Good to the Last Drop

Q. Dear Umbra,

I have recently been alerted to what many people term “peak oil.” I don’t know how to characterize my feelings regarding this subject. Obsession might be a good term. I feel that I need to prepare. What do you think? Is “peak oil” another Y2K?

A. Dearest Michael,

Who cares if it’s another Y2K? Prepare away, my friend. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Peak oil is a concept originally developed by a geophysicist, Dr. M. King Hubbert, which is why it is sometimes called Hubbert’s Peak. Hubbert geophysicked his way through oodles of data and concluded that oil production would follow a bell-shaped curve. The peak of the curve would represent the highest production, and the curve’s downslope would represent the increasing difficulty of extracting usable oil from the field. On the downslope, oil costs rise, and eventually the difficulty of extraction is not worth the financial returns — id est, we basically run out of oil.

Grist