Rating: 
Summary: Informative And Well Written
Review: Kenneth Deffeyes is a former Shell oil geologist and also a former Princeton University professor (now emeritus) so he brings a lot of expertise to the subject of the world oil supply, and at which point supply can't keep pace with demand. He cites often the famous 1956 prediction in which another Shell geologist, a M. King Hubbert, who in a paper said oil production in the United States would peak in the early 1970's, and it sure did peak, in the year 1970, and has been declining ever since. Hubbert used some statistical tools in his analysis, and for this new analysis of the world oil production peak Deffeyes draws on the work of the late Hubbert and with the addition of more up to date statistical tools. Deffeyes says that we have discovered most of the oil that is in the ground, and that drilling deeper will yield only natural gas, the reason for this is fascinating. He also says that it takes about 10 years to bring a new oil field into production, so the expected shortfall of the supply of oil Deffeyes predicts somewhere between the years 2004 and 2009 is inevitable. He also says no major oil fields have been discovered in many years and it is unlikely that another Middle East sized oil field still remains undiscovered, to save us from a bidding war for the remaining oil. The year 2009, according to Deffeyes, is the last possible year that the peak in world oil production will occur. This book is full of wisdom and much humor, it is not a stodgy old book, it was a page turner for me. Deffeyes in one chapter says we have paid too much attention to the 'dot com' companies and how many people think our economy can run well by just selling software, etc, back and forth among ourselves, and that we should pay more attention to fundamental activities which are agriculture, mining, ranching, forestry, fisheries, and petroleum. This book is also very informative from a geological standpoint, how oil is trapped in rock layers and how it is drilled for production. Deffeyes says fossil fuels are in a sense a one time gift of nature and if we are wise this fuel will get us to the age of renewable energy. The Green River oil shale formation in the western United States is mentioned in this volume, Deffeyes states that it is roughly equal to all of the world's conventional oil, but at the present price of a barrel of crude oil it is not economical to use at this juncture. Natural gas is also mentioned and may be used more extensively in the future, as well as geothermal energy and a few others. He also says we need to get over our phobia with nuclear energy, I agree with that. But as for the basic prediction here of a permanent oil shortage somewhere between 2004 and 2009, Deffeyes does mention that a worldwide recession could affect the time of the shortage, and we are in a worldwide recession as I type this. In addition, I saw on the news that the Russians are ramping up their oil production and this could also affect the year of the shortfall, but nevertheless whether the shortfall occurs in 2004 or 2009, or 2015, it does appear that a shortfall is coming and we should be preparing for it, at least on an individual basis if our governments aren't doing much.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoy that gas-guzzler while you can
Review: Kenneth Deffeyes is no tree-hugging Green doomsayer, reflexively warning of yet another eco-catastrophe. He's a hard-headed, clear-thinking, practical-minded oil geologist with a long career in the oil industry. So when he announces that world oil prediction is going to peak within a very few years (2004-1008) and then start an inevitable decline, you sit up and listen. Deffeyes bases his prediction on an improved version of the work of the legendary M. King Hubbert, another Shell geologist, who predicted in 1956 that United States oil production would peak and start to decline in the early 1970s. Although Hubbert was decried as a doomsayer, he proved to be exactly right. Of course, that's one of the reasons that the U.S. is so dependent on foreign oil, which in turn is one of the reasons that we are so deeply entangled in the morass of the Middle East. Deffeyes details his sobering prediction clearly, cleanly and convincingly. Along the way he rewards the reader with a wry insider's guide to the history of oil, oil geology and the oil industry. He doesn't waste a word. I can't remember when I learned more per page than I did reading _Hubbert's Peak_. If Deffeyes is right, the implications are enormous. Anyone who wants to know what's really going to happen in the engine room of our economy should read this book. Robert E. Adler
Author of Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation (Wiley, 2002)
Rating:
Summary: The Story of Oil, The End of Oil
Review: Kenneth Deffeyes, Princeton professor and former oil field geologist, tells the story of oil, right up to the beginning of the demise of oil. He takes the methods developed by M. King Hubbard, the man who accurately predicted the peak in U.S. oil production, and applies them to world oil production. The book makes absolutely riveting reading. The first few chapters deal entirely with the source and production of oil. I kept wondering, as I was reading these chapters, what has this to do with Hubbert's Peak and the coming decline in oil production? Then it began to dawn on me, one has to know everything about oil to accurately predict the future production of oil. Deffeyes is that man and he covers every possible base. Many say "Just drill deeper" or "There is oil in the deep ocean", but Deffeyes shows why drilling deeper can yield natural gas but not one drop of oil and why oil from deep ocean sediments is impossible. Deffeyes leaves no stone unturned and covers every possible source of oil.
