Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.Will We Run Out Of Gas?
The metaphorical answer to this question is more important than the literal, but the literal is irresistibly short: No, unfortunately not. Humans will have at our disposal as much gasoline as we can burn in the 21st century. Nor are we likely to run out of heating oil, coal or natural gas, the other carbon-based fuels that have powered industrial civilization for 200 years.
Why won't we run out? And why is that unfortunate? After all, these fuels provide nearly 80% of the energy humans use to keep warm, to light buildings and run computers, to power the cars that get...
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