A man named Marion King Hubbert, a geoscientist working for Shell Petroleum, published a then controversial and unnamed theory at the 1956 American Petroleum Institute meeting, and was subsequently run out of the business for daring to say that "U.S. production would peak around 1970 and globally about half a century from now." We now call this peak oil.

When the Texas Railroad Commission, the United States' version of OPEC before our production dropped, announced in the spring of 1971 100% allowable King was vindicated for his U.S. predictions. The global prediction of about half a century was deadly accurate, as the peak thus far has been May of 2005, although we came within 96,000 barrels of that month in December of 2007.

You can read more about this concept over at and in particular this post by Stuart Staniford is an excellent introduction to peak oil.