The End of the Oil Era Looms

Oil, uranium, gold and platinum are more sought after than ever today. The search for natural resources is becoming increasingly difficult and prices are soaring. But future growth of the world economy depends on these natural resources — and some will soon disappear forever.

Five minutes before he was scheduled to speak, leading geologist Marion King Hubbert was summoned to the phone. His employer was speaking, someone from the headquarters of the Shell corporation.

He was urged not to present his forecast, Hubbert later revealed. But the scientist with his little Clark-Gable-style beard stuck to his guns, as he has often been known to do. When he appeared at the spring 1956 meeting of the American Petroleum Institute in San Antonio, he presented exactly what he had prepared — a theory as simple as its implications are dramatic.

Hubbert claimed that the exploitation of oil resources always follows the pattern of a bell curve: first it rises, then it flattens out, and finally it declines — irreversibly. According to his calculations, the United States would soon reach the peak of the curve — around about 1970, according to his estimate.

His prediction could hardly have been more accurate: In fact, it was in 1971 that the US’s oil extraction reached its maximum level. Ever since then, oil production in the US has declined.

Spiegel