'''Colin J. Campbell''', Ph.D., (born 1931) is a retired petroleum geologist who predicts that oil production will peak by 2010. 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.
Influential papers by Campbell include
The Coming Oil Crisis, which he wrote with Jean H. 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.
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.
The most famous oil peak theorist is
M. King Hubbert, who predicted in 1956 that oil production would peak in the United States in 1970, in what became known as the
Hubbert curve. 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 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.
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 82 million
barrel per day (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.
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.
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:
- 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 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 2010. However, Campbell and his supporters insist that
when the peak occurs is not as important as the realization that the peak is coming.
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.
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 even appeared in a
documentary film,
The End of Suburbia.
See also
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. Order: ISBN 0906522110.
- [https://secure.metafoundation.org/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=OilTruth&Category_Code=Books The Truth about Oil and the Looming Energy Crisis], by Colin J. Campbell. (booklet; no ISBN)
External links
Campbell, Colin
Campbell, Colin
Category:Peak oil
it:Colin Campbell (geologo)
fi:Colin Campbell