Former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall talks to David Room about M. King Hubbert and peak oil.

This is David Room for Global Public Media, talking with former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall about the late Dr. M. King Hubbert, on February 8th, 2006.

Stewart Udall: I heard about Hubbert, you know, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) was under my general supervision, and I had heard about his prediction, and then, I am not sure about the contact I had with him in 1968 or 1969, the last years I was there, but the OPEC Embargo brought that whole thing into a screaming focus, of course, and that's when people started talking about his prediction, which had already occurred. But I came to be one of his greatest admirers.

David Room: When exactly did you meet him?

SU: You know, my life was very busy as Secretary of the Interior. I can't fix an exact date, but I believe someone set up an appointment, where I spoke with him or I talked with him personally, when I was still Secretary of the Interior (in those last years), because we were beginning to ask questions about the absence of an energy policy or the rather stupid policy that we had during the 1960s ( which I had administered) of restricting the imports of oil.

DR: In the 1960s, during your two terms as the Secretary of the Interior, you were under the impression that the U.S. had much higher oil reserves than ultimately proved to be the case - how did that come about?

SU: No, there was a petroleum geologist in the Geological Survey, named Vince McKelvey. The oil companies had their own geologists, and Hubbert, of course, worked for Shell, didn't he? Hubbert didn't work for the Geological Survey. He made his prediction when he was with the private sector.

But he was a very bold, outspoken person, and his prediction was greatly at odds with the official prediction quoted in the government circles of the Geological Survey, and petroleum geology is a specialized science, and McKelvey always said that Hubbert was wrong, that we had vast, the term 'vast' was thrown around, reserves of petroleum, and there was no need to worry about anything in the future. Their differences were so great that it became a celestial joke when Hubbert's prediction came true.

DR: Both of these predictions were in the National Academy of Science's study that went to President Kennedy. Do you have an idea of what the President's awareness of the two predictions were?

SU: That's where I picked up on Hubbert, I think. I read his report. And that's when I realized that here was an outside-the-government person who was making very bold predictions. But I had to follow, because the Geological Survey was under my supervision, and if their official position, and that came from McKelvey, he was the person who made the government predictions, and Hubbert's paper that he put in the National Academy Report was just so at odds with McKelvey's predictions that when it came through it was stunning. But I read his 1962 report. I don't know whether Kennedy read it or not, very few people picked up on it, you know, it was (inaudible) wasn't it? In the National Academy Report, they were talking about uranium and thorium, and we were in the middle of the euphoria about atomic power.

DR: Right, tell me a little more about that - what was your understanding of the potential for nuclear power to meet electricity needs from the 1960s to the 1970s.

SU: I was in Congress, as a freshman congressman, 50 years ago. And John Von Neumann ( who Eisenhower had put on the Atomic Energy Commission), as a member of the commission, came up to Congress - he was a spokesman for the Atomic Energy Commission, one of the great atomic scientists, and he gave briefings to members of congress, in which he said that once Atomic energy got going, you'd have electricity so cheap you wouldn't have to (Inaudible)."

DR: Where was the big push for nuclear power coming from? Was it by industry, by the government?

SU: It was pushed by the government, by the Atomic Energy Commission - they were the great advocates that this was the future. I had a discussion of this in a book that I wrote, called the Quiet Crisis. It came out in 1963, and I sort of bowed down, you had to, I wasn't a scientist or a physicist, and I didn't know anything about atomic power, and I said what was the conventional view at the time, that this appeared to have great promise. Then 25 years later, I backed away from it in a book that I wrote (actually it was the 1963 book, which I updated), and I discussed this in the book, it's called the Quiet Crisis in the Next Generation. You might find it in the library.

DR: O.k. How did President Kennedy view nuclear power?

SU: He saw it very positively.

DR: So he was on board with the nuclear power?

SU: Well, we were all on board. I didn't, you know, the atomic scientists had such great prestige, that if you were just an ordinary congressman, and not skilled in science, and certainly the whole thing about the atomic bomb was secret, what kinds of questions could you ask? The questions began about the time I left office in the early 1970s, when people like Senator Muskey and others began asking serious questions.

DR: When you first heard about Hubbert's methods and Hubbert himself, who did you discuss them with, and what did you hear about Hubbert's methods and arguments from other geologists and politicians?

SU: Well, to tell you the truth, Hubbert's prediction was so bold, and he was in the private sector, so the people who tried to put him down, McKelvey surely did, you know, the head of the Geological Survey was a person who reported to me, but I didn't have the capacity to question McKelvey's figures. But I can tell you that I read that National Academy report, and it kind of jarred me, but I didn't know enough to go out and start asking questions.

