Martin Leatherman, Newsdesk.org
Are the days of cheap oil over? With prices soaring above $50 a barrel, the world is beginning to take the peak oil theory seriously. The Hubbert Peak Theory, developed in 1956 by geophysicist M. King Hubbert, is casually called the peak oil theory. It says oil and fossil-fuel production will soon reach a peak and then rapidly decline, driving prices up. In 1956 Hubbert predicted that production would peak in the United States in the late 1970s, which it did.