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This paper analyzes 1950s U.S. discussions of looming fossil fuel shortages, with a focus on Eugene Edmond Ayres Jr. and Charles Albert Scarlott, authors of Energy Sources—The Wealth of the World (1952). They emphasized conservation, efficiency, and the conversion of varied sources to contribute to energy systems, including food systems. They (and others such as Lewis G. Weeks and M. King Hubbert) considered tar sands, oil shale, peat, coal, and uranium, as well as the winds, tides, and solar energy. By the close of the 1950s, this cycle of discussions about fossil fuel shortages had played out due to technological optimism and recognition of abundant world supply through the medium term, despite a dissenting undercurrent of concern. These examples foreshadow the better-known round of 1970s debates about oil and renewable energy.