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| Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage
Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Author: Kenneth S. Deffeyes
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Release Date: November 2008
ISBN-10: 0691141193
ISBN-13: 9780691141190
Average Customer Rating:
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An important contribution: comprehensive and compelling
| Customer Rating: | | Are you concerned about the current oil and gasoline prices? Do you want to understand what will happen in the future with energy and our standard of living? Then you must read this book. And you will learn that in 1956 a geologist working for Shell Oil, M. King Hubbert, made a prediction (in a paper titled "Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels"). Hubbert then predicted that all U.S. oil production would peak in the early 1970s. At the beginning, all the experts and gurus discarded this men's prediction. But he was right, because U.S. oil production peaked out in 1970. Afterwards, mainly in the 1990s, geologists, oil engineers and analysts began referring to Hubbert's Peak, and using his methods to estimate the peak year for word oil. That is to say, at what point humanity will have consumed half of all world oil endowment, which took hundred of million of years to accumulate. A point that only takes 100 years to reach since oil production started ..... If the actual predictions are correct ( Hubbert's curve is not longer debatable; pending issue is the correct peak year, now estimated to be between 2007 and 2012) the implications for world economy, oil prices, the premises of occidental civilization, will be devastating. So, even if you are not into oil, gas or energy, I consider this book to be of mandatory reading to better understand the workings of the energy world, and dismiss certain current myths, like the possibility of expanding oil production radically through new methods; drilling deeper or in new places. The author of this book, Professor Kenneth Deffeyes, Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, is highly qualified to take you on a fascinating ride, which will qualify non experts to better understand all the factors involved in oil production and future possibilities. Reader will comprehend the origins of oil; what are reservoirs and oil traps; how does one find oil; what are the products that derive from oil, and how do they impact our current lives; how do you drill for oil and extract it; where and when can you discover an oil field. Better yet, this book will leave you in a position to better assess the future of fossil fuels, and certain realities about much discussed, but seldom understood, alternative energy sources. Congrats to Professor Deffeyes, for preaching a clear and understandable energy Gospel. He has proven his worth, as an ex fellow worker of Magister Hubbert, when he started his personal journey, back in the 1950s, at Shell's research lab in Houston....A review by Luciano Lupini. |
Can't argue with geology
| Customer Rating: | | This was the first Peak Oil book I read. I am a trained scientist and work in electrical engineering. Facts and logical arguments are vital for me to accept a theory. Whilst I have been aware ever since I can remember that oil is a finite resource and likely to become less plentiful in the future I was not aware of just how serious the situation was. Deffeyes presents the idea of Peak Oil from first principles. He explains what oil is, what an oil field is, how it came to be there and importantly, how we found the field and extract the oil from it. The language used is excellent with enough humour and stories to keep what could be a very dry subject lively. Once the above is covered it becomes clear how the rate of extraction form a single oil field must follow the famous bell curve with the area under the curve representing the field's endowment. Summation of the bell curves for all fields in the world goes on the produce a single large bell curve, the area under it now representing the planets total oil endowment. Peak oil extraction occurs once approximately half the original endowment is used - around about now then! It also becomes clear that new discoveries and technology improvements are unlikely to be significant. Deffeyes writes with great authority. He has been working as a geologist both for the oil industry and latter in academia his entire life. The book is focused on oil and oil extraction and nothing else. It does not address any economic, sociological or political implications of Peak Oil. I'd recommend this book to anyone who desires a logical, technical explanation of why less oil will be available in the near future than now. That single point is covered extremely well, making this book a fantastic introduction to Peak Oil. |
The end of oil is written in rock
| Customer Rating: | | Oil is not running out, we have plenty of oil. However, we need increasing supplies of oil to fuel the exponential growth of our economies, and therein lies a problem. Why? Because we simply can't get oil out of the ground fast enough if we are to meet world demand, and the faster we use it the sooner there is going to be a supply issue. The moment the oil industry reaches it's maximum productivity, it is all downhill for oil, and probably for us too. Drilling more holes will not help, drilling deeper will not help, finding more is not possible, and this book explains why. Why only certain conditions can create oil, why only certain rocks can bear oil, and why only certain oil bearing rocks can be productive. The book discusses the chemistry of oil and how mankind has already used ingenious technology to find the most accessable oil and boost production, and why we are unlikely to have any further technological gains as far as oil discovery and production are concerned. And the purpose of this explanation? To back up the (rather dry) theories of Professor M King Hubbert, who prophesised that world oil production would peak around the year 2000 just as he predicted (correctly) that US oil production would peak around 1970. Since 1970, the US has relied upon the Middle East for it's oil, but what happens when world production peaks, and how can we tell that it has? This book provides some excellent insight into the reasons why we should be concerned with oil depletion and why it is a matter of imminent concern for ourselves and not of our grandchildren. Why buy this book? Because it is written by Kenneth Deffeyes a geologist, a professor, and a man who has worked intimately with the oil industry since he started working with his father as an adolescent. With oil in his blood, he knows of what he speaks. The book is written in a friendly style, with as much humour as a subject like this can attract. It is full of technical detail, yet despite it being a little heavy for a mere mortal like me, undertsnding the principles behind all that is oil is surprisingly easy. It would be nice if he could have found indicated the likey impact of and solutions to the problems he has highlighted, but these are other areas of expertise best covered in other books, (try Richard Heinbergs "The Party's Over"). If you fear all this talk of oil running out is rubbish, read this book first before you read any other because it grants a decent technical background to the debate, and if afterwards you can find a buyer for your V8 Range Rover, I will congratulate you. |
Highly Recommended!
| Customer Rating: | | When a wise old codger of rural roots warns you in humble fashion, "Pardon me, sir, but I dare say you're headed down the wrong road!" something tingling there on the back of your neck warns that you'd better listen. Even more so when the old-timer has risen beyond his oil-patch roots to become a Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. Kenneth S. Deffeyes doesn't have to impress anybody, and perhaps that's one reason he has written a book on oil that will never give you that scratchy sensation of wool being drawn over your eyes. Deffeyes returns to his Oklahoma City roots to point out, as any fellow atop a tractor or toting a pipe wrench might, that things just can't keep going up and up forever. The difference: Deffeyes has a lifetime of industry and academic experience behind him. So, how real is the coming energy shortage? Well, put it this way: We highly recommend this book only to those individuals and companies who rely on electricity or the internal combustion engine. Stone age denizens need not sign up. |
Good..not great.
| Customer Rating:  | | The author is a retired professor of petroleum geology, and it shows! He loves to teach geology and he loves to tell corny jokes.. Apart from the opening chapters that lay out the thesis that global oil production is about to peak in just a few short years, most of the book deals with basic oil geology. It gets quite technical, and I could not help but feel that several of the chapters were "filler" material, not directly related to the book's title. Still, it is a pretty good primer on oil exploration science, history and techniques. Another chapter deals with the mathematics of Mr. Deffeyes's predictions (simple curve fitting, unfortunately) and another (very short one) with alternative energy sources. The book is short and readable but it provides no new insight. We know that oil is a non-renewable resource and that production will peak in the future. A more useful analysis would have been to take into account the impact of alternatives (hydrogen, solar, wind, etc.)and environmental constraints on supply/demand projections. That would have provided a more thorough (and probably more accurate) view of our energy future. All in all, a useful book to have if you are interested in energy matters, but not a great one. |
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