Hubbert peak theory

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Hubbert's peak[edit]


Hubbert's Peak was thought to have been achieved in the United States contiguous 48 states (that is, excluding Alaska) in the early 1970s. Oil production peaked at 10,200,000 barrels per day (1,620,000 m3/d) and then declined for several years since. Yet, recent advances in extraction technology and optimistic production forecasts has led to widespread skepticism of Hubbert's theory.[citation needed]

Peak oil as a proper noun, or "Hubbert's peak" applied more generally, refers to a singular event in history: the peak of the entire planet's oil production. After Peak Oil, according to the Hubbert Peak Theory, the rate of oil production on Earth would enter a terminal decline. On the basis of his theory, in a paper[3] he presented to the American Petroleum Institute in 1956, Hubbert correctly predicted that production of oil from conventional sources would peak in the continental United States around 1965-1970. Hubbert further predicted a worldwide peak at "about half a century" from publication and approximately 12 gigabarrels (GB) a year in magnitude. In a 1976 TV interview[4] Hubbert added that the actions of OPEC might flatten the global production curve but this would only delay the peak for perhaps 10 years.

Hubbert's theory[edit]

Hubbert curve[edit]

U.S. Oil Production and Imports 1910 to 2012
Norway's oil production and a Hubbert curve approximating it.

In 1956, Hubbert proposed that fossil fuel production in a given region over time would follow a roughly bell-shaped curve without giving a precise formula; he later used the Hubbert curve, the derivative of the logistic curve,[5] for estimating future production using past observed discoveries.



Given past oil discovery and production data, a Hubbert curve that attempts to approximate past discovery data may be constructed and used to provide estimates for future production. In particular, the date of peak oil production or the total amount of oil ultimately produced can be estimated that way. Cavallo[6] defines the Hubbert curve used to predict the U.S. peak as the derivative of:

Q(t) = {Q_{{\rm max}}\over {1 + ae^{-bt}}}

where Qmax is the total resource available (ultimate recovery of crude oil), Q(t) the cumulative production, and a and b are constants. The year of maximum annual production (peak) is:

t_{{\rm max}} = {1\over b}\ln \left({a} \right).

so now the cumulative production Q(t) reaches the half of the total available resource:

Q(t) = Q_\text{max}/2

Use of multiple curves[edit]


Definition of reserves[edit]

Almost all of Hubbert peaks must be put in the context of high ore grade.[citation needed] Except for fissionable materials, any resource, including oil, is theoretically recoverable from the environment with the right technology. In contrast, Hubbert was concerned with "easy" oil, "easy" metals, and so forth that could be recovered without greatly advanced mining efforts and how to time the necessity of such resource acquisition advancements or substitutions by knowing an "easy" resource's probable peak.[citation needed] Also, as reserves become more difficult to extract there is the possibility that mining or alternatives are too expensive for developing countries.[citation needed]

For heavy crude or deep water drilling attempts, such as Noxal oil field or tar sands or oil shale, the price of the oil extracted will have to include the extra effort required to mine these resources. According to the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (formerly, the Minerals Management Service), areas such as the Outer Continental Shelf may also incur higher costs due to environmental concerns.[citation needed] So not all oil reserves are equal, and the more difficult reserves are predicted by Hubbert as being typical of the post-peak side of the Hubbert curve.[citation needed]


Crude Oil[edit]

US oil production (Lower 48 states crude oil only) and Hubbert high estimate for the US.



Hubbert's upper-bound estimate, which he regarded as optimistic, accurately predicted that US oil production would peak in 1970. Forty years later, the upper-bound estimate has also proven to be very accurate in terms of cumulative production, less so in terms of annual production. For 2005, the upper-bound Hubbert model predicts 178.2 Gb cumulative and 1.17 Gb current production; actual US production was 176.4 Gb cumulative crude oil + condensate (1% lower than the upper bound estimate), with annual production of 1.55 Gb (32% higher than the upper bound estimate).



Natural Gas[edit]




Oil imports by country Pre-2006

Energy return on energy investment[edit]



Growth-based economic models[edit]

World energy consumption & predictions, 2005-2035. Source: International Energy Outlook 2011.


Some economists describe the problem as uneconomic growth or a false economy. At the political right, Fred Ikle has warned about "conservatives addicted to the Utopia of Perpetual Growth".[14] Brief oil interruptions in 1973 and 1979 markedly slowed—but did not stop—the growth of world GDP.[15]



Hubbert peaks[edit]


Natural gas[edit]

Main article: Peak gas

Doug Reynolds predicted in 2005 that the North American peak would occur in 2007.[20] Bentley predicted a world "decline in conventional gas production from about 2020".[21]


Main article: Peak coal

Although observers believe that peak coal is significantly further out than peak oil, Hubbert studied the specific example of anthracite in the USA, a high grade coal, whose production peaked in the 1920s. Hubbert found that anthracite matches a curve closely.[22] Pennsylvania's coal production also matches Hubbert's curve closely, but this does not mean that coal in Pennsylvania is exhausted—far from it. If production in Pennsylvania returned at its all time high, there are reserves for 190 years.[citation needed] Hubbert had recoverable coal reserves worldwide at 2500 × 109 metric tons and peaking around 2150 (depending on usage).

