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David Goodstein is Vice Provost and Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. He's just written a book, called "Out of Gas," which sets forth in amiable but stark detail the looming end of the Age of Oil. Fortunately, he provides some suggestions about how to avoid the worst possibilities: use a variety of solutions, including hybrid cars, nuclear and solar power, and look for visionary leadership to change the present, inevitably disappointing, course.

To visit Dr. Goodstein's web page on the Caltech web site, click here.

To hear Dr. Goodstein talk about "Out of Gas," click here.

To take a poll about possible responses to the looming oil shortage, click here.

The interview with Dr. Goodstein about his book, "Out of Gas," was conducted and posted on Friday, April 16, 2004. Over the next few days, a spate of articles appeared chronicling the downgrading of so-called "proved reserves" of Shell Oil, one of the oil "majors," by 20%, or 4 billion barrels.

The finger-pointing about who was responsible for the miscalculation began to take on the shape and dimensions of the blame-gaming going on in regard to the 9/11 events in the U.S. Speculation also soon began, and grew, regarding whether or not other oil company "majors" might soon have to face downgradings of their own "proved reserve" levels.

As Ed Blanche says in the April 17, 2004, edition of Beirut's Daily Star:

There is considerable concern that Shell may not be alone and that other companies and even governments have hyped up their estimates of how much oil they have, a vital factor in gauging their economic health. If that proves to be the case, it would have an immense impact on the Middle East, whose economic weight is almost totally dependent on oil and natural gas.

To read the entire article, entitled "Shell scandal points to exaggerated estimates of oil reserves," containing these remarks, click here.

To read "Shell cuts oil reserves for third time," by Mike Verdin in the Times Online from the U.K., dated April 19, 2004, click here.

To read the amazingly obscure formulation of how it's been misrepresenting how much oil it has, direct from Shell, click here and then scroll down a bit to the "Latest news" and click on the The report to the Group Audit Committee and the reserves recategorisation review and the Interviews relating to the above announcement, which promises a video in exchange for personal data about who wants to know and what their relationship is to Shell.

To access the incredibly dense and obscurely-written report embodying the admission of some slippage in the "proved reserves" level, click on the report's title, Report of Davis Polk & Wardwell to the Shell Group Audit Committee of March 31, 2004.

Could THIS be the crisis that wakes up the world to the dangers of whistling past the oilfields? Stay tuned.

To see how important and problematic the replacement of "proved reserves" is for an oil company, read a follow-up article in the April 20, 2004, New York Times about Shell's shenanigans by clicking on that article's title, Shell's Report on Its Troubles Cites Discord at Top.

To get a glimpse of how important manipulation of oil prices is to the Presidential election, read Kerry Latches On to Claim of a Bush-Saudi Oil Deal.

For an idea of how little putative Democratic Party presidential nominee John Kerry understands the need to address the long-term issues of supply as discussed in Dr. Goodstein's book, "Out of Gas," read the same article or any other coverage of his opportunistic pandering to the public's shortsighted demands for the lowest possible price of gasoline at all costs and its concomitant right to burn up the world's real reserves as fast as possible.

Read more about the dawning realization that all the "supermajor" oil companies are lying about their reserves and that the end of the "Age of Oil" is closer than anyone thought, by clicking on the title of this article by Alex Berenson in the New York Times, "An Oil Enigma: Production Falls Even as Reserves Rise."