Colin J. Campbell, Ph.D., (born 1931) is a retired petroleum geologist who predicts that oil production will peak by 2007. The consequences of this are uncertain but drastic, due to the world's dependence on fossil fuels for the vast majority of its energy. His theories have received wide attention, but are disputed by the oil industry and have not significantly changed governmental energy policies at this time. In order to deal with those problems he has proposed the Rimini protocol. 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1931 calendar). ... 2007 (MMVII) will be a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Coal rail cars in Ashtabula, Ohio Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons formed from the remains of dead plants and animals. ... The Oil industry brings to market what is currently considered the lifeblood of nearly all other industry, if not industrialized civilization itself. ... The Rimini Protocol (also called Uppsala Protocol) is a proposal made by the geologist Colin Campbell in 2003 as a way to stabilise oil prices and minimize the effects of peak oil. ...

Influential papers by Campbell include The Coming Oil Crisis, which he wrote with Jean Laherrère in 1998, and is credited with convincing the International Energy Agency of the coming peak; and The End of Cheap Oil, which was published the same year in Scientific American. He was dubbed a "doomsayer" on the front page of The Wall Street Journal in 2004. Jean H. Laherrère is a petroleum engineer and consultant, best known as the co-author of an influential 1998 Scientific American article entitled The End of Cheap Oil. [1] Laherrère worked for 37 years with Total S.A., a French petroleum company. ... The International Energy Agency (IEA, or AIE in Romance languages) is a Paris-based intergovernmental organization founded by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1974 in the wake of the oil crisis. ... Scientific American is a popular-science magazine, published monthly since August 28, 1845, making it the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. ... The Wall Street Journal is an influential international daily newspaper published in New York City, New York with a worldwide average daily circulation of more than 2. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas founded by Campbell is gaining recognition in the recent years. They have organised yearly international conferences 2002-2005. The last one was held in Lisbon in May 2005, the next one will be held in Tuscany in July 2006. ASPO predicts that oil production will peak around 2010. ... A flowered corn field in Tuscany. ...

Earlier predictions

The oil industry started when Edwin Drake drilled the first commercially-successful oil well in 1859 in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States, near Titusville, Pennsylvania. The first serious prediction of an oil peak came in 1875, when the state geologist of Pennsylvania claimed that the oil would soon dry up. Edwin L. Drake Edwin Laurentine Drake (1819-1880), also known as Colonel Drake, was an American oil driller, popularly credited with being the first to drill for oil. ... An oil well is a term for any perforation through the Earths surface designed to find and release both petroleum oil and gas hydrocarbons. ... 1859 (MDCCCLIX) is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar). ... A rainy day in the Great Smoky Mountains, Western North Carolina Appalachia, the central and southern Appalachian Mountains of the United States, also including the Allegany and Cumberland Plateaus The Appalachian Mountains (French: les Appalaches) are a vast system of North American mountains, partly in Canada, but mostly in the... Titusville is a city located in Crawford County, Pennsylvania. ... A geologist is a contributor to the science of geology, studying the physical structure and processes of the Earth and planets of the solar system (see planetary geology). ...

The most famous oil peak theorist is M. King Hubbert, who predicted in 1956 that oil production would peak in the United States between 1965 and 1970. His theories became popular during the 1973 energy crisis, and during 1979 energy crisis when even the United States Secretary of Energy, James Schlesinger, announced that the peak had arrived. The USGS predictions on US productions were highly optimistic and inaccurate. Marion King Hubbert (October 5, 1903 – October 11, 1989) was a geophysicist who worked at the Shell research lab in Houston, Texas. ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... (Redirected from 1973 energy crisis) United States, drivers of vehicles with odd numbered license plates were allowed to purchase gasoline only on odd-numbered days of the month, while drivers with even-numbers were limited to even-numbered days. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The United States Secretary of Energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, concerned as the name suggests, with The Secretary is a member of the Presidents Cabinet. ... James Rodney Schlesinger (born 15 February 1929) was United States Secretary of Defense from 1973 to 1974 under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. ...

The oil crises of the 1970s were alleviated because there were still untapped resources available for exploration. New technology like reflection seismology started the shift in oil production from the United States to Venezuela, Russia, and especially the Middle East. The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ... Reflection seismology is a branch of seismology that uses reflected seismic waves to produce images of the Earths subsurface. ... A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ...

