Hubbert

(11/16/2008) - Ever since the use of oil as a major transportation fuel began in the early twentieth century, we have known that we will some day run out.  This was clear after observing the initial surge of production wells offered and their subsequent deterioration. 

Predicting the demise of oil has been a long-standing American tradition.  Leonardo Maugeri, senior vice president of the Italian oil company Eni, writes in his book “The Age of Oil” that a World War One era senate investigation concluded that oil production in the United States has already peaked and that supplies would be depleted within 25 years.  In 1919, the head of the U.S. Geological Survey predicted the end of American oil production would occur by 1928.

Of course, none of this happened.  These estimates were made before the science of oil exploration has come into its own.  But not all such predicti predictions.  Author Kenneth S. Deffeyes writes that when M. King Hubbert made his 1956 prediction that oil production in the U.S. would peak between 1965 and 1970, many people ridiculed him for it.  Looking back, we know that U.S. production peaked in 1970.

Lucky for us, increases in worldwide production more than compensated for sinking American production.  And when it costs $2 a barrel for a supertanker to move oil anywhere in the world, it doesn't make much of a difference at the pump whether the oil was drilled in Saudi Arabia or Texas.