Oil: Wells tapped out?

Critics pan scientist’s forecast on world production

PASADENA – There it was, laid out in a simple linear graph for everyone to see: the end of an age of oil.

For anyone who fears oil companies run the White House, fumes at the thought of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or deems global-warming doubters deranged, there had to be something perversely gratifying about the picture of doom on display Thursday at Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium.

“The peak of world oil production is happening right now,” Ken Deffeyes, professor emeritus at Princeton University, confidently declared. “Here is the most important story since the Industrial Revolution.”
And when Deffeyes said “right now,” he meant it.

According to his calculations, world oil production reached its peak on Thanksgiving Day 2005, and now starts on a steady decline until it reaches zero near the end of the century.

Whittier Daily News