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David Goodstein
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Out of Gas: The End Of The Ages Of Oil Paperback – Illustrated, Feb. 8 2005

by David Goodstein (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 37 ratings
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Our rate of oil discovery has reached its peak and will never be exceeded; rather, it is certain to decline—perhaps rapidly—forever forward. Meanwhile, over the past century, we have developed lifestyles firmly rooted in the promise of an endless, cheap supply. In this book, David Goodstein, professor of physics at Caltech, explains the underlying scientific principles of the inevitable fossil fuel shortage we face. He outlines the drastic effects a fossil fuel shortage will bring down on us. And he shows that there is an important silver lining to the need to switch to other sources of energy, for when we have burned up all the available oil, the earth's climate will have moved toward a truly life-threatening state. With its easy-to-grasp explanations of the science behind every aspect of our most urgent environmental policy decisions, Out of Gas is a handbook for the future of civilization.
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  1. Part of series
    Norton Paperback
  2. Print length
    144 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    WW Norton
  5. Publication date
    Feb. 8 2005
  6. Dimensions
    14.22 x 1.27 x 21.08 cm
  7. ISBN-10
    9780393326475
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0393326475
  9. See all details
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Product description

Review

An eye-opener...[Goodstein] never preaches, but neither does he pull any punches.-- "San Francisco Chronicle"

Goodstein's predictions are based on a sophisticated understanding of physics and thermodynamics, and on a simple observation about natural resources. I hope Goodstein is wrong...if he's right, I'm sorry for my kids. And I'm especially sorry for theirs.--Paul Raeburn "New York Times Book Review"

Should be read and reread by anyone who expects to live past 2010.--Rick Smalley, Nobel laureate and Hackerman Professor of Chemistry, Rice University

About the Author

David Goodstein, vice provost and Frank J. Galloon Distinguished Teaching and Service Professor at the California Institute of Technology, is the author of Feynman's Lost Lecture, among other works. He lives with wife Dr. Judith R. Goodstein in Pasadena.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0393326470
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ WW Norton; Illustrated edition (Feb. 8 2005)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 144 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780393326475
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393326475
  • Item weight ‏ : ‎ 200 g
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.22 x 1.27 x 21.08 cm
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 37 ratings

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David Goodstein

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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
37 global ratings