I am sure I asked Dr. Pecora, and a fellow by the name of Nolan, who was the head of the survey before that, I might have asked him, but you know geology had subspecialties, and none of them, to my knowledge, questioned McKelvey's figures. So you had different forecasts, different predictions, and I was so busy, and didn't know that much, but the one thing that did happen about the time I left, I don't know if you know about the oil import program. President Eisenhower started it, and it was administered by the Interior, I administered it, and Sam Rayborn and Lyndon Johnson and all the Texas people were behind it to protect our domestic industry by keeping cheap-oil imports out, because countries like Venezuela, Mexico and others in that period had oil, and they wanted to export it, so the oil industry led by Senator Kur from Oklahoma, who was a very powerful Senator, wanted these cheap oil imports limited to 20% because if we didn't restrict imports, let all the cheap oil come, it would cause price of oil to drop. The oil industry was always very selfish, and so on, but until Hubbert's prediction came true, you know, that policy seemed to make sense, at least until I left office and talked to Hubbert - he and others to whom that policy was known as 'Drain America First,' and that's what it was.

 

DR: O.k.

SU: But his prediction was extraordinary. I didn't know enough when we had lunch and talked to ask about the methods that he used. He developed an original technique, and forecasting something like that was very unusual.

DR: Yes, absolutely, given the historical context.

SU: When did he publish his first paper? In the mid-1950s?

DR: I believe he published his first paper on the subject in 1949. It was less definitive than the later one.

SU: When was the later one, in the mid-1950s?

DR: It was in 1956.

SU: Yes. You've refreshed my memory. That's what I thought. Even at that point we were still pumping one-third of the crude oil in the world, and we were consuming so much of it with the automobile craze coming on - that's what led to the 1970 peak.

DR: So, it sounds like most people were caught off guard by the peak in 1970.

SU: Oh, I think Hubbert, by the conservatives, the conservatives were the ones who said we had all these reserves, was kind of a wild man - who's this guy? No, he had good credentials as a petroleum geologist, but the fact that he would make that prediction, I think, is just very startling and bold.

DR: Yes. Did you talk with Hubbert much about his life and interests outside of work?

SU: Oh, I got to know him quite well. He was living in Washington in the 1970s (maybe the 1960s, I've forgotten), but the OPEC embargo, which really shocked us, also caused people to look at Hubbert's prediction and say, " Well, God, this shouldn't be a surprise, here this guy predicted it." And he and I had talks, we had correspondence, I have the correspondence here in my office, and that went on for several years. I just went to him for advice, since I was an outspoken advocate of his after I left office; he really liked that, and he appreciated having someone as prominent as I was praising what he had done.

DR: Do you have a sense for or recall what some of his other interests were?

SU: Well, we always talked about this, and we corresponded about this, and I didn't become the kind of a personal friend, I don't think he ever invited me to his home, we usually had lunches. I would say from my knowledge of him that he was like so many of the, I've gotten to know quite a few petroleum geologists since, and that's a highly technical science, and there's a lot going on in the world, and there's a lot to interest them, not only in the United States, but what was happening in Saudi Arabia and other countries and the oil exploration, what were the world resources, and when would there be a world peak, you know, some of us think maybe it's happening now, and I wrote an article, with Matthew Simmons, you know, he's not an oil man or petroleum geologist, but he's very smart. Have you read his book Twilight in the Desert?

DR: Yes,Twilight in the Desert.

SU: Have you read it?

DR: Yes.

SU: Well, he and I wrote an article together which was in the Tucson newspaper about a month or six weeks ago, and I am now a great fan of Simmons. I think that book is extraordinary - he's kind of a successor to Hubbert, not as a geologist, but as someone who knows how to study petroleum reserves. You know, his book says that the Saudis have created a myth about how much reserves they have, and he thinks their reserves are very modest.

DR: I have question about your discussions with Hubbert. Did he ever bring up population planning, or did he mention anything about...

SU: Yes, he did. I am quite sure he did. That was a subject I was very much interested in, but he, with the vision he had and the prediction he made, you're asking a good question, was concerned about how can we, since our production is peaking and going down, how can we maintain this automobile society, how can we keep it going - that's where we are right now, with the prices going up and up.

DR: Yes, and you picked up on that in your book, The Energy Balloon...

SU: Yes.

DR: And some subsequent articles as well. I know late in life Hubbert was trying to raise awareness that the science of energy and matter is incompatible with what he called our exponential-growth culture, and in particular our debt-based-monetary system.

SU: Yes, we discussed that at length, because both my brother and I began about 1965 speaking out in terms of population control - how could we sustain these population increases that were going on then, of course, God knows, you can see what happened to it, we have (inaud) times as many people now as we had then, and that's the big problem, and I know now, you've reminded me, that was very much on Hubbert's mind, and that was one of the things we discussed.

DR: Did any good ideas come up with respect to population planning.

SU: Well I had my own ideas, and we had an exchange of ideas, but I can't recall in particular what we discussed, but I know that he was concerned about it, and his concern is very current now, you know - where are we headed?