In december 2000 Colin Campbell warned in a public lecture held in Clausthal University of a possible 'ill conceived military intervention in the Middle East'.

Current debate

However, oil discovery did peak in the 1960s, and since the early 1980s oil production has outpaced new discoveries. The world currently consumes oil at the rate of 84 million barrel per day (31 billion barrels/year, or 151 m³/s), and consumption is rising, particularly in China. None of this is particularly controversial; the oil industry itself is spending less than half as much on exploration as a decade ago. The 1960s decade refers to the years from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1969, inclusive. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... Traditional wooden barrels in Cutchogue Modern aluminium beer barrels - also called casks - outside the Castle Rock microbrewery in Nottingham, England A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container, traditionally made of wood staves and bound with iron hoops. ...

According to Campbell:

• There are no new potential oil fields sufficiently large to reduce this future energy crisis.
• The reported oil reserves of many OPEC countries are inflated, to increase their quotas, or improve their chance of getting a loan from the World Bank.
• The practice of gradually adding new discoveries to a country's list of proven reserves, instead of all at once, artificially inflates the current rate of discovery.

Campbell predicts that this peak will cause a catastrophic world-wide economic depression. Drilling rig in a small oil field Near Sarnia, Ontario, 2001 An oil field is an area with an abundance of oil wells extracting petroleum (oil) from below ground. ... An energy crisis is any great bottleneck (or price rise) in the supply of energy resources to an economy. ... Logo The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an international organization made up of Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. ... Logo of the World Bank The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, in Romance languages: BIRD), better known as the World Bank, is an international organization whose original mission was to finance the reconstruction of nations devastated by WWII. Now, its mission has expanded to fight poverty by means... In economics, a depression is a term commonly used for a sustained downturn in the economy. ...

The dominant theory, held by the oil industry and other agencies like the United States Department of Energy, is that oil production will continue to increase, due to technological advances and the geopolitical pressure caused by rising oil prices. They argue that: The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government responsible for energy policy and nuclear safety. ... By the mid 20th century humans had achieved a level of technological mastery sufficient to leave the surface of the planet for the first time and explore space. ... Geopolitics is the study which analyses geography, history and social science with reference to international politics. ...

• Much of the world's oil reserves come from areas that have not been fully explored because they are politically unstable, like Russia and Iraq. Nobody knows how much oil is really left in those areas, and economic pressure could result in a new exploration boom.
• New methods of extracting oil from existing fields are currently being developed. This may even expand the definition of "oil": Hydrocarbons exist in shale and tarry sands, and as a result companies like Exxon predict that there are up to 14 trillion barrels (2,200 km³) of exploitable hydrocarbons left in the world, which could fuel the oil industry for another century.

The Hirsch report done for the U.S. Department Of Energy in 2004-2005 challenges that and proposes an urgent mitigation approach to deal with the possibility of oil production going into decline in the immediate future. Hydrocarbons are refined at oil refineries and processed at chemical plants In chemistry, a hydrocarbon is any chemical compound that consists only of the elements carbon (C) and hydrogen (H). ... Exxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), headquartered in Irving, Texas, is an oil producer and distributor formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. ... The Hirsch report is a report done for the US Department of Energy and published in February 2005. ...

It states: "The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking."

The current debate revolves around energy policy, and whether to shift funding to increasing fuel efficiency, and alternative energy sources like solar and nuclear power. Campbell's critics, like Michael Lynch, argue that his research data is sloppy. They point to the date of the coming peak, which was initially projected to occur by 1995, but has now been pushed back to 2007. However, Campbell and his supporters insist that when the peak occurs is not as important as the realization that the peak is coming. Fuel efficiency sometimes means the same as thermal efficiency or fuel economy. ... Future energy development face great challenges due to an increasing world population, demands for higher standards of living, demands for less pollution and a much discussed end to fossil fuels. ... Solar power describes a number of methods of harnessing energy from the light of the sun. ... A nuclear power station. ...

