In March 1998, Scientific American published a paper titled “The End of Cheap Oil,” [ 1 ] signed by two petroleum geologists, Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrère. It was a re-examination of a model developed for the first time by Marion King Hubbert in 1956 [ 2 ] which assumed that the oil production in a large geographical region follows a symmetric, bell-shaped curve. According to this interpretation, the peak production is reached when approximately half of the available oil resources are extracted. The concept was also occasionally referred to as the “oil mountain” [ 3 ] although the term “bell shaped curve” or “Hubbert Curve” remained always more popular. In 1956, Hubbert had applied his model to the United States, finding that production would peak around 1970. It turned out to be a correct prediction and the US production approximately followed the model until the […]