Peak oil
Home » Magazine » Good, issue 8 » Peak oilTen convienient truths about peak oil
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- Peak oil does not mean the world is running out of oil: it refers to the point of maximum production, after which the availability of oil will steadily decline.
- Once oil production peaks, the price of oil—and everything that uses oil in its production and transportation—is likely to increase, unless alternatives are found.
- The peak theory was first proposed in 1956 by geophysicist Marion King Hubbert, who correctly predicted the US peak of oil production in 1970.
- Hubbert observed that the first half of oil reserves is the easiest and least expensive to extract.
- The International Energy Agency (IEA), which represents most western governments including the UK and US, says production from the world's existing oil fields is declining at a rate of 6.7 percent a year.
- Only one supergiant field (with more than five billion barrels of oil) has been found since 1980.
- Because world population has grown faster than oil production, production per capita peaked back in 1979.
- The world’s oil reserves and future energy demands are extremely difficult to measure, so peak oil will only be pinpointed after the moment has occurred.
- Debate is heated, but a growing number of analysts and observers believe we are either very close to peak oil production, or we recently passed it.
- Shell predicts that oil production will plateau in 2015. Last year the IEA predicted a plateau in 2020—its first acknowledgement that oil production will peak.
