The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, or ASPO, is a network of scientists, affiliated with a wide array of global institutions and universities, having an interest in determining the date and impact of the peak and decline of the world’s production of oil and gas, due to resource constraints.
   ASPO was founded by Colin Campbell in 2000 with Jean Laherrère a French petroleum geologist with whom he wrote an important article in Scientific American in 1998 called "The end of cheap oil". ASPO is the most influential organization supporting the "peak oil" theory known as the Hubbert curve, devised by M. King Hubbert, which predicts future oil availability. It appears in the documentary film The End of Suburbia.
   Geologists from the following countries are represented in ASPO: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
   But ASPO has its share of critics. The current debate revolves around energy policy, and whether to shift funding to increasing fuel efficiency, and alternative energy sources like solar, nuclear power, and coal liquefaction methodologies such as the Karrick process.
   Campbell's critics, like economist Michael C. Lynch, say that his research data is sloppy. They point to the date of the coming peak, which was initially projected by M. King Hubbert to occur by the year 2000, but the date was pushed back to 2007 and later to 2010. TrendLines Research (link below) has graphed the 1991-2007 ASPO forecasts as well as monthly comparisons of the current ASPO projection to 15 other recognized Oil Depletion Scenarios.
   A recent report by the US Congress' Government Accountability Office (GAO), called for by Roscoe Bartlett and the U.S. House Peak Oil Caucus, confirms most of the finding of the DoE's Hirsch report.

Mission

External results