Hubbert's Peak; The Impending World Oil Shortage

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. ix, [3], 208, [2] pages. Illustrations. Name of previous owner in ink on fep. Includes Acknowledgments, Notes, and Index, as well as chapters on Overview, The Origin of Oil, Oil reservoirs and Oil Traps, Finding It, Drilling Methods, Size and Discoverability of Oil Fields; Hubbert Revisited; Rate Plots; The Future of Fossil Fuels; Alternative Energy Sources; and A New Outlook. Also includes Notes and Index. Kenneth S. Deffeyes was a geologist who worked with M. King Hubbert, the creator of the Hubbert peak theory, at the Shell Oil Company research laboratory in Houston, Texas. He claimed Chickasaw ancestry. Deffeyes made a lively personal impression. McPhee characterized him in Basin and Range (1981): "Deffeyes is a big man with a tenured waistline. His hair flies behind him like Ludwig van Beethoven. He lectures in sneakers. His voice is syllabic, elocutionary, operatic. ... His surname rhymes with 'the maze.'" Deffeyes earned a B.S. in petroleum geology from the Colorado School of Mines and a Ph.D. in geology from Princeton University, studying under F.B. van Houten. Deffeyes Ph.D. dissertation research concerned volcanic ashfalls in Nevada that had been altered to zeolites. Not much was known about the potential uses of zeolites, so Deffeyes wrote a review paper on zeolites in sedimentary rocks. This resulted in the founding of the natural zeolite industry. Zeolites have important uses in water purification, as catalysts in the petrochemical industry, and as molecular sieves. He taught at Princeton from 1967 to 1998, when he gained emeritus status. He was the author of Hubbert's Peak. This work was one of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2002. Geophysicist M. King Hubbert predicted in 1956 that U.S. oil production would reach its highest level in the early 1970s. Though roundly criticized by oil experts and economists, Hubbert's prediction came true in 1970. In this revised and updated edition reflecting the latest information on the world supply of oil, Kenneth Deffeyes uses Hubbert's methods to find that world oil production will peak in this decade--and there isn't anything we can do to stop it. While long-term solutions exist in the form of conservation and alternative energy sources, they probably cannot--and almost certainly will not--be enacted in time to evade a short-term catastrophe. This book is important in that it is addressed to the general public, which is overwhelmingly ignorant of the fundamentals of earth's resources and basic economies. It will be very useful to teachers, news media personnel, and public policy makers.