The Oil Drum

The Oil Drum

Owner	Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future (a 501(c) organization)
Created by	Professors Kyle Saunders and Dave Summers
Slogan(s)	Discussions about energy and our future
Website	www.theoildrum.com
Commercial	No
Launched	March 2005 (2005-03)
Current status	Ceased publishing August 31, 2013 (2013-08-31); Archives available
Content license	Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States

The Oil Drum was a website devoted to analysis and discussion of energy and its impact on society. The Oil Drum was published by the Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future, a Colorado non-profit corporation.^[1] The site was a resource for information on many energy and sustainability topics, including peak oil, and related concepts such as oil megaprojects, Hubbert linearization, and the Export Land Model. The Oil Drum had over 25 online contributors from all around the globe. In 2013, the site ceased publishing new articles. As of October 2016, the site continues to function as an archive.

The Oil Drum was rated one of the top five sustainability blogs of 2007 by Nielsen Netratings,^[2] and was read by a diverse collection of public figures, including Roscoe Bartlett,^[3] Paul Krugman,^[4] James Howard Kunstler,^[5] Richard Rainwater,^[6] and Radiohead.^[7] In 2008, the site received the M. King Hubbert Award for Excellence in Energy Education from the U.S. chapter of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO).^[8]

The Oil Drum was started in March 2005 by Kyle Saunders (username "Prof. Goose"), a professor of political science at Colorado State University, and Dave Summers (username "Heading Out"), a professor of mining engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology (then known as University of Missouri-Rolla).^[9] The site first rose to prominence following its coverage of the impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on oil and gas production.^[10][11] The staff grew by dozens and became well known for rigorous, quantitative analysis of energy production and consumption.^[12] A notable example is former editor Stuart Staniford's analysis of the depletion of Saudi Arabia's Ghawar oil field (Depletion Levels in Ghawar).^[13]

The site started out on the Blogger platform, moved to Scoop in August 2005, and to Drupal in December 2006.^[14]

In 2013, The Oil Drum announced that it would stop publishing new content and would turn into an archive resource. Reasons cited for this change include server costs and a dwindling number of contributors of high-quality content.^[15] Other sources claimed that the site was archived to prevent further embarrassment to contributors as global oil production continued to increase.^[16]

References

External links

• The Oil Drum
• "The Oil Drum: $100 a Barrel Quickens the Beat - Interview with The Oil Drum editor Nate Hagens," January 7, 2008.

Peak oil
Core issues	Peak oil Mitigation of peak oil Predicting the timing of peak oil Hubbert peak theory Olduvai theory
Results/responses	Hirsch report Rimini protocol Price of petroleum 2000s energy crisis Energy crisis Export Land Model Food vs. fuel Oil reserves Pickens Plan Simple living Swing producer Renewable energy commercialization Permaculture
People	Albert Allen Bartlett Colin J. Campbell John Michael Greer David Goodstein Richard Heinberg M. King Hubbert James Kunstler Jean Laherrère Jeremy Leggett Dale Allen Pfeiffer Richard Rainwater Michael C. Ruppert Matthew Simmons Richard C. Duncan Kenneth S. Deffeyes
Books	The End of Oil The Long Emergency Out of Gas The Party's Over Power Down Beyond Oil Twilight in the Desert
Documentary films	A Crude Awakening Collapse The End of Suburbia Oil Factor PetroApocalypse Now? How Cuba Survived Peak Oil What a Way to Go Gashole Fuel (film) Escape from Suburbia Crude (2007 film)
Organizations	The Oil Drum Energy Watch Group ODAC OPEC OAPEC IEA IRENA Post Carbon Institute REN21 Transition town
Other peaks	Car Coal Copper Food Gas Gold Minerals Phosphorus Soil Uranium Water Wheat Wood