What’s Wrong with Peak Oil Theory? Consider ‘Peak Gas’.

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  January 28th at 11:00 AM  | 

This is an abbreviated version of a post at my personal blog. There you will find more detailed text, additional figures and references. In 1956, M. King Hubbert predicted that crude oil production in the U.S. (ex-Alaska) would peak in rate around 1970, to be followed by a long, irreversible decline. Hubbert nailed the timing of the peak, and in doing so, cemented his status | Read More »

Hubbert’s Peak or Yergin’s Plateau?

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  September 18th at 09:20 PM  | 

In 1956, Shell geologist M. King Hubbert correctly predicted that oil production in the United States would reach a peak around 1970. Since his Peak Oil theory fits so well with the Malthusian worldview of “Progressives”, anti-capitalists and anarchists, Hubbert has become a posthumous hero to the Left, an unusual role for a scientist polluted by the filthy lucre of the oil industry. Peak Oil’s | Read More »

Settling Accounts on Peak Oil

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  January 1st at 05:00 PM  | 

In 2005, New York Times columnist John Tierney and Houston investment banker Matt Simmons made a bet on the average price of oil for 2010, to be settled today, January 1, 2011. Simmons died in August, 2010, but by that time it was reasonably certain that he was on the losing end of his bet with Tierney. Simmons had wagered that the average price of | Read More »