I teach in a pretty old building, one of the oldest buildings on campus. Recently, as the students were leaving class, one of them pointed to an odd metal contraption next to the door and asked me, "What is this thing?"

Can YOU identify it?



Some days, I can't figure out whether my students are breathtakingly ignorant, or I'm a dinosaur.

This morning, I noticed that the local Marathon was selling gas for $1.99 a gallon. The nightmare of $4-a-gallon gas is finally over.

Or is it?!!

Although oil is below $60 a barrel right now, the demand for oil is only going to increase. The International Energy Agency foresees a 1.6% increase in demand per year for the next couple of decades, driving oil prices to $200 a barrel. That's about $8 a gallon for gas.

Moreover, oil is not a renewable resource. Oil production eventually reaches a peak where all the easily-accessible oil has been tapped, and oil companies have to drill in harder-to-reach places, at greater expense, for smaller and smaller reserves of oil.

Some experts say the peak happened in 2005.