WHEN WILL THE DOOMSTERS EVER LEARN?

Will we run out of energy? "With gas prices exceeding $2 per gallon, an alarmed American public is prone to believe scary predictions about a future without gas. And so into this hyper-charged environment will step a number of commentators who claim to marshall all the data to show that we must dramatically change our lives.

For example: "Civilization as we know it will come to an end sometime in this century unless we can find a way to live without fossil fuels." Alarmist David Goodstein begins and ends his new book, Out of Gas, with this warning....

Dire warnings about oil shortages have been around almost since oil wells were first drilled. In the late 1800s, the oil fields in the eastern U.S. were in decline raising doubts about the possibility of providing for U.S. energy needs....

Goodstein depends on empirical findings while ignoring the data that contradicts his argument. He ignores the fact that energy alarmists have always underestimated future oil supplies and he dismisses the possibility of developing vast quantities of unconventional sources of oil.

Oil production declines will create incentives to find more conventional oil, to use unconventional oil, and to develop new energy alternatives. Government intervention makes our energy situation more precarious. Goodstein fails to understand any of these issues.

Though the book has received favorable press for alerting us to alleged energy problems that confront us, its main value is that it compiles the economic fallacies regarding a potential energy crisis into a single slim volume."