According to Christopher Steiner, three big W's will shrink as gasoline prices rise: our waistlines, WalMart, and the world. As the price of gasoline rises, our willingness to walk a quarter-mile to a convenience store, or ride a bicycle for work and exercise will reduce our waistlines and improve our health. At $14 a gallon, Wal-Mart will be forced to change its business model because it cannot afford to pay the shipping costs for products made in China. (Christopher Steiner should be nominated for penning perhaps the sweetest prophecy of the 21st century: Wal-Mart will die.) Sadly, the world will shrink because the majority of the world's population will not be able to enjoy the educational experience of encountering new cultures. At $8 a gallon, airlines will collapse. Despite its technological achievement, Boeing's successful test flight of its 787 will not prevent an inevitable price of $1,000 to fly from Phoenix to Cincinnati in time for Thanksgiving dinner.

Mr. Steiner's lucid analysis of the transformations awaiting ordinary people, corporations and governments will be favorably compared to Alvin Toffler's FUTURE SHOCK. In ways, $20 A GALLON deserves more attention than FUTURE SHOCK received upon its first appearance. The message of FUTURE SHOCK was "See what you'll be adapting to in twenty years." $20 A GALLON announces that time is short. Public officials at all levels should be required to read it to prepare for the upheavals that will occur across the spectrum of society. The author contributes much information regarding alternative sources of energy (nuclear energy will be the core that solar,hydropower,coal,wind, natural gas and geothermal revolve around) and improved modes of transportation (railroads will return in triumph). His description of the forthcoming renaissance of cities and the innovative recycling of methane and fertilizer for fuel(to cite two cases) will inspire entrepreneurs.

Other reviewers have noted that the author's optimism tends to downplay the enormous hardships that will be inflicted on the poor, lower class, working and middle-class populations. Perhaps that observation is a result of Steiner's accessible writing style and the parameters he set for the book. He is not unsympathetic toward future workers and population segments that will endure the coming transformations. He analyzes the impending catastrophe for the airline industry meticulously and concludes "There's no shiny side to this nickel;it's all dirty." In the chapter "The Fate of Small Towns" he states that lower-middle class people will suffer a decline in their quality of life because Wal-Mart and China will not be able to supply affordable products. Despite his Forbes magazine credentials, he sympathizes with the middle-class that has seen its wages stagnate for twenty-five years while the upper class profited from globalism. It was not his job to rally people to build revolutionary barricades, but he does provide the information to determine which side of the barricade his reader will be on.

Steiner's book is a must-read for anyone who needs to understand the way the world works. It will be a profitable book for entrepreneurs,venture capitalists,managers,stock market analysts and the small investor who will find many facts and stories that prove the adage "The future is always around us." His hopeful assumption that the USA, with enough guns to arm everyone, will accept the inevitable transformations with patience and maturity may seem utopian, but a despairing outlook would have required him to write a science fiction novel instead. ( )

This book presents an interesting premise: What if... the prize of gas would reach $6, $8, $10 or even $20 per gallon. While not everybody would share the expectation that we will reach any of these prizes very soon, considering the different scenarios is not only an interesting exercise in prediction, but also shows how utterly dependent we have become of the liquid gold. Steiner does an excellent job walking us through the consequences of this unfortunate dependencies. I suppose where I may disagree with him is when he predicts that the demise of cheap oil will lead us to a rosy future. It may, but on the way, we will have to endure unbelievable economic hardships. Just consider the resultant demise of the airline industry - it will be difficult to run companies, research collaborations or simply visit your family overseas, when air travel will become impossible. Moreover, the reliance on local food only will be hard to maintain. How will cities be fed? How will we feed people in marginal areas? How will they be able to afford food if gas costs $20/gallon. Steiner opens our eyes to the tremendous challenges we face once the oil spigot runs dry - and the possible opportunities it may present. Highly recommended, intellectually stimulating read. ( )

Honestly, I loved the utopia Christopher Steiner builds in $20 Per Gallon. No surprise there--it aligns pretty closely with my own worldview. I've been saying for far too many years that the only way we're going to drive conservation and alternative energy efforts is for the price of petroleum to significantly rise.

Steiner has clearly done his research. He paints a detailed picture of just how intertwined petroleum is in our daily lives. It not only powers our cars, it's a primary building block in everyday items from plastics and synthetic fabrics to cosmetics. Each increase in the price of petroleum will affect our lives more fully as whole industries must evolve or die out, giving rise to new ones. As that happens, we'll be forced to build a more sustainable economy and way of life.

I do have a few quibbles. Most importantly, I felt that the book glossed far too lightly over the disruption this will cause. While I agree that change is inevitable, it's not likely to be as easy or as rosy as outlined in the book. The pain felt by middle America at the $2+ rise in gas prices last year was real and sustained. That's going to be magnified when the price of petroleum really starts to rise.

It should also be noted that some of the early predictions are already impossible. Steiner can't be faulted since he was using data gathered in the midst of the 2008 gas price bubble.

Finally, Steiner ends on such a complete utopia that it feels unreal and slightly cheapens the detailed analysis in earlier chapters. I'd love it if that's where we really end up. I'm just not so sure the way is so smooth and so clear.

[In the interest of full disclosure, I was awarded this book as a LibraryThing Early Reviewer. But, had I heard about it first, I'd have gladly paid for it!] ( )

A thoughtful and optimistic(with restrictions) look at the way the world will change when the age of oil is over. The author cleverly organizes the book in terms of what will change when oil reaches 10, fourteen,eighteen and twenty dollars a gallon. Hey, maybe it won't be so bad! ( )

Surprisingly optimistic outlook on the future of the world and particularly the u.s. The author believes that higher priced gasoline will force us to make cultural changes that will be better of the world, the country, and for us. ( )