerals and water.

GeoDestinies is one of the seminal books on the world population-energy-petroleum crisis. The author, Dr. Walter L. Youngquist, is part of the core group (Colin J. Campbell, Jean H. Laherrère, L. F. Ivanhoe, Richard C. Duncan, Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Matthew R. Simmons, etc.) who have followed the legendary geoscientist Dr. Marion King Hubbert in trying to make people aware that the fossil fuel era will be far shorter than most people believe. For example, many people have ridiculed the idea that the world maximum petroleum production ("peak oil") will occur in the near future, i.e., before 2015. However, it turns out that Dr. Youngquist and associates were resoundingly correct. Read GeoDestinies to understand how the world maximum production of coal, natural gas, nuclear fuel, etc. will similarly occur.

The key points of GeoDestinies, published in 1997, are elegantly simple yet generally overlooked by the numerically illiterate and emotionally driven masses: 1) minerals are the essence of modern societies; 2) the well-being of a society (with few, temporary exceptions) is a direct function of its natural endowment of minerals; 3) of all minerals the energy minerals are particularly critical; 4) the most important of the energy minerals is petroleum; 5) the world maximum oil production is at hand (e.g., between 2007 and 2014) and will be the watershed event in human history; 6) all of the fossil fuels are a "brief flash;" 7) it is not be feasible to replace fossil fuel energy with alternative energy; and 8) "Most likely the end of the Petroleum Interval will be gradual wherein no crisis point is reached, just slow change. But, especially with continually rising populations, and no sufficient substitutes for oil at hand, there is the possibility of a chaotic breakdown of society."

After reading GeoDestinies, one will understand that the only fundamental production is that which is harvested or mined, such products are remarkably finite, and one cannot have perpetual economic growth based on very finite natural resources. In short, people's lifestyles are dependent on mining, e.g., look around you this instant and most everything you see was mined from the earth.

GeoDestinies has been remarkably prescient, e.g., "that within the next decade or less, that world crude oil demand will rise to about 80 million barrels a day from the current 60 million...U.S. oil demand will grow to nearly 20 million barrels a day from the current 18 million. U.S. crude oil production will fall to about 5.6 million barrels a day from its present 6.4 million. Imports will have to make up the difference at a cost which may be as much as $150 billion a year."

The reality a decade later. World crude oil production peaked in 2005 at 73.7 mbpd, and declined to 73.0 mbpd in 2007 (72.3 mbpd in 2009) ([...]). World crude oil production will continue to decline during the next ~40 years toward a tiny baseline value of a few mbpd.

U.S. petroleum demand increased to 20.8 mbpd in 2007 and has since declined 18.8 mbpd in 2010 ([...] ). Due to demand destruction by high prices, the U.S. will probably never again have an average annual consumption of more than 20 mbpd petroleum.

U.S. crude oil production declined to 5.06 mbpd in 2007 ([...]).

In 2007 U.S. petroleum imports averaged 13.468 mbpd ([...]) at an average cost of $[...] per barrel (http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/realprices/index.cfm) amounting to $330.3 billion or 47 percent of the U.S. trade deficit ([...]). In 2010 the U.S. imported ~10.8 mbpd petroleum at an average cost of $75.81 per barrel amounting to $298.8 billion or 60 percent of the U.S. trade deficit of $497.8 billion.

The watershed event in human history is now occurring as world petroleum production reached its plateau (2005-2011) at ~82 mbpd (BP World Statistical Review) or ~85 mbpd (Energy Information Agency, International Energy Agency). And production remains flat despite incredible price increases to more than $100 per barrel. The era of cheap petroleum has thus ended, and world petroleum production will now inexorably decline over the next ~40 years to a tiny baseline value. One cannot grow or manufacture as many things without cheap petroleum. Hence, the world will experience extremely volatile energy prices, persistently high unemployment and inflation, and everyone will each year have to make do with less.

