Peak Oil Essay Example for Free

Peak Oil Essay In recent years various scientists, among them petroleum engineer Jean Laherrere and petrogeologists Colin Campbell, have argued that global oil production would peak in the early 2000s. This is known as peak oil, the tipping point in which oil production begins to decline, and is based primarily upon the work of M. King Hubbert, a petrogeologist who worked for Shell Oil Company from the 40s to 60s. (Deffeyes, 2001) Hubbert’s predictions of a dire future for oil were not unprecedented, and many individuals before him had raised alarm over the future of oil, but ultimately turned out to be Cassandras. As such, it is not entirely surprising that any succeeding warnings about oil have been dismissed by both the American public and oil companies themselves. However, controversy over the veracity of his claims ended when U. S. oil production began to decline, ultimately proving him correct. (Deffeyes, 2001) The model used in Hubbert’s peak oil theory has come to be known as the Hubbert curve or Hubbert’s peak. This is because his theory, as he presented it to the American Petroleum Institute, rests on the position that petroleum production in any given territory tends to follow a bell curve. Hubbert based this theory on the observation that the oil reserves in any production site are finite, and that when half of the reserves are gone, extraction rate begins to decline. (Hubbert, 1956) Any given curve has a point of maximum production where the initial pre-peak points on it are where production increases rapidly due to the combination of discovery rate and infrastructural developments, but after the peak, production declines due to the depletion of reserves. In effect, the cost of oil extraction decreases as production approaches peak, but after peak, the cost of oil extraction begins to increase as less oil can be extracted from the reserves. (Campbell Laherrere, 1998) Hubbert’s theory came into widespread currency not only after oil peaked in U. S, but when it was found that the curve fit production models in foreign oil states as well.