On February 11, 2008, California Senator Dianne Feinstein sent a letter (see below) to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman inquiring about the Department of Energy’s activities concerning peak oil. The letter references a recent report “Uncertainty about Future Oil Supply Makes it Important to Develop a Strategy for Addressing a Peak and Decline in Oil Production” issued in February 2007 by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The report recommended that Energy Secretary Bodman

work with other agencies to establish a strategy to coordinate and prioritize federal agency efforts to reduce uncertainly about the likely timing of a peak (in global oil production) and to advise Congress on how best to mitigate consequences.

By Jason Brenno and David Room of the Hubbert Tribute

Over the next several months, the M King Hubbert Tribute will publish a series of articles that discredit some popular myths surrounding the work of M King Hubbert - the father of peak oil theory – that are beginning to be accepted as fact and thereby confounding the peak oil debate.

The first myth is that Hubbert was stuck on one projection for world oil production.

Peter Jackson of Cambridge Energy Research Associates exclaims: “Despite his valuable contribution, M. King Hubbert’s methodology falls down because it does not consider likely resource growth, application of new technology, basic commercial factors, or the impact of geopolitics on production. His approach does not work in all cases – including on the United States itself – and cannot reliably model a global production outlook.” [1]