For years, it has been puzzling to see commentators debating whether peak oil is a future possibility, when the U.S. Energy Information Administration (DOE/ EIA) data showed world crude oil production peaking in 2005. The puzzle is the product of denial. Most people in the oil business don’t want to face peak oil. However, the issue was muddied last year when the EIA itself suggested that 2008 production might surpass 2005 by a tiny margin.1

The EIA has revised its estimates, and it now establishes 2005 as the peak year – above 2008 by the tiniest of margins. The preliminary figure for 2009 is 2% below 2005, which is a more significant figure.2

This may seem mere quibbling, but those numbers have an importance far beyond their symbolism. They deal with the most immediate resource shortage created by the race between economic and population growth and resource availability. NPG has argued for years that human population has outstripped the capacity of the Earth’s natural systems to support it, and here is a case in point. New oil discoveries peaked in the 1960s. World crude oil production per capita has edged slowly downward since 1980, even though total production was rising. What peak oil tells us is that total production will decline as population keeps rising, and the decline in production per capita will become tumultuous and swift. Existing oil fields are already in decline. If the decline continues as the OECD International Energy Agency expects, the world will need to get nearly 80% of its oil from new fields by 2030, just to keep total production – let alone production per capita – from falling.3 There is nothing in sight to offer hope that that much new oil will appear.