Deffeyes expects the peak in world oil production at around 2005 but says it could come as early as 2003 or as late 2006. There is a fair amount of jitter in the year-to-year production so picking the exact peak is difficult. But he reminds us that the center of the U.S. Best fit curve was 1975 and the actual peak came in 1970. He says however, there is nothing plausible that could postpone the peak until 2009.
Of course Kenneth Deffeyes is not the only oil field geologist that is predicting an impending peak in world oil production, Colin Campbell, Jean Laherrere and several others have been doing that for several years. The data supporting the impending peak and decline is sometimes difficult to interpret but Deffeyes lays the data out in undeniable terms and in such a manner that the average layman can understand it.
The only problem I had with the book was I felt Deffeyes was overly optimistic as to the effects of the coming decline in world oil production. He sees only a decade or so of difficulties until we get over our dependence on crude oil. Many others however, who have looked more closely at the possibility of alternate sources of energy to replace cheap portable oil, find no possible replacement. And....most of these see nothing short of a worldwide holocaust a few years after the peak. They say the world's six billion people are supported by a network of food production and transport that will be impossible to maintain when oil production begins to drop and the price of the remaining oil begins to rise dramatically.
But by all means, BUY THIS BOOK. Not only will it convince you of the inevitability of the impending peak and decline in oil production, but also it will give you the ammunition and data to convince those around you, to convince them and give them time to make preparations for....for something I find too hard to even imagine.
Rating: 
Summary: Just the facts, please
Review: Most of what you need to make a purchasing decision about this book is in the other reviews on this site, in particular the Scientific American and Dohn (John?) Riley. The real meat of the book is in Chapters 7 and 8. Much of the remainder is more detail about geology than I, or an average layman needs or wants (and I have a pretty good working understanding of geology, as a board member of a Russian oil company). These two chapters are worth the price of the book. The problem is that the book is larded with personal anecdote that doesn't really move the plot forward. Deffeyes' father fueled his car with gas condensate, and used the savings to pay doctors' bills. When Deffeyes visited Dijon, France, he didn't buy mustard, but visited the local monument to a prominent geologist. Deffeyes had a good time looking for rocks in the Netherlands Antilles. He showed his facility for mental arithmetic while visiting a geothermal plant. Enough already! I guess the problem is that the case for peaking oil production can be made pretty succinctly, and doesn't require a full book. Unless, that is, you load the book up with either way too much detail, or way too much personal anecdote.
Rating:
Summary: A Summary and Commentary
Review: OVERVIEW
Hubbert's Peak gives the reader a geologist's perspective on the scarcity of oil by describing the uncommon series of events required to form exploitable oil reservoirs. He also discusses exploration and drilling methods. Against this background the book explains how almost all of the world's potential oil-containing geologic regions have been explored and that the rate of oil discovery peaked in the mid Twentieth Century. New discoveries have not kept up with production and are only a fraction of current consumption. For the central argument of the book, Deffeyes revisits Hubbert's bell shaped curve of oil production/depletion and discusses better fitting models using recent data. Deffeyes concludes, along with other prominent geologists, that the peak in world production will occur in the next few years. SUMMARY
Early chapters discuss how oil was formed from organic deposits on the bottoms of ancient sea under rather rare conditions of low oxygen levels. The concept of the "oil window" is explained: the temperature conditions necessary to transform the organic matter into oil require the organic rich strata to have sunk beneath the earth's surface to a sufficient depth to achieve the necessary temperature to form oil, but not so deep as to overheat and chemically transform the oil into gas. A brief discussion of the chemistry of oil is included. Subsequent chapters deal with geological conditions that allow oil to collect in pools. This requires sufficient void space in the oil-containing formation for oil to flow and a cap layer that is sufficiently impervious to keep the oil from escaping. Finally, folds and faults form traps that provide an opportunity for oil to concentrate. The book then progresses to oil finding methods, ranging from visible oil seeps, early trial and error, gravity anomaly, electrical resistance well logging and seismic exploration. The chapter on drilling methods also briefly discusses reservoir development and enhanced recovery techniques. The final background chapter relates oil field size and discovery. The point is made that a significant fraction of all oil discovered