The End of Oil...

In 1956 M. King Hubbert formulated a model for Peak Oil- the point at which the world is producing the maximum amount of oil, after which it enters terminal decline. He used this model to accurately predict the peaking of oil production in the United States. There are varying predictions of when peak oil will occur, from pessimistic predictions citing that it has already happened and global oil production is declining while optimistic predictions state that the decline may not occur until 2020. The Hirsch Report, published in February 2005, focussed on peak oil and came to the blunt conclusion that peak oil is going to happen. It asserted that twenty years of mitigation is needed to avoid global fuel deficit.

Michael Ruppert, an ex-LAPD officer, was interviewed for the motion picture Collapse in 2009. This film discusses the ramifications involved with peak oil. One of the examples Ruppert uses to emphasise his point is that Saudi Arabia, the worlds most oil rich country (with a 25% share in global proven petroleum reserves under their land) are now drilling offshore. He discusses the extent to which modern society relies on oil using it for fuel for transport as well as being a key ingredient for production, at it’s very base level we rely heavily on oil and other fossil fuels for powering plants which provide electricity for everything from laptops to cameras. Without electricity there can be no digitized media, and there would be incredible disruption to communication.


Ruppert dismisses the idea of alternatives such as wave, wind and ethanol as a substitute fuel source stating that demand would far outweigh supply in any circumstance. The extent to which we are dependent on oil becomes clear throughout the film and with anything that is depended on, when it disappears there are withdrawal symptoms.

A strike by 600 drivers delivering fuel to Shell petrol stations around the country in 2008 caused major queues at forecourts as people panic-bought petrol in the fear it would run out. This small-scale example is a terrifying glimpse of the future if the situation is not acted on. Our society revolves around energy and is desperately dependent upon it, in this case oil.

Other energy transitions in human history, from wood to coal to oil, have been slow and gradual. A viable replacement for oil has not yet been found and therefore this issue needs to be at the forefront of human development, and efforts have to be made to avert a Malthusian Catastrophe, which would force subsistence living for the vast majority, if not all of the human population.

The sun is setting on the age of oil, and what the night holds is unclear.