The science radio show Explorations recently rebroadcast an interview with energy expert Tom Mast that is worth listening to if you’re more than a tad concerned about rising gas prices and heating costs. Mast, a mechanical engineer who has worked in the oil industry for decades and is author of the book Over a Barrel: A Simple Guide to the Oil Shortage, offers the best analysis I’ve heard about what today’s high oil prices mean and what we should be doing about it. Instead of getting caught up in secondary questions like automobile fuel efficiency or drilling for oil in Alaska, Mast focuses on the key problems: the supply of oil is finite; the world will experience oil shortages within a decade or two; and the current crop of energy alternatives are either too unreliable or too polluting to replace oil.

“The high prices of crude oil — and therefore gasoline — these days are a symptom of the problem, and not the real problem,” says Mast. “The fundamental problem is that the worldwide supply of oil is having a hard time keeping up with the demand.” About half of the world’s oil reserves have been used up in a single century of production and consumption, Mast notes. Given an ever-increasing world population with ever-increasing energy needs (China alone accounted for 40 percent of the growth in oil demand last year), there’s every indication that we will blow through the remaining half of the world’s oil reserves much more quickly. Conservation, increased fuel efficiency, new oil production technologies, drilling in not-yet-exploited wildernesses like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (which lawmakers seem intent on opening up) — all these tactics may buy us a little time, but in the absence of a serious, “Man on the Moon”-style government initiative to develop alternatives, we will soon arrive at a worldwide energy crisis.

When that oil shortage strikes, we’ll have much more to worry about than having enough juice to feed our SUVs. Oil accounts for 38 percent of the world’s energy — by far the largest chunk — and the consequences of a shortage would be catastrophic for the economies of every country. Scarce oil supplies would sharply increase oil costs and slam inflation into high gear. It’s not just commuters who rely on oil-based fuel, after all: The price of shipping every sort of good, from groceries to TV sets, would increase, making businesses of every niche less efficient and ultimately leading to nationwide recession or depression. The United States would suffer in particular, because a substantial portion of its trade deficit — 35 to 40 percent — is devoted to oil imports. With oil prices rising, the country’s debt would mushroom, weakening the dollar and wreaking further havoc with the economy. Finally, a shortage of oil would inevitably worsen relations between gas-guzzling nations who have grown dependent on cheap energy but suddenly have no easy way of obtaining it. (The much-anticipated, much-feared future clash between the United States and China, in fact, may not be over Taiwan but over oil: An expansionist China sniffing everywhere for oil is already butting heads with the United States in central Asia.)

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has not yet made the search for energy alternatives a priority. Instead, it seems to approach the impending oil shortage with the same faith-based reasoning that it applies to global warming (and that it applied, until this past week, to the influenza danger): Nothing bad is going to happen. Why worry? If the oil crisis of the 1970s taught us anything, it was the danger of not being prepared for the unexpected — of not having a Plan B. These days, we’re dealing with the very-much-expected — and yet we’re still woefully unprepared.

(To listen to the Mast interview, click here. The interview starts at 28:48 in the program — right after another interview worth listening to about the dangers posed by bird flu.)

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen