The Oil Drum: Local

M. King Hubbert made his views about peak oil known in 1956, at a meeting of the American Petroleum Institute. Many people don't know that only a year later, in 1957, Admiral Hyman Rickover started trying to publicize the fact that fossil fuels are finite, and were likely to peak in the first half of the 21st century. Many of the things he said then are words we wish people had listened to years ago:

Fossil fuels resemble capital in the bank. A prudent and responsible parent will use his capital sparingly in order to pass on to his children as much as possible of his inheritance. A selfish and irresponsible parent will squander it in riotous living and care not one whit how his offspring will fare.

Today the automobile is the most uneconomical user of energy. Its efficiency is 5% compared with 23% for the Diesel-electric railway. It is the most ravenous devourer of fossil fuels, accounting for over half of the total oil consumption in this country.

I suggest that this is a good time to think soberly about our responsibilities to our descendants--those who will ring out the Fossil Fuel Age.