In 1956, Marion King Hubbert, a prominent geologist for what is now Royal Dutch Shell, made a bold prediction. Based on an extensive analysis of reserves and production data, he concluded that U.S. crude oil production would peak at some point in the late 1960s or early 1970s, after which it would begin an inexorable decline. For decades, his dire prediction looked startlingly accurate. In 1970, U.S. oil production reached 9.6 million barrels a day — a level that hasn’t been equaled since — and then began to decline. It fell steadily from 1970 to 1976, and then rose modestly until 1985, after which it once again slipped into a steady decline that lasted for more than two decades. Hubbert’s prediction laid the path for what has since become known as peak oil theory, a highly influential theory that argues that global oil production is […]