More recent estimates suggest an earlier peak. Coal: Resources and Future Production (PDF 630KB[23]), published on April 5, 2007 by the Energy Watch Group (EWG), which reports to the German Parliament, found that global coal production could peak in as few as 15 years.[24] Reporting on this, Richard Heinberg also notes that the date of peak annual energetic extraction from coal is likely to come earlier than the date of peak in quantity of coal (tons per year) extracted as the most energy-dense types of coal have been mined most extensively.[25] A second study, The Future of Coal by B. Kavalov and S. D. Peteves of the Institute for Energy (IFE), prepared for European Commission Joint Research Centre, reaches similar conclusions and states that ""coal might not be so abundant, widely available and reliable as an energy source in the future".[24]

Work by David Rutledge of Caltech predicts that the total of world coal production will amount to only about 450 gigatonnes.[26] This implies that coal is running out faster than usually assumed.

Finally, insofar as global peak oil and peak in natural gas are expected anywhere from imminently to within decades at most, any increase in coal production (mining) per annum to compensate for declines in oil or natural gas production, would necessarily translate to an earlier date of peak as compared with peak coal under a scenario in which annual production remains constant.

Fissionable materials[edit]

Main article: Peak uranium

In a paper in 1956,[27] after a review of US fissionable reserves, Hubbert notes of nuclear power:


Caltech physics professor David Goodstein has stated[29] that



Helium is the second-lightest chemical element in the Universe, causing it to rise to the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere. Helium atoms are so light that the Earth's gravity field is simply not strong enough to trap helium in the atmosphere and it dissipates slowly into space and is lost forever.[30]

Transition metals[edit]

Main article: Peak copper

Hubbert applied his theory to "rock containing an abnormally high concentration of a given metal"[31] and reasoned that the peak production for metals such as copper, tin, lead, zinc and others would occur in the time frame of decades and iron in the time frame of two centuries like coal. The price of copper rose 500% between 2003 and 2007[32] and was attributed by some[who?] to peak copper.[33][34] Copper prices later fell, along with many other commodities and stock prices, as demand shrank from fear of a global recession.[35] Lithium availability is a concern for a fleet of Li-ion battery using cars but a paper published in 1996 estimated that world reserves are adequate for at least 50 years.[36] A similar prediction[37] for platinum use in fuel cells notes that the metal could be easily recycled.

Precious metals[edit]




Main article: Peak phosphorus

Phosphorus supplies are essential to farming and depletion of reserves is estimated at somewhere from 60 to 130 years.[39] According to a 2008 study, the total reserves of phosphorus are estimated to be approximately 3,200 MT, with a peak production at 28 MT/year in 2034.[40] Individual countries' supplies vary widely; without a recycling initiative America's supply[41] is estimated around 30 years.[42] Phosphorus supplies affect agricultural output which in turn limits alternative fuels such as biodiesel and ethanol. Its increasing price and scarcity (global price of rock phosphate rose 8-fold in the 2 years to mid 2008) could change global agricultural patterns. Lands, perceived as marginal because of remoteness, but with very high phosphorus content, such as the Gran Chaco[43] may get more agricultural development, while other farming areas, where nutrients are a constraint, may drop below the line of profitability.

Peak water[edit]

Main article: Peak water


For example, a reserve such as the Ogallala Aquifer can be mined at a rate that far exceeds replenishment. This turns much of the world's underground water[45] and lakes[46] into finite resources with peak usage debates similar to oil. These debates usually center around agriculture and suburban water usage but generation of electricity[47] from nuclear energy or coal and tar sands mining mentioned above is also water resource intensive. The term fossil water is sometimes used to describe aquifers whose water is not being recharged.

Renewable resources[edit]

  • Fisheries: At least one researcher has attempted to perform Hubbert linearization (Hubbert curve) on the whaling industry, as well as charting the transparently dependent price of caviar on sturgeon depletion.[48] The Atlantic northwest cod fishery was a renewable resource, but the numbers of fish taken exceeded the fishs rate of recovery. The end of the cod fishery does match the exponential drop of the Hubbert bell curve. Another example is the cod of the North Sea.[49] The comparison of the cases of fisheries and of mineral extraction tells us that the human pressure on the environment is causing a wide range of resources to go through a depletion cycle which follows a Hubbert curve.
  • Birds: The Passenger Pigeon was a renewable food resource but went extinct following the exponential drop of the Hubbert bell curve.
  • Herbivore: The Bubal hartebeest was a renewable food resource but went extinct following the exponential drop of the Hubbert bell curve.
  • Wood: The trees on Easter Island were a renewable resource but all were cut down in the 17th century, following the Hubbert bell curve, but could be restored. The Amazon rain forest is a renewable resource, but due to deforestation the forest may end as a Hubbert curve.[citation needed] Rainforests 50 years ago covered 14% of the world and today are at half that number.[citation needed]
  • Air/oxygen: Half the world's oxygen is produced by phytoplankton. The numbers of plankton have dropped by 40% since the 1950s.[50] With the acidification of the ocean the planet may lose all the plankton and the plankton death would follow the exponential drop of the Hubbert bell curve.[citation needed]
  • Water: The Aral Sea was depleted following the Hubbert bell curve, but could be restored. The amount of water it had lost is the equivalent of completely draining Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.[citation needed]

