Imagine a world of 50% annual inflation, resource wars that span the globe and energy prices skyrocketing as oil reaches $200 a barrel. This is what the “peak oil” theory predicted. And it shaped the opinions of scientists, policymakers and the general population for decades. Recent history has shown, however, that the peak oil theory is dead wrong. It seems like the future will be shaped by the very opposite: peak demand. Peak oil first gained popularity through a paper by U.S. geologist M. King Hubbert in 1956. Hubbert anticipated that U.S. oil production would max out in the 1970s before declining. Global oil production would last until the year 2000 before falling away. Hubbert’s theories were based on trends found in individual oil wells and oil fields. He noticed that oil obtained from these wells rose, peaked and depleted in the shape of a bell curve. He extended […]