The action on CR4 seems to have slowed a bit so I went out and Googled something! I found this gem from 1918, seems that a lot of things we answer now were asked back then, along with similar worries like when we're going to run out of oil (1923 at the current rate of consumption in 1918), and "Coal, free energy found!", why does this sound so familiar??.
Check it out here, nearly a thousand pages of bed time reading:
http://books.google.com/books?id=rccfAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
The more things change the more they stay the same.
ps- you'll love the advertisements...