Could the petroleum joyride — cheap, abundant oil that has sent
the global economy whizzing along with the pedal to the metal
and the AC blasting for decades — be coming to an end? Some
observers of the oil industry think so. They predict that this
year, maybe next — almost certainly by the end of the decade —
the world's oil production, having grown exuberantly for more
than a century, will peak and begin to decline. And then it
really will be all downhill. The price of oil will increase
drastically. Major oil-consuming countries will experience
crippling inflation, unemployment and economic instability.
Princeton University geologist Kenneth S. Deffeyes predicts "a
permanent state of oil shortage." According to these experts, it
will take a decade or more before conservation measures and new
technologies can bridge the gap between supply and demand, and
even then the situation will be touch and go. None of this will
affect vacation plans this summer — Americans can expect another
season of beach weekends an