Geophysicist Hubbert's prediction that American oil production would peak in 1972 proved accurate and presaged the rise of energy independence and security as crucial national and international issues.

In 1956, Shell Oil Company geophysicist M. King Hubbert predicted that U.S. oil production in the lower forty-eight states would peak in 1972; it peaked in 1970. Other scholars have extended Hubbert's work to predict that world oil production would peak sometime between 2005 and 2011.

Although there are critics of Hubbert's approach, most geologists and geophysicists agree with the basic premises of his work. World demand would exceed production capacity about the time of peak production, driving up the cost of oil. Burning oil is a major producer of carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas (GHG). The impending oil shortage and resulting increases in the price of oil may help spur people to turn to alternative energy sources, many of which do not produce CO2.

Basing his analysis on proven oil reserves in the United States and on an analysis of production patterns in the anthracite coal industry, Hubbert produced a bell curve that showed the growth, peak, and eventual decline in American oil production (Adelman, 1997).

He described what has come to be called Hubbert's peak, the one-hundred-year period in which oil was the driving force of the economy. Hubbert tied his analysis to patterns of production for other fossil fuels, most notably anthracite coal in the eastern U.S. Because fossil fuels are a nonrenewable resource, they cannot be re-created once used. The model that Hubbert produced contained two scenarios, one predicting that U.S. oil production would peak in 1965, and a more optimistic one indicating 1972. Actual U.S. oil production peaked in 1970, giving additional weight to Hubbert's approach.

Hubbert's bell curve indicated that there would continue to be significant American oil production after the early 1970's, as has occurred. However, as easily accessible reserves are consumed, oil producers are forced to turn to increasingly expensive means to produce oil. This has meant drilling in unlikely places, often at great expense and to no avail; expensive recovery processes that try to obtain what oil remains in an underground reservoir; and increased emphasis on offshore drilling, in some cases through 3,000 meters of water and then 6,000 meters below the ocean floor.

Several scholars, such as Kenneth Deffeyes, have extended Hubbert's approach and predicted the peak for world oil production would occur sometime during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Because the United States has come to rely on foreign oil, a decline in world oil production will have a significant impact on the American economy as well as climatic conditions. This second peak production point will lead to increasingly expensive means of trying to obtain oil.

Hubbert's analysis was based on his knowledge of proven oil reserves taken from several sources. Oil is generally found in particular types of geologic formations between 2,300 and 4,600 meters beneath the surface of the Earth (Deffeyes, 2005). These oil-bearing formations are found in both the land and beneath the ocean. In the past oil companies and government bodies have often overstated oil reserves for political and economic reasons. This situation may be changing, as Shell Oil sharply decreased its reserve predictions early in the twenty-first century. Although further exploration has led to higher estimates for reserves, by the early twenty-first century only the South China Sea region had not been fully explored, and most geologists do not expect any oil fields approaching the magnitude of the Saudi Arabian fields to be found there.

Economists often raise the principle of substitutability in dealing with oil reserve predictions. They indicate that as it becomes more expensive to drill for oil in one area, oil companies will drill elsewhere distorting reserve predictions as oil still remains in the ground in the old fields. This was true for a time, but now oil companies are using new technologies to extract oil from old fields in places such as east Texas and Mexico. The criticism of Hubbert that he ignored substitutability may have been somewhat true at one point, but it is less true at present.

Oil is a finite resource, and as oil fields are depleted oil companies turn to more expensive means of production. For example, in 2008 some oil companies were paying more than $600,000 a day to lease drill ships for offshore drilling. In addition, some oil reserves are now found in politically unstable locations, such as off the east coast of Africa, a condition likely to drive up the costs of obtaining oil. Oil is also found in tar sands in Canada, but extraction is expensive and causes several environmental problems. Moreover, oil is used for more than energy. It is also the feedstock for the chemical industry for such products as plastics.

Burning fossil fuels such as oil is a major source of GHGs such as CO2. It is estimated that CO2 generated by burning fossil fuels represents 57 percent of the GHGs emitted into the atmosphere. Although oil- and gasoline-burning comprise only parts of this figure (coal-burning is also a major source of CO2), decreasing the burning of oil will help to reduce this source of CO2 emissions. Oil consumption is so ingrained in industrial society in the use of oil for industrial and home energy and for transportation that simply turning to another source is not likely in the short run without the impetus of a steep price increase. With the exception of coal most other, cleaner energy sources have been more expensive than fossil fuels, so there has been little economic incentive to adopt them. It is likely that the assumptions concerning world oil production derived from Hubbert's model are correct and the production of oil will become increasingly expensive in the next few years. The increasing cost of oil predicted by Hubbert's model may help to lower consumption of oil. Confronted by sharp increases in the prices of gasoline and fuel oil in 2008, more industries and consumers were searching for alternative fuels, fuels that often produced a smaller carbon footprint than oil.

References

1. Adelman, M. A., and Michael C. Lynch. "Fixed View of Resource Limits Creates Undue Pressure." Oil and Gas Journal, April 7, 1997, pp. 56- 60.

2. Deffeyes, Kenneth S. Beyond Oil. New York: Hill and Wang, 2005.

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