Have We Reached Peak Oil?

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In 1956, by hand-fitting and hand-integrating the “logistics curve” to match discovery data, Shell geologist Dr. Marion King Hubbert predicted that the US domestic oil production would peak in the early 1970s and then begin an irreversible decline. Hubbert’s prediction was the subject of water-cooler confabs in every oil company office in the US and – because US production was growing exponentially at the time – it was laughed off.

Hubbert was predictably fired.  15 years later (1971), US oil production peaked and began in irreversible decline. The phenomenon is now called “Hubbert’s Peak.”

United States production at the time consisted of tens of thousands of oil wells added together. More tens of thousands have been drilled since, and technology has continued to improve, but the peak occurred anyway, and the decline continues to this day. Since this happened in the United States, dozens of other countries have also peaked and begun to decline. It is only a matter of time until the OPEC countries reach their production peaks also, and when they do, that will be the peak for the entire world.

Near his death in 1989, Hubbert predicted that worldwide oil production would reach a peak around 2000. Several scientists including Colin Campbell, Kenneth Deffeyes, F.L. Ivanhoe, Walter Youngquist and Jean LaHerrere, have refined the methods and prediction of the global Hubbert’s Peak, to around the middle of this decade (2006).

The sky is not only falling, it is much closer today than 20 years ago, and the faster we pump up oil, the faster we approach the end of it.