"the kingdom of heaven may be run on righteousness, but the kingdom of earth runs on oil" - Ernest Bevin

the statement may be true for our current era. the increasing oil price is the headlines of almost all newspaper in the world. government of Indonesia plans to increase the gasoline price (again), and it may be starting a new political crises. all countries are waiting the impacts of Rita hurricane; mostly because many oil wells and refineries of the US are located around Texas...the bigger the impact the more likely oil price will increase. every aspect of our life is affected by oil or the fossil-fuel and the by-products.

"one barrel oil can produce:
enough gasoline to drive a medium-sized car over 200 miles; enough distillate to drive a large truck almost 40 miles....enough liquified gases to fill 12 small (14.1 ounce) cylinders for home, camping or workshop use; nearly 70 kilowatt hours of electricity at a power plant...asphalt to make about one gallon of tar; about four pounds of charcoal briquets; wax of 170 small birthday candles, or 27 wax crayon [and] lubricants to make about a quart of motor oil."

ok..ok...in a sentence it just means oil is very very very important for us now. BUT...the whole new situation (or equation) as indicated by the oil price just show us that oil (and fossil-fuel) era is in the sunset period. it may be not ended in the next 10 years...i don't know..but human must find a new energy source.

history has proved that we, human being, have been evoluting from one energy source to another; each change is part of the rise and fall of civilization....from wood to coal to oil/gas....so it is quite logical that a new era of energy will be coming soon (soon is a realtive term, of course).

By the way, the quotation and the data above is taken from Jeremy Rifkin's "The Hydrogen Economy" and as the title suggests, Rifkin predicts the next era is hydrogen energy civilization. 

¶ 11:52 PM