When the lights go out

David Strahan and Duncan Clarke take opposing sides on the peak oil debate in The Last Oil Shock and The Battle for Barrels. Larry Elliott weighs up the evidence

Saturday April 14, 2007
The Guardian

The Last Oil Shock
by David Strahan
304pp, John Murray, £12.99

The Battle for Barrels
by Duncan Clarke
256pp, Profile Books, £20

Back in 1956, an American geophysicist called Marion King Hubbert came up with a startling prediction: that production of oil from the continental United States would peak within the next 10 to 15 years. Few paid any attention. This, after all, was the era when the car was king and king-sized; when James Dean was racing in the streets in Rebel Without a Cause and President Eisenhower was investing billions of dollars in the interstate network.