CIBC is interesting. I'm sorry I don't have the links, but they also previously stated, I think in 2005, maybe 2004, that Ghawar had peaked. In a later estimation, they said the Canadian currency, the loonie, was at "risk" of becoming the world's reserve currency. Interestingly, the Canadian loonie has risen in value against the dollar as of late.

That's very interesting. Thank you for that link. I wonder if CIBC purposely tries to paint a dark future in order to prop up investments for the Canadian tar sands?

Today marks the fifty year anniversary of M. King Hubbert’s seminal speech in which he accurately forecasted the 1970 peak of United States oil production. Few heeded Hubbert’s warning at the time and many - notably including high ranking officials the United States Geological Survey and industry - actively sought to discredit his work. The lack of preparation on the government’s part set the United States up for the oil shocks of the 1970’s and egregious dependence on foreign oil that we experience today.

Hubbert (1903-1989), a distinguished geophysicist, first developed his peak oil theory in the middle 1930s. He first advanced these ideas at the 1948 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) convention. Hubbert was "swamped with mail, universally favorable" after the 1948 speech was printed a year later. But it was hardly noticed by the petroleum industry even though it was little different from the 1956 version that caused uproar. Hubbert could be more specific in his 1956 analysis because of additional data and he predicted US crude production would peak in 10-15 years. This conclusion, which was almost universally considered outrageous at the time, proved startlingly accurate.

In honor of M. King Hubbert’s courageous stand, Post Carbon Institute is hosting an online tribute featuring interviews with contemporaries and successors of Hubbert. The tribute provides a rare glimpse into the life and times of M. King Hubbert, the grandfather of the peak oil movement. The tribute features interviews with his nephew Michael Hubbert and former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall. The tribute includes Hubbert’s Successors I, the first of series of compilations of brief audio commentaries. Hubbert’s Successors I features Roscoe Bartlett, Richard Heinberg, Albert Bartlett, Megan Quinn, Pat Murphy, Walter Youngquist, Ron Swenson, Kenneth Deffeyes, Matthew Simmons, Stewart Udall, Jan Lundberg, Colin Campbell and Steve Andrews. "There is not other single name so connected with energy and oil as M. King Hubbert," says U.S. Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD). "His pioneering work has been quoted by just about everyone who is interested in the subject. His influence cannot be overestimated. He was a giant."

The tribute also includes a Hubbert bibliography, a narrative of the events surrounding the speech and other milestones in Hubbert’s life, and previously unavailable images. The tribute will be updated regularly for at least the next year. Features to be posted soon include an interview with Hubbert historian and interviewer Ronald Doel and previously unavailable video footage of a conversation with Hubbert, as well as Hubbert’s Successors II compilation.

http://www.mkinghubbert.com/

Funny, I did a search for "Hubbert" on Shell's home page and nothing came up! I knew you peak oil nutjobs were collectively hallucinating him.

I believe you are thinking of the fictional Humbert Humbert character. Humbert is the adopted pseudonym of the main character and unreliable narrator of the 1955 novel Lolita, by Russian-born American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. Interestingly, that was also 50 years ago.

Ok, so I am taking Quantitative Reasoning and I want to do my class project on PO. I'd like to do an HL analysis on world production, but first I have to show that the method is valid. No problem, I'll just plot an HL for the the United States. I can show the method works by matching the linear projection with what we now know to be true. Problem, they aren't matching!

I plot the data easy enough and it seems to settle into a linear pattern at about 1942, so I plot a linear projection from 1942-1970 and I get an estimated URR of a little more than 160Gb. Of course, I have the data from 1970-2005 plotted too and it clearly points to an estimated URR that is well past 200Gb, which of course is much more inline with reality.

One possible problem is that I have no data for before 1920, but they are such small amounts before 1920 would they make that much difference? I could plot the trendline using later data, but the whole point is to show that the method is an accurate predictor before the event so using data after 1970 would defeat the purpose. Any help would be appreicated.

Here is my spreadsheet:
http://www.mylinuxisp.com/~blawrence/oi ... ctions.xls

I grabbed data from the EIA for 1920-2005 from here:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mcrfpus1M.htm

[Edit: I found my problem and fixed it, see below]

I've only looked at Hubbert's model fairly briefly, but isn't production supposed to follow a gaussian curve? And in that case, I don't think you get a line here.

I remember reading Defeyes' book that he said Hubbert used a logistical curve when the data actually fit better a gaussian. Maybe this is what you're finding here.

I think you have the cart before the horse here. I hadn't gotten that far yet. Before you can plot the logistic (or gaussian) curve, you have to at least work out the values for the Hubbert linearization. The HL is useful in its own right for projecting what will be the ultimately recoverable amount. The URR is determined by where the linear projection meets the X axis. Where the linear projection meets the Y axis is also important as this is a key input into Hubbert's logistic curve (as is the URR).


Chapter 3 of Deffeyes book covers both the Hubbert linearization and logistic curve.

Good news, I corrected my linearization and went on to do the logistic curve. I was just grabbing to far back and the data hadn't stabilized yet. I'm now using 1955-1970 to plot the line. The first graph shows my corrected HL which projects a URR of 230Gb for the United States. The second graph shows my logistic curve and as you can see it fits well with what we now know to be true about U.S. production.

Now to do the same for the whole world...

good work Geko45. Mind if I use your charts for dog&pony shows at City Hall? They're purty charts

I'd be honored! If you've already downloaded the spreadhseet then download it again, because I just posted the full one at the link above. Its got all the charts I've posted here on PO and a few I haven't (yet). Check back regularly too since there are a few more charts that I plan to do but haven't gotten too yet.

Thanks Geko

Ok, I finished my world Hubbert linearization and logistic charts. My projections put peak oil on March 14, 2007, a nice sunny Wednesday. I'm not sure what grande cosmic significance there is to the date falling on a "hump day", but there you have it. My linearization chart yielded a world URR of about 2.23 trillion barrels. Here are the graphs.

PS. Many thanks to Stuart Staniford who provided world production data for the years 1930-1964 (the BP Statitical Review of World Energy only goes back as far as 1965).

Geko45,
I suppose you learned something about plotting and fitting curves, but remember that this Hubbert Linearization is purely an empirical approach. All parameters to the model are based on heuristics that have no physical meaning (or they have an absurd physical meaning that does not even obey dimensional analysis or a Gedunken experiment).

No one has yet shown how you can derive the curve from first principles.

Now that would have been a really inventive class project.

Methinks that you are being to philosophically minded to be of any metaphysical good.

If you think it's a gaussian, it derives pretty much from the Central Limit Theorem. A big enough collection of curves under certain conditions that production curves will fulfill will aggregate to a gaussian curve.