Criticisms of peak oil[edit]

Economist Michael Lynch[51] argues that the theory behind the Hubbert curve is too simplistic and relies on an overly Malthusian point of view.[52] Lynch claims that Campbell's predictions for world oil production are strongly biased towards underestimates, and that Campbell has repeatedly pushed back the date.[53][54]


Edward Luttwak, an economist and historian, claims that unrest in countries such as Russia, Iran and Iraq has led to a massive underestimate of oil reserves.[57] The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) responds by claiming neither Russia nor Iran are troubled by unrest currently, but Iraq is.[58]

Cambridge Energy Research Associates authored a report that is critical of Hubbert-influenced predictions:[59]

CERA does not believe there will be an endless abundance of oil, but instead believes that global production will eventually follow an “undulating plateau” for one or more decades before declining slowly,[60] and that production will reach 40 Mb/d by 2015.[61]


Criticisms of peak element scenarios[edit]


As some illustrations, tin, copper, iron, lead, and zinc all had both production from 1950 to 2000 and reserves in 2000 much exceed world reserves in 1950, which would be impossible except for how "proved reserves are like an inventory of cars to an auto dealer" at a time, having little relationship to the actual total affordable to extract in the future.[64] In the example of peak phosphorus, additional concentrations exist intermediate between 71,000 Mt of identified reserves (USGS)[65] and the approximately 30,000,000,000 Mt of other phosphorus in Earth's crust, with the average rock being 0.1% phosphorus, so showing decline in human phosphorus production will occur soon would require far more than comparing the former figure to the 190 Mt/year of phosphorus extracted in mines (2011 figure).[64][65][66][67]

See also[edit]

Resource peaks


  11. ^ Brandt, A. R. (2007). "Testing Hubbert". Energy Policy 35 (5): 3074–3088. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2006.11.004. 
  12. ^ M. King Hubbert, 1962, "Energy Resources," National Academy of Sciences, Publication 1000-D, p.81-83.
  14. ^ "Our Perpetual Growth Utopia". Retrieved 2013-11-03. 
  15. ^
  16. ^ [4][dead link]
  18. ^ [5][dead link]
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  22. ^ [6][dead link]
  23. ^ "Startseite". Energy Watch Group. Retrieved 2013-11-03. 
  26. ^ "Coal: Bleak outlook for the black stuff", by David Strahan, New Scientist, January 19, 2008, pp. 38-41.
  28. ^ [7][dead link]
  30. ^ Kockarts, G. (1973). "Helium in the Terrestrial Atmosphere". Space Science Reviews (Space Science Reviews) 14 (6, pp.723–757): 723. Bibcode:1973SSRv...14..723K. doi:10.1007/BF00224775. 
  34. ^ "Peak Copper Means Peak Silver -". Retrieved 2013-11-03. 
  35. ^ "COMMODITIES-Demand fears hit oil, metals prices | Reuters". 2009-01-29. Retrieved 2013-11-03. 
  37. ^ "Department for Transport - GOV.UK". Retrieved 2013-11-03. 
  39. ^ [8][dead link]
  43. ^ Don Nicol. "A postcard from the central Chaco". Retrieved 2009-01-23. alluvial sandy soils have phosphorus levels of up to 200-300 ppm 
  44. ^ Meena Palaniappan and Peter H. Gleick (2008). "The World's Water 2008-2009, Ch 1.". Pacific Institute. Retrieved 2009-01-31. 
  45. ^ [9][dead link]
  46. ^ [10][dead link]
  47. ^ [11][dead link]
  50. ^ "Plankton, base of ocean food web, in big decline - US news - Environment - Climate Change". NBC News. 2010-07-28. Retrieved 2013-11-03. 
  55. ^ Maugeri, L. (2004). "Oil: Never Cry Wolf—Why the Petroleum Age Is Far from over". Science 304 (5674): 1114–5. doi:10.1126/science.1096427. PMID 15155935. 
  56. ^ "Oil, Oil Everywhere". Forbes. July 24, 2006. 
  57. ^ "The truth about global oil supply". Retrieved 2013-11-03. 
  59. ^ [12][dead link]
  64. ^ a b c James D. Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, Russell S. Sobel, David MacPherson. Economics: Private and Public Choice, 12th Edition. South-Western Cengage Learning, page 730. extract, accessed 5-20-2012


  • Hubbert, M.K. (1982). Techniques of Prediction as Applied to Production of Oil and Gas, US Department of Commerce, NBS Special Publication 631, May 1982

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