Estimating Our Energy Predicament

Combining knowledge of physics with a healthy willingness to estimate and approximate, we can say some rather profound things about future paths available to our society in terms of energy and resources.  Topics such as growth, global warming, fossil fuels and their potential replacements, and energy storage are ripe targets for back-of-the-envelope quantification, and will be explored in this talk.  A subtext is that we should not take 

for granted that superior substitutes will replace fossil fuels.