Peak Oil & Links

Peak Oil: an introduction

'Peak oil' is a term used to describe the scenario when crude oil production for a region - often referring to the entire world - reaches a maximum, from which it inevitably declines.

Most people are aware that oil is a finite resource, but the general presumption is that "we have x years of oil left", where x is a suitably large number (often around 40) to project any accompanying problems many years in the future. But this presumption fails to account for the geophysics of oil.

In the 1950s a prominent geophysicist M King Hubbert observed that oil production in the US was following the path of a bell-shaped curve. Production would have a 'peak' and following that peak, oil production would decline.

Main introduction

• Peak Oil - lecture by Colin Campbell (v. good topic intro)
  { RealVideo presentation }
  
• The End of Cheap Oil by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrère. Scientific American, March 1998

• Video interviews with Colin Campbell [for GlobalPublicMedia - some sections available as transcripts]
  
• Unlocking the natural gas riddle [North America] by Matthew R. Simmons, May 2002

Organisations:

• ASPO - ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PEAK OIL
• INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON OIL DEPLETION in Uppsala, Sweden, May 23-25, 2002
• ASPO Newsletter [in HTML, Word & PDF]

• ODAC - Oil Depletion Analysis Centre
• The Community Solution
• Post Carbon Institiute
• Citizen's Commision for Oil Peak And Decline

• Wolf at the Door - Beginner's Guide to Oil Peak
• M. KING HUBBERT AND HIS HEIRS: A HUBBERT PEAK HALF-BIBLIOGRAPHY Excellent source
• Forecasting future production from past discovery by Jean Laherrere [Sept 2001]
• Roger Bentley - Reading University
• The Hubbert 'oil peak'
• Hubbert's Peak - The Impending World Oil Shortage by Kenneth Deffeyes
• Oil Crisis
• DieOff.org
• Global Oil Vulnerability and the Australian Situation by Bruce Robinson [PDF]
• Information and Facts about Fossil Energy Resources
• Get Ready For Another Oil Shock! by L.F. Ivanhoe
• Revisiting The Limits to Growth - Matthew Simmons
• End of Cheap Oil Poses Serious Threat to World Economy, Experts Say  [Jan. 6, 2003]
• 'The yawning heights - looking out from the great oil peak' by Julian Darley  [audio & transcript]
• 'General Knowledge in the Post-Carbon Age' by Julian Darley  [audio & transcript]
• Ending U.S. Oil Tyranny by Jan Lundberg  [Oct 2002]
• Culture Change
• Oil Crash
• Oil Analytics
• Peak Oil News and Message Boards Breaking News on Peak Oil
• Life After The Oil Crash Good explanation in plain langauge and with a dash of humor
• Dry Dipstick a peak oil metadirectory
• Oil Empire info on peak oil and connections with current events and geopolitics
• Feasta - The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability
• Peak Oil Aware - t-shirts, stickers, etc.. designed to encourage people to 'wake up to peak oil'
• OilDecline.com

Peak Oil Meetup:

• http://oilawareness.meetup.com - Meet others interested in raising awareness of the coming decline in oil production, the consequences of this decline, and the actions that can be
  taken.

Oil Fields of the World:

• North Korea

Alternatives to conventional oil & gas:

• Methane hydrates & gas (US DoE)
• Oceanic Hydrates: an elusive resource by J.H.Laherrere
• 'Crustal hydrocarbons' - Review by David J Thomas (Ecology, Vol. 80, No. 6) of Gold's 'The deep hot biosphere'
• 'The deep hot biosphere' by Thomas Gold

Hydrocarbon Substitution:

• 'The Hydrogen Economy' by Jeremy Rifkin
• Hydrogen Economy (BBC)

• Blood and Oil by Michael Klare
• Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil by Michael C Ruppert
• Crude: The Story of Oil by Sonia Shah
• Before the Wells Run Dry: Ireland's Transition to Renewable Energy
• High Noon for Natural Gas by Julian Darley
• Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World by Richard Heinberg
• The End of Fossil Energy and a Plan for Sustainability by John Howe
• Oil Jihad and Destiny by Ron Cooke
• Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil by David Goodstein
• The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies by Richard Heinberg
• Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage - Kenneth S. Deffeyes
• 'The Essence of Oil and Gas Depletion' - Colin Campbell
• The Coming Oil Crisis By Colin J. Campbell
• Geodestinies: The inevitable control of Earth resources over nations and individuals by Walter Lewellyn Youngquist
• BEYOND OIL: The Threat to Food and Fuel in the Coming Decades, Third Edition (1991) by John Gever, Robert Kaufman, David Skole, Charles Vorosmarty

Additional Links