was in giant fields. Due to their extensive area, giant fields were relatively easy to find, were discovered early, and in decreasing numbers over time. Today most new fields are small, and although they are discovered in large numbers, the total amount of oil discovered continues to decrease. The central argument of the book is that the peak in world oil predicted by Hubbert will occur within the next few years. Deffeyes revisits Hubbert's Curve and discusses alternate models (logistic, Gaussian and Lorentz distributions) and provides some projections of ultimately recoverable oil. Concluding chapters discuss the future of fossil fuels and alternate energy. Deffeyes cites financial ill effects of declining fossil fuels which includes decline of petrochemical industries and, most importantly, of nitrogen fertilizer production (Note: Nitrogen fertilizer production in the U.S. became uneconomical since the book's publication. We are now relying heavily on imports. ) He also discusses alternate sources such as oil sands and oil shale and points out they are not really oil but can be converted to oil, and that oil produced from them yields only a fraction more energy than it takes to produce. The chapter on alternate energy discusses the recognized top contenders: geothermal, nuclear, wind, water and solar/photovoltaic. The final chapter discusses the efficiency at which we use energy based on the laws of thermodynamics. Commentary: It is a matter of historical record that "conventional" oil production has peaked or is in decline in almost all oil producing regions. History also shows that oil discoveries have lagged production for decades and the trend continues down. Significant excess capacity exists only in Saudi and Iraq; however, consumption appears likely to exceed combined conventional and unconventional production before the peak occurrs. If the scenario presented in Hubbert's Peak does materialize on the time scale projected, the shock to the world's economy will be severe beyond belief. The U.S. is already loosing petrochemical industries (ammonia, methanol) and other energy intensive industries such as aluminum production. The price of oil has almost doubled, in constant dollars, from it's historical value, while natural gas prices have risen several hundred percent. The value of the U.S. dollar is falling, largely due to the trade deficit, a large fraction of which is caused by energy imports. Strengths of the book:
Good explanation of the geology of oil formation
Good description of exploration and production
Well illustrated with numerous drawings, maps and photographs
Provides plenty of technical detail for someone with an engineering background Shortcomings of the book:
The book could have provided enough coverage of unconventional oil* to avoid confusion of other reviewers who have seen asymmetrical depletion curves with "fat tails", implying slower depletion rates than indicated by bell curve models. Fat tailed models need to be analyzed to make sure that they do not cover expanded geographical areas and they do not include low net energy enhanced recovery methods. The final chapter on using energy efficiently avoided an in depth explanation of the laws of thermodynamics. To understand improving energy efficiency one has to understand what efficiency means in thermodynamic terms. Also, to really understand why the energy situation is serious, one has to understand the limitations imposed by thermodynamics. Understanding thermodynamics makes the concept of net energy, resource quality and "Best First Principle" self-evident. When you understand these concepts, you will appreciate the crisis humanity is facing. * The primary unconventional sources are deepwater oil (greater than 500 meters) and natural gas liquids, and lesser sources are refinery gains, heavy oil and oil sands. See Colin J. Campbell's graph titled "All Hydrocarbons (easily found on the Internet).
Rating: 
Summary: A tad overated
Review: Reading this book brought to mind author Howard Ruff, and the ludicrous (in hindsight) predictions made in his popular late 70's manifesto "How To Prosper During The Coming Bad Years". Unfortunately, it's unlikely that Deffeyes has missed the mark as widely as Ruff did in his forecast of the (apparently) inevitable woes about to come upon us in the immediate future. I shudder to think about the ramifications that a scenario such as this book describes would produce. That said, this book contains more then the average layman ever wanted, or needed, to know on the subject of oil exploration and production. The bulk of this book dealt with matters of only passing interest (at least to me) in this regard; apparently as an attempt to either flesh out what could have been easily contained in a brief paper, or to build credibility for the books main premise. I'm not sure which. Or perhaps I'm biased because I just sold 2,000 shares of EXXON a few weeks ago. A calamitous and unrecoverable error when viewed through the lens this author provides. Nonetheless, I was very disappointed by this book, especially the final and rather dismissive summation presented in the last few chapters. It seems to me that there is a LOT more to be said on this topic then the author chose to present. And the reader suffers for it.
