Hubbert's peak

Hubbert's peak or Hubbert's curve is a model that approximates the production rate of a resource over a period of time. Specifically, Hubbert's peak refers to the point at which this production rate is at its highest. After the peak, only half of the resource is left, which makes it harder to extract. Although demand will continue to increase, production drops overall which may cause dramatic differences in production and demand. It is important that this is only a prediction as there many factors that affect production (see the next section, "Concept" for more info). Figure 1 shows Hubbert's predicted model compared to US oil production. Although this model can be applied to many resources, it was initially developed as a model for oil production.

Figure 1. Hubbert's prediction compared to actual US crude oil production, data from EIA. Note that the inclusion of Alaska in the data results in a peak that is not exactly what Hubbert predicted.

Concept

In 1956, M. King Hubbert presented a paper to the American Petroleum Institute that reflected on the potential outcome of the steady, exponential growth of fossil fuel use. Particularly, he noted that the rate of consumption of these fuels was greater than the rate at which new reserves were being discovered. Because of this imbalance, Hubbert predicted that crude oil production would peak in the 1970s and then drop drastically over the successive years. This "peak" is shown by the blue curve on Figure 1. On the graph itself, the total area under the curve is the total amount of oil extracted up to a given point in time. Given the symmetric prediction of the peak, it would mean that around 1970 half of the US oil reserves had been used up.

Hubbert's prediction proved to be mostly correct—US production peaked in 1970 with a dramatic decline after this. This decline resulted in the US to become a major oil importer. However, it is important to note that this is only a prediction, as there are many factors that can effect production and demand. New reserves can be found with the improvement of technology, and demand may in fact decrease if carbon-low resources become widely adopted. In fact, there were later unforeseen advancements in the production of oil in the US. Mainly the production of oil from Alaska and advancements in technologies that allowed oil to be extracted from unconventional resources, leading to what appears to be another peak after the first. Although this growth does exist, the theory of peak oil says that there will be an ultimate peak in oil production when half of the oil reserves remain. The prediction itself was determined by explaining that there is only a finite amount of oil that exists—known as the ultimate recoverable resource—and explained that increasing rates of depletion would result in an eventual peak in the amount that could actually be produced as the resources begin to dwindle. Essentially, this ultimate recoverable resource represents the entirety of a McKelvey box—the total occurrence of a resource—which includes all undiscovered resources as well as reserves known to exist. Although the shape of the trend is predicted to be a curve, there are a wide number of external factors that may cause the trends to deviate from this model.

Long Term View

Although Hubbert's prediction was correct for the lower 48 states in the US (clearly Alaska had a big impact on the production), it's unclear if the Earth has hit 'peak oil'. The Earth still has extensive oil reserves and oil resources (please see reserve vs occurrence for an explanation of the difference). While the oil on the planet is finite, running out of oil isn't much of the problem (because there are still a lot of reserves left). However, burning these hydrocarbon resources is causing significant climate change that will continue to get worse as we burn these fossil fuels.

For Further Reading

• Oil
• Peak oil
• Reserve vs occurrence
• Fossil fuel extraction
• Climate change
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