Hubbert Peak analysis

Understanding our long-term energy needs necessitates a review of reserves and estimates of reserves by fuel type. How long these reserves may last may be considered using a simple measure of reserve size, the reserve-to-production (R P) ratio, or a more complex method, the Hubbert Peak analysis. This analysis assumes production from oil fields basically follows a bell curve, where production increases until the maximum production rate is reached when half the resource has been... 

An alternative measure of remaining resources relies on Hubbert s Peak analysis. M. King Hubbert, an employee at the United States Geologic Survey, postulated that resource production essentially follows a classic bell-shaped curve and that production peaks once half the resource has been depleted. In 1956, Hubbert predicted that US oil production would peak in the early 1970s. Most people in the industry initially rejected his analysis. However, Hubbert was right - US oil production peaked exactly as predicted, reaching 9.6 mbd in 1971. Despite increased production from Alaska, US production had fallen to 5.4 mbd by 2004 (EIA 2006). 

Several experts have applied the Hubbert methodology to global oil production. Deffeyes (2001) estimated that global oil production would peak in approximately 2003 and total eventual recovery would number 2.12 trillion barrels of oil. Likewise, Campbell and Laherr re (1998), using Hubbert s first method and their low estimate of 1.8 trillion barrels of EUR, estimated a production peak in 2003. Their analysis showed that the total reserve size had little effect on the production peak year and that a higher estimate of 2.1 trillion barrels (P05) results in a peak in 2020. 

What s interesting, however, is that the two methods for evaluating remaining supplies, R P and Hubbert s Peak, are not contradictory. They simply pose two analytical viewpoints. Campbell and Laherrfere s (1998) analysis using Hubbert s curve shows global production decreasing essentially to zero in approximately 40 years, the same as the R P used to predict when the supply of oil will run out. The discrepancy in this analysis, however, is that the R P assumes constant levels of production while the bell curve assumes decreasing levels of production after the peak. 

Peak oil was first predicted by M. King Hubbert in 1956 [4]. He showed that every well increased its production up to a peak, coinciding with the depletion of half the total capacity of the well, then slowly declined once past this peak. He showed that this is just as true for the overall capacity of all wells. Dr. C.J. Campbell, a trustee of the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre in London, spelt out the consequences in some detail in his 1997 book The coming Oil Crisis [5]. In 1980, oil production first surpassed new oil discoveries. Therefore, there is a need for an alternative to augment oil and preferably from a low impact source due to climate change issues. 

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