Top reviews from Canada

Bruce W Ristow
5.0 out of 5 stars Small volume, profound content
Reviewed in Canada on April 11, 2004
Goodstein's small volume discusses the consequences of having passed the peak of oil discovery and soon reaching the peak of oil production. He makes the extreme but correct claim that civilization as we know it will not survive, but will revert to no better than an eighteenth century world, unless we can find a way to live without the oil, coal, methane, and other fossil fuels which are running our electrical generation plants and our transportation systems.
In the course of his discussion of the scientific basis for our fuel based society, he makes the useful distinction between energy conservation (That's the first law of thermodynamics, energy/mass is always conserved) and fossil fuel conservation (That would help postpone the crisis), briefly discusses heat engines and entropy (that's the second law - we need useful work not just energy).
Goodstein makes the telling observation that oil is valuable and essential as a raw material (feedstock) for the synthetic materials, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries. Once we don't have enough of it, it will be more valuable for these purposes than it ever was as a fuel source. A chapter, possibly a book, could be written on this neglected aspect of the oil as a fuel issue alone. Drilling for the Alaska oil should be postponed, if not forever, until at least it is the last resource for the petrochemical industries.
The alternatives to oil as the fuel source are examined. Goodstein identifies two as possible solutions to the problem.
One is direct conversion of sunlight to electricity. This is something that can be done now but at nowhere near the efficiency and cost needed to be practical. It will need to be done much better to be a solution.
The other is the feared and scorned nuclear power alternative. Nuclear power is not easy to discuss in a society that required NMR instruments to be renamed MRI instruments (magnetic resonance imaging instead of nuclear magnetic resonance) to avoid the dreaded word nuclear before introducing them into medical practice for diagnostic purposes, . People are frightened of nuclear fission power generation and there are issues to be resolved (safe disposal of long lived radioactive waste, safe operation of power plants). Goodstein has dismayed and offended people - see other reviews - for daring to raise nuclear power and identifying it as one of the two possible fuel source solutions.
Goodstein is optimistic even in the face of his "civilization as we know it will not survive" statement when he identifies the solution as one of engineering. This is a case where the trite "If we can put a man on the moon why can't we ... " works. We don't need a break through in fundamental science nor do we need to discover a perpetual motion machine to overthrow the second law. We need to recognize that we have a serious problem which will require significant resources and serious commitment from top to bottom. (a U.S. entropy law rather than a new U.S. energy bill?). It is difficult to be optimistic about that happening until there is more than $2 a gallon gasoline to focus the debate.
Goodstein isn't very optimistic that our present national and international leadership even recognizes the problem. Possibly this book will help.
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Autonomeus
4.0 out of 5 stars a physicist sounds the alarm
Reviewed in Canada on February 14, 2004
Oil will soon begin to run out, and the magical "market" will not save us. Caltech physicist David Goodstein adds his voice to the growing chorus warning that official complacency is steering us like the Titanic straight for a massive iceberg. Global oil reserves are projected to hit the Hubbert Peak sometime between now (according to some oil geologists) and 2020 (the most optimistic estimates of the U.S. government and industry). After the peak, we will be on the downslope, and prices will rise as supplies diminish. Even a surprising discovery of a new 90 billion barrel/year field, the biggest ever found, would only postpone the peak by one year. Goodstein illustrates the consequences -- if there is a 5% gap annually after the peak between growing demand and diminishing supply, then in 10 years the gap will grow to 50%. In only 10 years after some point in the very near future, in other words, the world will see the available oil reduced by 1/2. Goodstein points out that the U.S., with 5% of the world's people, consumes 25% of global oil production. "Cheap gasoline is not the solution; it's a big part of the problem," he adds. This physicist is no polemicist, but it is clear he does not consider economics to be any sort of reliable science. If the market is supposed to magically set the right prices via supply and demand, then how can oil and gas possibly be so cheap when it is so crucially valuable and running out? Goodstein notes that oil companies do not produce oil. There are unspoken volumes behind some of his brief comments. Those volumes can be found in the work of Herman Daly, the ecological economist, who has been pointing out for years that mainstream economics sets itself against the basic laws of physics when it comes to natural resources and the environment, especially the second law of thermodynamics -- entropy.
Given the impending crisis as oil begins to run out, Goodstein says "the intent of this small book is to explain the relevant laws of nature." Small is right -- 122 apparent pages of text are actually only 90 when chapter divisions and graphics are subtracted. Much of this short text is devoted to introductory lessons in physics (from his many years of Caltech lectures no doubt) on topics including the the measurement of energy, the 1st Law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy), electricity, heat engines, and the 2nd Law of thermodyamics (entropy).
This leaves only some very brief comments and suggestions for what to do about the energy crisis. Natural gas is non-renewable, and will peak not too long after oil. The easiest alternative to oil is coal, but of course if we turn back to coal, we will hasten global warming, and as Goodstein notes, increase the likelihood of tipping the climate into a disastrous new steady state more like Venus than what we now enjoy. Mysteriously, he places some hope in methane hydrate, a potential source of methane, based merely on its existence -- it is currently totally unknown how much might be found under the ocean floors or anywhere else. He notes that plans for the "sequestration" of carbon from coal, upon extracting hydrogen, currently have no place to put the carbon, and most such schemes would run the risk of negative EROEI -- more energy invested than energy recovered.
This leads to the fork in the road where I take issue with Goodstein. Like many physicists, it seems, he continues to promote nuclear (fission) power, saying it is a proven technology and its risks are exaggerated. He also discusses photovoltaic solar cells -- PVCs -- another proven technology -- but seems half-hearted. These are the two main alternatives to oil, and either nuclear or solar power will have to be used to generate electricity to produce hydrogen, which can be used in fuel cells to replace gas-fueled internal combustion engines. Hydrogen is not an energy source, as it does not naturally exist like fossil fuels, but an energy carrier -- according to Goodstein, producing hydrogen with heat engines currently consumes six times as much energy as the resulting hydrogen will produce. I'm willing to compromise my opposition to toxic, radioactive nuclear power in order to provide energy in the transition to a solar future, but I do not understand why Goodstein seems to prefer nuclear. He even advocates breeder reactors, which produce bomb-grade plutonium, as a means to extend the limited supplies of uranium, a non-renewable mineral, and holds out hope for fusion, which it should be clear by now is nothing but a pipe dream.
In short, Goodstein is absolutely right to raise the alarm and push for a crash program for the development of alternative energy. He is right that "market forces" are not going to save us, although he does not propose any particular course of action such as the excellent Apollo Alliance plan for public sector R&D and construction. More questionable (a physics article of faith?) is his advocacy of nuclear power rather than getting behind solar power, which is surely the long-term answer.
For a better, more thorough book on the same subject, see Richard Heinberg's "The Party's Over." He too, though not a physicist, applies physics in the form of EROEI analysis to all the possible energy sources, and reaches a similar discouraging conclusion. We have got to get our minds focused on this problem, and keep them focused -- if renewable energy does not become the top priority, the test of neomalthusian theory we are subjecting ourselves to will have a gruesome outcome. Let's not prove that Malthus was right after all.
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C. Naylor
5.0 out of 5 stars Non-hyperbolic treatment of a serious subject
Reviewed in Canada on February 11, 2004
David Goodstein does a good job of treating a flammable subject with the balance and seriousness it deserves. His conclusion is that there is no doubt that fossil fuels (oil, natural gas and coal) will run out by the end of the century, but that we will be forced to begin dealing with the ramifications of falling supply long before that. Most estimates assume that the coming lack of oil will become a problem only when the wells have all dried up. Goodstein argues that the problems will occur much earlier - when production peaks at the half-way point of the planet's oil reserves. A point that is either here or will soon arrive.
The book avoids a long and detailed discussion of the geological forces behind the formation of fossil fuels - giving just a brief overview - and doesn't discuss the techniques of oil exploration, production and drilling at all. Goodstein's audience is the person who is unfamiliar with the science behind the controversy and a large portion of the book is devoted to an overview of energy, fuel, the science behind the discovery of the uses of oil and our rising dependence on it (with one or two brief forays into the related phenomenon of global warming).
I give the book 5 stars not for its fluid prose (although it is very readable) but because the author draws simple, firm and appropriate conclusions based on available evidence, while at the same time studiously avoiding hysteria and hyperbole to make his point. He also offers some alternative suggestions which, while unable to completely prevent economic and social dislocations that will be caused by falling oil production, do offer some hope.
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Top reviews from other countries

