reading : Using oil better

Not long ago , a litter of water at an American supermarket was often more expensive than a litter of petrol at the a gas station next door .

But not any more(1) .American's – along with everyone else – will never a gain pay just 20$(2) per barrel , as they used to . The reason for this  is supply and demand : supply can hardly keep up with demand . Global consumption is 85 M (3)barrels a day – and raising.

America is leading the world in this(4). With only 4%(5) of the earth's population , it’s 280M(6) people now consume 25%(7) of the world's oil . however, Americans are not alone . demand is raising everywhere , and it(8) is  increasing particularly fast in the countries that are now industrializing – especially china. ( recently, the number of cars on Chinese roads grew from 2M to 3.5M in one year!) .

In the old day , nearly all the oil that Americans used was American , but that(9) started to change in 1970(10) .

 In that  year(11) , production began decreasing , and imports started increasing rapidly . New oilfields in Alaska and the Gulf of   Mexico have stopped the decline , but only temporarily . Scientists are still finding new oil around the world , but the search in getting harder .One day, (*1) global oil production will start falling , just as it did(12) in American in 1970 . At that point(*2) , however , the world will not able to turn to other new sources of supply, (*3) as Americans did(*4) . There will be no other sources . When will that point(13) come ? the experts disagree . Some(14) say that global production will peak in around 2040(15) and then start decreasing . Others(16) are much less optimistic . They expect the peak as early 2016. (17)The exact year does not really matter . The fact is that demand will soon get steadily greater than supply if we continue as we are(18). And if that(19) happened , oil prices will explode. Scientists everywhere are developing energy sources to replace oil though.

 They(20) are doing this(21) first to reduce oil's pollution emissions and the related global warming . they are also working to avoid that disastrous energy gap .The oil alternative include hydrogen (H) fuel cells to power our vehicles and ' renewable ' energy sources such as wind power  . However , these energy sources cannot yet provide the cheap , reliable energy in huge quantities that oil does(22) .The new technologies need more development time.

  The potential energy gap therefore remains  - and to fill it(23) we must make the oil last longer . That(24) means reducing the amount we use in various ways . Take transport . People need to stop buying big thirsty vehicles and start using smaller , more fuel- efficient cars instead . Better still , we should instead use public transport where possible .

 Best of all , shorter trips can be made by bicycle or on foot .

From oil , we also get the petrochemicals that give us thousand(25) of products – everything from paint to plastic toys to cleaning products to medicines like aspirin . We will have to limit our use of these(26), too. Clearly , all this means difficult changes . The alternative could be much worse though.

. If a real  energy gap opened up , the world could collapse into economic and social chaos  . this(27) is surely a route to avoid.