In case you're on the fence about whether to buy a copy of The Oracle of Oil, here's an excerpt from the book, which was published recently on Scientific American's website, under the title "How the Prophet of Peak Oil Explained Fracking in the 1950s."

A little set-up: In the mid-1950s, M. King Hubbert was the first to explain correctly how a new technique known as hydraulic fracturing—or, for short, “fracking”—actually worked. This excerpt covers how he solved the puzzle, and (with the help of his assistant) convinced others of his explanation. The study of fracking he and his assistant published in 1957 is now considered a classic, still cited often today.

My friend Chris Nelder invited me to talk about The Oracle of Oil—and more broadly about peak oil—on his excellent podcast, The Energy Transition Show.

You can get the podcast here—or if you're an iTunes person, you can get it direct from that route.

Chris's podcast is truly excellent, and he invites top-notch guests, most of them academics or industry experts who really know their stuff, and it gets into the nitty gritty. ​​

America is back on the road again, as I pointed out in my previous post on The Oracle of Oil blog. In the United States, the miles driven per person has increased significantly since the 2014 oil price crash—a change from the trend over the decade before that. It seems that relatively cheap oil and low prices at the pump have stoked demand.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Cross-posted from Mason's data journalism project, The Frack Lab

America has always had a love affair with the car. Well, not literally always, but as long as most anyone alive can remember. Driving had generally been going up and up essentially since the advent of the car.

In this week's issue of Nature, I have an article "Can fracking power Europe?"

It takes a critical look at attempts to estimate how much gas fracking might yield.

It turns out these studies are highly uncertain, based on very little data—in large part because there has been relatively little drilling on land in Europe. (The bulk of Europe's production of oil and natural gas has come from offshore fields in the North Sea.)

A quarter-century after his death, M. King Hubbert continues to come up in the news, at the center of debates about the future of fossil fuels. The latest instance is the long article "Peak Oil Fantasy" in the environmental magazine Orion, by science journalist Charles Mann.

The article covers some of Hubbert's work and his arguments with other scientists—but then gets some concepts spectacularly wrong, concluding: "As a practical matter, fossil-fuel supplies are infinite."

This did not go over well with Orion readers, as judged by the largely negative comments in response.