Peak Oil - True or False
The arguments are so one-sided, it’s practically a given that “peak oil” is real and threatening. Or is it? This article examines both sides. It lets readers decide and deals only with supply issues, not crucial environmental ones and the need to develop alternative energy sources. First some background.
The name most associated with “peak oil” is M. King Hubbert. He became the world’s best known geologist when he worked for Houston-based Shell Oil Company from 1943 to 1964. His theory goes something like this. Oil is a finite resource. Peak oil, or Hubbert’s peak, is the point at which maximum world production is reached, after which its rate terminally declines.
Hubbert first presented his theory in a February 4, 1949 Science magazine article called “Energy from Fossil Fuels.” He gained prominence, however, from his 1956 American Petroleum Institute presentation titled “Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels.” In it, he predicted that US production would peak between the mid-1960s and early 1970s, and he was largely right (for the wrong reasons at the time) about cheap or what’s called light sweet oil.
Most analysts believe US output peaked in 1970 and has since declined. Others, like economist and author F. William Engdahl, disagree. He’s been researching oil issues since the early 1970s and believes US output peaked at the time but not because of resource depletion. It’s “because Shell, Mobil, Texaco and the other partners of Saudi Aramco were flooding the US market with dirt cheap Middle East imports, tariff free, (and) at prices so low (that) many Texas domestic producers could not compete and” had to shutter their operations.
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