The next episode of The Future Human Podcast is now live on our Soundcloud page and in the iTunes store, and it’s an exploration of the End of the Oil Age. The ‘peak oil’ phenomenon, where oil production goes into terminal decline, threatens to upend our cosy way of life, and provoke resource wars and energy scarcity. But it also could be the catalyst for a host of sustainable energy technologies, that reinvigorate the economy as well as allowing us cheap, abundant power.

We explored the topic at a Future Human salon back in 2010, and on the podcast we listen back to some of the points raised by the panel guests: Jeremy Leggett, a solar energy entrepreneur and one of the UK’s most outspoken proponents of sustainable energy; Shaun Chamberlin, a flagbearer for the Transition Culture movement who has been presenting potential energy solutions to the UK government; and Mark Stevenson, the author of An Optimist’s Tour of the Future, a book in which he travelled the world meeting the innovators that can potentially ensure our energy future. Mark returns to join the regular podcast team, and explore some of the ideas in more detail, from the role of the individual in energy investment, to the effect of rapidly industrialising developing nations on the development (or not) of post-oil energy, and whether, as Jeremy suggests, we’re set to experience social turmoil not seen since World War II.

You can listen below via our Soundcloud player, or download it and subscribe to our podcast series via iTunes. Remember, we’ve got an episode every fortnight for the rest of 2011, with a host of fascinating topics in the pipeline (pun intended). Let us know what you think by leaving us a comment, sending us a tweet or rating us on iTunes – we’d love to get your feedback.