Stephen Armstrong
5.0 out of 5 stars Best introduction to fuel (oil) depletion I have read...
Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2006
Verified Purchase
This book is a short read, so the review should be short, too. This is the best book on fuel depletion on the market, in my opinion: short, accurate, factual, non-polarizing, objective, useful, and scientifically correct. Reviewers who quibble over small stuff are missing the point. There is an annotated bibliography for those who want more. You can't go wrong with this one.
7 people found this helpful
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Jim Seaside
4.0 out of 5 stars Is Peak Oil finally Accepted
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 8, 2013
Verified Purchase
I read this after seeing David Goodstein give an interview on the DVD 'A Crude Awakening'.
It is good to see a Professor at Cal Tech add his warning of an unprecedented situation arising when the supply of all starts falling.
This could happen any day now because we have reached a plateau in global oil production and supplies are getting more difficult and expensive to find.
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David A. Cornell
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding book: Out of Gas
Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2009
Verified Purchase
"Out of Gas" is a book that anyone concerned with survival should read. One must not expect technology to fix the shortage of fossil fuels. We must mend our ways, and this book explains why.
One person found this helpful
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PrimeP
4.0 out of 5 stars Solid Overview of Peak Oil
Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2013
Verified Purchase
Gives a good picture of the depletion of oil with a simplistic background on thermodynamics. I had a few quibbles with some of the information on different energy sources (this was published 8 years ago now!), but overall this provides a quick read for scope on a very important topic.
One person found this helpful
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Robert S. Widner
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book! Thanks!!
Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2013
Verified Purchase
Great book, thanks!! Love the topic and the facts --very powerful topic! The US better get dependence on something other than oil!
One person found this helpful
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