The American economic machine, not to mention most of the rest of the world these days, runs on cheap oil and lots of it. The global economy can’t live without it. But we may feel the end of the age of oil much sooner than most people expect, says one of America’s top scientists.

Physicist David Goodstein, Vice Provost at the California Institute of Technology, has recently joined the effort in trying to determine when and how the impact of diminishing global oil supplies might hit home. In Goodstein’s estimation, “civilization as we know it will not survive, unless we can find a way to live without fossil fuels.”

Click the “Listen” to hear physicist David Goodstein talk about the alternatives to global oil shortages.

Guests:

Robert Ebel, Chairman of the Energy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies

David Goodstein, Vice Provost and Professor of physics and applied physics at the California Institute of Technology and author of “Out OF Gas, The End of The Age of Oil.”