Personal background

Campbell has over 40 years of experience in the oil industry. He earned a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Oxford in 1957, and has worked as a petroleum geologist in the field, as a manager, and as a consultant. He has been employed by Oxford University, Texaco, British Petroleum, Amoco, Shenandoah Oil, Norsk Hydro, and Fina, and has worked with the Bulgarian and Swedish governments. His writing credits include two books and more than 150 papers. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford, England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... Pumpjack pumping an oil well near Sarnia, Ontario Ignacy Łukasiewicz - inventor of the refining of kerosene from crude oil. ... A geologist is a contributor to the science of geology, studying the physical structure and processes of the Earth and planets of the solar system (see planetary geology). ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... Texaco is the name of an American oil company that was merged into Chevron Corporation in 2001. ... BP plc (LSE: BP, NYSE: BP, TYO: 5051 ), originally British Petroleum, is a British energy company with headquarters in London, one of six vertically integrated private sector oil, natural gas, and petrol (gasoline) supermajors in the world. ... Amoco Oil Corporation was founded in 1889 by John Rockefeller and first incorporated as Standard Oil of Indiana, formed from the breakup of gasoline giant Standard Oil. ... Norsk Hydro ASA is a Norwegian oil and energy and integrated aluminium company, headquartered in Oslo. ... Fina may refer to: Fina is the name of Belgian petroleum company Petrofina. ...

More recently, he founded the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, is affiliated with Petroconsultants in Geneva, is a trustee of the Oil Depletion Analysis Center in London. He conducts research on the oil peak, and he also tries to build public awareness of the issue, which includes lecturing extensively. He addressed a committee of the British House of Commons, and officials from investment and automotive companies. He has appeared in two documentary films, The End of Suburbia and PEAK OIL – Imposed by Nature DVD by Amund Prestegard in Norway. ASPO predicts that oil production will peak around 2010. ... Geneva (pronunciation //; French: Genève //, German: //, Italian: Ginevra) is the second most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich), and is the most populous city of Romandy (the French-speaking part of Switzerland). ... The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (ODAC) is an independent, UK-registered educational charity working to raise international public awareness and promote better understanding of the worlds oil depletion and peak oil problem. ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ... The Hubbert peak theory, also known as peak oil, is an influential theory concerning the long-term rate of conventional oil production and depletion. ... The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream is a 2004 documentary film concerning peak oil and its implications on the suburban lifestyle. ...

See also

• Marion King Hubbert, and the Hubbert curve.
• Thomas Malthus, and the Malthusian catastrophe.

Marion King Hubbert (October 5, 1903 - October 11, 1989) was a geophysicist who worked at the Shell research lab in Houston, Texas. ... The Hubbert curve, named after the geophysicist M. King Hubbert, is the derivative of the logistic curve. ... Rev. ... A Malthusian catastrophe, sometimes known as a Malthusian check, Malthusian crisis, Malthusian dilemma, Malthusian disaster, Malthusian trap, or Malthusian limit is a return to subsistence-level conditions as a result of agricultural (or, in later formulations, economic) production being eventually outstripped by growth in population. ...

Further reading

• Dire prophecy: as prices soar, doomsayers provoke debate on oil's future, by Jeffrey Ball from The Wall Street Journal, volume 244, number 57, September 21, 2004.
• The end of cheap oil, by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrère. Scientific American, March 1998.
• The Coming Oil Crisis, by Colin J. Campbell. Independent Publishers Group, April 1, 2004. ISBN 0-906522-11-0.
• The Truth about Oil and the Looming Energy Crisis, by Colin J. Campbell. (booklet; no ISBN)

Jean H. Laherrère is a petroleum engineer and consultant, best known as the co-author of an influential 1998 Scientific American article entitled The End of Cheap Oil. [1] Laherrère worked for 37 years with Total S.A., a French petroleum company. ...

External links

• ASPO Ireland (Colin Campbell's Office)
• Colin J. Campbell from the Coming Global Oil Crisis. 2004.
• Colin Campbell interviewed, by Julian Darley. Global Public Media, December 18, 2002.
• ASPO newsletter, by Dr. Colin J. Campbell.
• ASPO depletion profiles by country, by Dr. Colin J. Campbell.
• Depletion model, by Dr. Colin J. Campbell.
• Video lecture in the University of Clausthall Dec. 2000
• ASPO Lisbon Conference 2005
• Energy Bulletin
• Speech in 2005 permaculture conference Ireland
• Big Picture TV free videos of Colin J. Campbell
• Global Oil Watch - Breaking Oil & Gas News