Rating:
Summary: You can smell the oil when you turn pages
Review: Review of Hubbert's Peak This book was very enjoyable to read. The author presents the material in a very personal and "folksy" way that makes you feel that you are in his living room chatting with him, and not reading a dry text on oil production and oil reserves. His obvious familiarity with the realities of working in oilfields comes through effectively. On p.13 he says that when he drives past the smelly refineries in New Jersey he wants to roll the windows down and inhale. His chapters on the origin of oil, oil resources, finding and drilling for oil, oil fields, and Hubbert revisited were excellent. I used to be a professor of energy and environment science and taught courses in energy. I found this book very informative and mostly authoritative. I read it straight though in a few hours. I got so involved that I could not put it down. On the flip side, I thought that the final two chapters on the future were a little weak. The author could have been more forceful in asserting that a world crisis is approaching and we are sublimely oblivious. Also, his continuing favoritism toward Shell Oil was a bit too parochial. His figure for solar photovoltaic conversion efficiency (10%) is low by a factor of 2.5. And I would have liked greater discussion on reserves, ultimate reserves, and projections of the graphs on pp. 143, 145, 147 and 148 to longer times. Donald Rapp, Ph. D.
Rating:
Summary: How statistics lie...
Review: The author are not being intentionally disingenuous, he is just not knowledegable enough about hydrocarbon occurence and extractability. Yes, there are likely no more Gawars. What the Hubbard approach ignores are 1) Most countries, unlike the US with private ownership of minerals and a federal government that emulates the private sector, lease out huge blocks for several years to a single large company. If we had a system like that, the Permian Basin might have only 100 wells drilled to date, instead of the several hundred thousand it has. Clearly 3/4 of the resource would be uncovered. Political short term spoils have prevented efficient world wide exploration and production. 2) The Hubbard Peak in 1973 for US oil was the culmination of 1 particular defining technology... 2-D seismic, and its ability to image burined structural deposits. 3-D allowed us to find the scraps to small to sample with 2-D. An entire class of reservoirs worldwide has never had a defining risk-reductive technology of that magnitude... stratigraphic traps. It is likely, judging from the distribution of supergiant oilfields, that a significant reserve base can be developed if any of the promising defining technologies, such as multicomponent seismmology, are successfully commercialized. The USGS calculates over 50 Billion Barrels of Oil Equivalent in currently economic deposits of 1 million barrels of oil equivalent or larger are yet to be found onshore within existing known plays in the lower 48! 3rd, and lastly, we are talking only about traditional oil and gas reserves. Recent breakthroughs in horizontal drilling and induced fracturing technology are opening up a resource base of oil and gas AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE larger than traditional deposits. These are in the US, and more expensive, but very economical at $25 oil. Guess what? The US could be energy efficient with oil and gas alone. That fact is obfuscated by those that politically don't approve of extractive industries or carbon generating fuel sources. Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world of rational debate?
Rating:
Summary: A fun and worthwhile read, despite some monster errors.
Review: The author Deffeyes has such passion for his field that it seeps right through to the reader, making this a really fun book. Thanks to a lot of personal anecdotal material about geological puzzles, detective work and discovery, the text is mercifully removed from any hackneyed doom & gloom formula. Most likely Deffeyes is correct in thinking that world oil production will peak by 2008 or earlier, and this is the great overarching point of the book. Unfortunately the author is statistically impaired, harping on symmetrical bell curves to predict the rate of oil production decline, for no reason other than the ascending part of the curve resembles historical data. To balance this on the other hand, no mention is made of massive growth in world oil consumption which, short of a complete economic collapse, will have to take place in China, India and other emerging economies in this and the next decade. When if comes to investment concepts and ideas on how to cash in on the impending oil shortage, Deffeyes is a truly clueless novice, but it doesn't matter. He must be forgiven his shortcomings because most of the book is really interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Exquisitely written, exquisitely detailed
Review: There is far more to petroleum geology than I had ever imagined. Deffeyes gives us a discussion of how oil was formed -- and where it is found -- in articulate, lucid, and detailed prose. And the style is what I would expect from an oil man -- very direct, not a hint of hysteria, no fluff, and in places, really quite funny. The book could only have been written by someone intimately familiar with the field, from a practical standpoint and from an academic standpoint. His first points -- the world supply is limited, and it's almost all been found -- are inarguable. His second points -- the production curve is symmetric, and lags the discovery curve by about eleven years -- depend more on economics and are more open to question. Nevertheless, the conclusion remains the same: the party is almost over. Whether it ends in 2004 or 2020 is immaterial. Read the book; think about what it says; and factor its conclusions into your life.
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