Advertisement

Imagining $20 Per Gallon

45:13
Download Audio
Resume
A gas station attendant pumps gas in Portland, Oregon, July 2009. (AP)
A gas station attendant pumps gas in Portland, Oregon, July 2009. (AP)

The planet has a lot of people, more cars every day, and only so much oil.
Chris Steiner reckons that means the price of gas is going up. Maybe way up. He’s written a book called “$20 Per Gallon,” with a chapter for the impact of every tick up along the way.
At $8 a gallon, the airlines close down. At $10 a gallon, Disney World goes dark. At $14 a gallon, Wal-Mart is done. It can’t afford to ship products.
He calls it a thought exercise. He may be dead wrong. Or not.
This hour, On Point: $20 a gallon. Chris Steiner says we’ll like our world better.
You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.Guests:

Joining us from Chicago is Christopher Steiner, author of "$20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives For the Better." He's also a staff writer for Forbes magazine and a civil engineer.

And from Bald Head Island, N.C., we're joined by Mark Mills, co-author (with Peter Huber) of "The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy." His recent column in Forbes is “Don’t Bet on $800-a-Barrel Oil.” He's a physicist, a former staff consultant to the White House Science Office under President Ronald Reagan, and co-founding partner of Digital Power Capital, an energy tech venture fund.

This program aired on September 17, 2009.

Advertisement

More from On Point

Listen Live
Close