If you like GeoDestinies, you probably also would like Living in a Material World by Kevin Morrison; Plan C by Eugene R. "Pat" Murphy; Plan B 4.0 by Lester R. Brown; and Dirt by David R. Montgomery.

I read the regular book, here in Brazil. This book was writen by an American geologist Walter Lewellyn Youngquist. Born in 1921, Walter L. Youngquist wrote this book in 1997.
Six great things on this book:
1-This book, GeoDestinies was written mainly the intelligent layperson. The presentation of issues and alternatives is balanced, and all the few illustrations and tables are clear and relevant. I'm an agronomist, not a geologist.
2-This book gives support to nuclear power as a source for electricity today and for the future. On pages 226-227 we can read sentences, supporting nuclear power.
3- Being an oil geologist, Dr. Youngquist shows that nothing will soon replace the oil that we are burning now. Every possible replacement has problems which have received little publicity.
4-Mankind's food comes from land. Page 295 shows that 97 of mankind's food is from land resources.
5- Big oil is needed. See page 415, as an example, income first began to flow from the Prudhoe Bay oilfield 30 years after the first money was spent on exploration. No wild cat would support to spent many money in Alaska, during thirty years, until getting a profit. Only big oil can do this. Cheap oil is over in the world.
6- As the also geologist Laurence R. Kittleman wrote:"Working from the perspective of an experienced petroleum geologist, Dr. Youngquist has given his audiences a lively, readable, realistic, extraordinarily broad survey of global resources. He brings together multiple aspects of human use, abuse, and depletion of resources and explainst interconnections among resources, geopolitics, and society. The effect is incisive."

Even so, I have to give just three stars, for this book. Why? Because this books has these problems:
1-On pages 58, 59, 111,, 118, 173, 241, 323, 362, 379, 385, 388, 423 and 451 ; this book repeats that until 1970, United States was self-sufficient in oil. In fact, since 1948 USA is an importer of oil. 1970 was the year that American oil production began to fall.
2-This book has many prophecies. Many could become future, but on page 330, this book writes:"Brazil has had some minor successes in oil exploration but still does not have nearly enough oil for its own need, and almost certainly never will". Well, in fact less that ten years later, Brazil became a net exporter of oil. The author is an experimented oil geologist, but he didn't knew that between 1964 and 1985, Brazil oil reserves grew 2,000% and production grew 800%.
3-Page 21 has a mistake about Saudi Arabia.
4- Page 51 has a mistake about Italy.
5- Page 60 claims that American Anti-Apartheid Act was did in 1988. In fact Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act was enacted in 1986.
6-Page 96 claims that New Caledonia was an independent state in 1997. In fact, even today, New Caledonia isn't an independent state.
7-Page 139 has a mistake about the Strait of Hormuz.
8-Pages 241-244 have many lies about ethanol. The author not knowing about ethanol uses fakes from David Pimentel and other eugenists/ ecologists/ malthusianists crooks.
9-Page 246 has a big lie about ethanol in Brazil.
10-Page 264 has a mistake about hydrogen. On this page the author claims that hydrogen is better than electric car. It isn't and never will be.
11-Page 289 has a mistake about sea territory.
12-Page 393 has a mistake about the Cruzades.
13- Page 435 has a bad prophecy, about biomass. At least, I think so.
14- About Brazil, the author has some sentences and a bad prophecy (see numer two, above). In fact, last week in Brazilian state of Amazonas, a oil well producing 2,500 brents in a day was found in land. Nothing similar was seem in the United States, since 1940 decade. In tis year, two greats gas fields were found on land. One on the state of Maranhao and other in the state of Minas Gerais. The gas field in Maranhao is among the biggest, in the world and it is in land.
With these mistakes, I have to give just three stars for this reasonable book.
If Walter Lewellyn Youngquist is alive and in good health, he just could make cuts on the mistakes described above and then, this book could becomes excellent.