Last night I had a fascinating conversation with an engineering friend of mine - who pointed out some strong evidence that the Middle Eastern countries have hit peak oil production, and our days of readily available oil and gasoline are soon to be over.
Our oil addiction has spread to developing countries, meaning that consumption has reached more than record levels. According to a recent documentary on the History Channel, if innovation doesn't happen fast enough, we could have a global recession or depression as we transition to new sources of energy. Worse, we could have global war as countries battle over scarce resources.
Renewable resources appear to be the answer, but it takes energy to create windmills, solar cells, and fuel cells. How do we overcome this dichotomy?
We have to apply our collective engineering intelligence to ways that we can produce these items using less energy, and with greater efficiency. There is a bill being fought over now that would force all cars to get 35 mpg by 2010 - from what I saw and read, this will be too little and too late.
Comments anyone?
