Journalist and New American Foundation Fellow Lisa Margonelli was online Thursday, Feb. 15 at noon ET to discuss her new book, "Oil on the Brain: Adventures from the Pump to the Pipeline," which tells stories of the places and people along the petroleum trade route -- from an Iranian oil platform to a New York trading floor to the station down the block.

The transcript follows.

Lisa Margonelli: Hello -- thank you for logging in on such a cold, blustery, fuel-ish day there in the D.C. area.

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Washington: Ms. Margonelli, I have heard an increasing amount of discussion in recent years about the concept of "peak oil." It's the idea that we are at, or near, the point at which the discoverable amount of oil has reached its peak, and that it now will decline steadily -- slowly but surely dragging down industrial productivity and economic production along with it. (The idea being that economic productivity worldwide is hopelessly dependent on oil.) Is this potentially very serious scenario something you discuss in your book -- or that the sources you talked to spoke about?

Lisa Margonelli: Hello -- while there's a consensus that oil production will "peak" sometime during this century -- probably sooner rather than later -- there isn't consensus on when. In my book I spoke with people in the U.S., Iran and China about the political and economic consequences of a peak in oil production in non-OPEC, non petro-states (Norway, Britain, the U.S., Egypt, Argentina, Australia, China and eventually Mexico) and how that will concentrate the remaining oil resources in the hands of big petro-states like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Russia and Venezuela, giving them more sway over prices. I find the implications of this very interesting.

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Fairfax, Va.: I have not yet had the good fortune of reading your book. I do remember reading a book some years ago, entitled "The Seven Sisters," which was a very enlightening account of the oil industry at that time. I haven't been able to get the awful taste for the industry that book left me out of my mouth to this day. Does your research leading to your book leave you with a similar conclusion?

Lisa Margonelli: As long as there's been an oil industry in the U.S., Americans have hated it. Oil companies were the first huge corporations, and (to effectively produce and market their products) they were integrated in a way that previous companies hadn't been; to keep prices from seesawing they were monopolistic in the early days. I doubt you'll come to love the oil companies while reading my book, but I did come to appreciate the work they do and the risks they take. On the other hand I think we as citizens really need to take control of our energy destiny -- we need to push for better efficiency in our vehicles and economy and really take responsibility for the energy we use, rather than blaming the oil companies for being a conspiracy...

For the complete transcript, please visit The Washington Post website.