The decades following World War II constitute an extraordinary historical period - an era that may be remembered for pioneering the exploration of space, computer intelligence, and genetic engineering. Yet, at the same time, these accomplishments were accompanied by a substantial erosion of our planetary resource base.  Consequently, we now confront one of the greatest transformations of human affairs in all history: the post-hydrocarbon fuel era.

In 1859, Col. Edwin Drake first struck oil near Titusville, Pennsylvania. More was discovered in Texas in 1887. The hunt for oil rapidly spread across the United States and then around the world. By 1900, oil was extracted in Baku on the Caspian Sea, in Romania, California and Sumatra. By World War I, production had expanded to Mexico, Trinidad, Venezuela and Iran. Natural gas followed. Consequently, the fundamental driver of the 20th century’s achievements and economic prosperity was an abundant supply of cheap hydrocarbon fuels.

But oil and natural gas are finite resources that accumulated over a period of hundreds of millions of years. The hydrocarbon fossil fuel supply, which was presumed during the 20th century to be virtually unlimited, is near (perhaps even past) the half-full point - signaling the beginning of the end for hydrocarbon-based civilization. In the forseeably near future, oil and natural gas (then coal) will no longer be plentiful and cheap.

Since the earliest days of fossil fuel exploitation, astute individuals have realized that hydrocarbons are an exceptional resource which would not last indefinitely, and have warned of the inevitability of hydrocarbon fuel decline. For example, 85 years ago, in 1925, Alfred Lotka noted in Elements of Physical Biology:

The human species, considered in broad perspective, as a unit including its economic and industrial accessories, has swiftly and radically changed its character during the epoch in which our life has been laid. In this sense we are far removed from equilibrium — a fact that is of the highest practical significance, since it implies that a period of adjustment to equilibrium conditions lies before us, and he would be an extreme optimist who should expect that such adjustment can be reached without labor and travail. … While such sudden decline might, from a detached standpoint, appear as in accord with the eternal equities, since previous gains would in cold terms balance the losses, yet it would be felt as a superlative catastrophe. Our descendants, if such as this should be their fate, will see poor compensation for their ills and in fact that we did live in abundance and luxury.

More recently, in Cosmic Dawn (1981), Eric Chaisson remarked:

Energy is the common denominator for all technological societies. Energy is required to operate automobiles, trains, aircraft, and other machines that aid movement on our planet; to enjoy telephones, radios, and televisions that permit us to supplement face-to-face exchanges; to fabricate clothing and houses that augment our body's thermostatic mechanism and that enable us to reside in terrestrial (and someday extraterrestrial) sites normally unsuited for humans; to practice medicine and nutrition that make possible longer and healthier lives; to create books and computers that help us remember all that we know. All of industrial production, not only the synthesis of foodstuffs but also the extraction of resources and the manufacture of daily goods, requires the use of energy. Most human activity has come to rely on it. It would seem that a central predicament now confronting us is that there's simply not enough energy to go around. But that's only a superficial concern, expressed by selfish societies that happen to be alive today, and that primarily worry about filling their automobile gas tanks tomorrow. When the big energy picture is examined, we recognize that the real problem is just the opposite: our civilization may soon be producing too much energy. Although less than ten percent of the world's estimated oil capacity is gone, the current rate of oil usage will ensure depletion of the remaining supplies in less than forty years. Within little more than a generation, then, our planet will be mostly oilless - for all practical purposes devoid of a rich resource that is essentially unrenewable. Over the course of about a hundred years, our civilization will have thoroughly exhausted a fossil fuel that took hundreds of millions of years to stockpile. This is one of the legacies we are destined to leave to posterity. Looking back at us historically, our great-grandchildren and all those who succeed them will recognize that it was those twentieth-century humans who gobbled up all the oil reserves nature provided our planet. Indeed, the large view of world oil consumption resembles a thin flame in a long, dark night.

Earnest admonitions regarding hydrocarbon fuel depletion were instigated in the 1950s, when the geologist M. King Hubbert accurately forecast the peak in America's oil production fifteen years later in 1970. His method was then adapted and applied globally, producing a series of consistent forecasts that global production would begin to turn down early in the 21st century, and decline to exhaustion. Consider, for example, the following:

The End of Cheap Oil Japan and the End of Cheap Oil World Energy Production, Population Growth, And the Road to the Olduvai Gorge

We were fortunate to live in what has been called the Hydrocarbon Age. This period includes the use of coal, oil, and natural gas, of which oil has been the most important. But the era of cheap and reliable supplies of hydrocarbons is ending. As the following authors indicate, the Hydrocarbon Age will be but a brief bright flash in Earth's (and human) history:

The Post-Petroleum Paradigm — and Population Energy and Human Evolution Energy, Technology, and Climate: Running Out of Gas

Increasing awareness and concern regarding the end of the Hydrocarbon Age is exemplified by recently published titles such as: