The first of three programmes on one of the most urgent problems of this half century.

Do you run a car? Do you heat your home with oil or gas? Do you travel by air on business or on holiday? If you do, your life style may be radically altered in a few years' time. World supplies of oil and gas are running out.
The crunch won't happen suddenly - it's a gradual process. It is already beginning in America and it will hit us soon, in spite of the North Sea discoveries. It may only be seven years away. By 1980, the motor manufacturers plan to have more cars on the road than oil companies plan to provide with petrol. Altogether, methods of propulsion are severely limited and the trouble doesn't end there as oil and gas provide an increasing proportion of our electricity. The shortages will affect everything from domestic cookers to coal mines.
On a global scale, the energy crunch may well disrupt world politics as phenomenal financial power flows into a few Arab hands. The end of the oil age begins now, as the oil industry nears the bottom of its particular barrel.

Are we running out of steam... p 11. The Nuclear Dilemma