Jamie Sarkonak: Of course Steven Guilbeault would cling to the myth of peak oil
The first notable act of our newly-minted culture minister, Steven Guilbeault, was to recite to media scribes the myth of peak oil. Asked whether pipelines would continue to be a disruptor to Alberta-Ottawa relations, he replied:
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'The Canadian energy regulator, as well as the International Energy Agency, are telling us that probably by 2028, 2029, demand for oil will peak globally and it will also peak in Canada.'
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'So… before we start talking about building an entirely new pipeline, maybe we should maximize the use of existing infrastructure.' He went on to claim that the Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMX), which came online in 2024, was running at only 40 per cent capacity. This was wildly incorrect: in 2024, TMX ran at 77 per cent capacity, and that share is projected to grow over the years to reach 96 per cent in 2028.
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As for peak oil, Guilbeault was also very likely wrong. For years, activists have claimed that the highest volumes of oil consumption were just over the horizon, only to be proven wrong time and time again. Just like how the deadline on COVID restrictions of 'two weeks to flatten the curve' was stretched to two years, the impending decline of oil constantly moved farther and farther out.
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The theory was first put forward in 1956. Geologist and Shell researcher M. King Hubbert put forward a paper predicting the beginning of the end of U.S. oil production somewhere between 1965 and 1971. This was a fearsome prospect because life in the developed world was dependent on cheap, readily available energy, and its absence (and subsequent increase in price) could reverse hard-fought economic progress.
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For a time, he appeared to be right: when the early 1970s hit, oil production in the United States began falling slowly — but the bottom of this trough was hit in 2006, and U.S. production surpassed historic highs around 2014.
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Globally, Hubbert predicted a production peak for 2000. In reality, production hit what is now a mini-peak in 1979, sinking to early '70s levels during the early '80s — but it later picked up speed and steadily climbed over the years. No ceiling was hit in 2000; production kept on rising. It did hit a trough in 2020, but that was due to worldwide COVID shutdowns and the price shock they caused to oil contracts.
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Had technology never advanced past the achievements of the 1950s, Hubbert may well have been proven right. But humans continued to innovate and eventually found new ways of extracting harder-to-reach hydrocarbons from the earth's crust.
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Doomsday predictors continue to be fooled by humanity's ability to improve technology and find new ways to consume. 'Peak Oil Production May Already Be Here,' read one 2011 headline in Science. One 2005 paper sponsored by the U.S. government laid out a number of other failures following Hubbert: an Iranian oil executive thought 2006, a California Institute of Technology vice-provost thought 2010 or earlier, various oil company geologists predicted somewhere between pre-2009 and 2020.
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