DR: Maybe more so. He indicated that he was never consulted on energy issues by the Carter administration. Do you have any idea why this is so, especially given the context of his prediction being correct in the early 1970s.

SU: I don't know (Inaudible), David Freeman, he was head of the Federal Power Commission and he was one of Carter's advisors. Carter was the one president who had an energy program. It was a big one. It was in synthesizing coal and natural gas. He even put a lot of money into oil shale research, and that built up and then collapsed in Western Colorado, but I am sure we discussed Carter. We were talking regularly about all these issues, but, see, the interesting thing, oil production peaked in 1970, as Hubbert predicted, but the Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska is the largest field ever discovered in North America, did you know that?

DR: Yes.

SU: That came online in 1977 when Carter was President. You know, the production over seven years, after the peak, had steadily gone down, and that sort of brought it back up. What I'd love to ask Hubbert, if he were alive now, is how did he factor in the Prudhoe Bay oil field, which turned out to be so huge, in his method and in his thesis.

DR: I think he just looked at the lower 48, and even when you added in the Prudhoe Bay find...

SU: It didn't change his prediction, I know that.

DR: No, It didn't. Can I ask you a couple questions from your correspondence with Hubbert? I've had access to some of it.

SU: Yes.

DR: In 1975, Hubbert sent you a memo, in which Thomas Nolen had alleged collusion between McKelvey and others on suppressing the Hubbert academy report, and presumably this meant meant not letting Hubbert's report have any bearing on the (inaudible). Is this consistent with your understanding?

SU: Yes, he is saying what happened during the 1960s, when I was secretary of the Interior, but Tom Nolan was the director of the Survey. Actually he was a hard-rock geologist, and I don't think, well, I know Nolan never came to me and said "Hey, there's this crazy guy Hubbert here, and he's put out this report."

I read the National Academy report, I read it at the time, and I read it afterwards, but I wasn't sophisticated enough to know, and the Geological Survey I always thought was one of the finest entities in the government, scientific entities, and I wasn't knowledgeable enough to get involved with the details of what they were doing, so I have no recollecton.

DR: Do you have a sense of how the tension between McKelvey and Hubbert, if not personally, at least in their estimates, affected Hubbert personally?

SU: He was such a strong, tough person, the scientist who developed his technique and made the prediction. I think he looked with some contempt on McKelvey. I know that's true, because he always referred to him in a negative way, and I don't know to what extent there was in the industry, you know, the Geological Survey, because they were the government agency, was supposed to know something about petroleum reserves and so on, and then I am sure there were other geologists, you know, Hubbert presented papers at their meetings, I am sure he did. I can't remember him telling me that, but I am sure he did, and I think he was regarded as a strong person who had strong views, and he was sticking his neck way, way out, wasn't he?

DR: Absolutely.

SU: And he did it, and I think in the industry, they all respected him, but I think a lot of them thought he was too far out and was wrong.

DR: Right. In 1977, you wrote Hubbert and said that the Wall Street Journal editorials were 'mischievous propaganda that prevented the development of a national consensus on energy policy, and you continued, "I am now convinced that we will flounder until the big fat questions are settled, as long as there are diversion voices, and there is no official assessment which is widely accepted, it will be difficult to persuade the American people that the energy problem is critical."

This sounds very familiar to me! That's your letter to Hubbert.

SU: Well, yes, it shows a little sophistication there.

DR: Yes, the interesting thing is the parallel between then and now, you still have this diversion.

SU: Yes, that's right. And here of course, the thing that's going on now is ridiculous.

Matthew Simmons helped Time Magazine, I don't know whether you've seen this, back in early December, late November, they did something in which they had pie things showing where our oil is coming from, and one of the things they had there is, if you assume what the (inaudible) say about the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, that if all the oil that they say is there were brought out, and you shut down imports and shut down everything else, it would last us six months, something like that.

DR: My goodness.

SU: I mean Hubbert would love that.

DR: I Bet. I understand he had a sense of humor.

SU: He did. He did. Frankly, he loved the controversy, very (inaudible). But he should have loved it, he was doing what no one else did, making a prediction that came true. You know if he had been off by five years or ten or something, it wouldn't have gotten that much attention, but he put it out there, fifteen years before it happened. I think that's extraordinary. But he's extraordinary, an extraordinary man.

DR: You chuckled earlier when you said that Hubbert always referred to McKelvey in a negative way. Was there some humor in that?

SU: Yes, yes, I think he was amused by McKelvey, because in his view, he was not just wrong, he was wrong big time, and he stood his ground, too, McKelvey did, even after Hubbert's prediction, I think, well, I was gone by then, but my conversations of - McKelvey, I think, stuck to his guns, and I think he was there until in the mid-1970s.

DR: In a presentation at the National Press Club in 1974, you warned, "Beware of experts bearing gifts of undeveloped or undiscovered paper energy." Tell me about that.

SU: I remember that speech, that was after OPEC. I was moving behind Hubbert at that point, because I shared his view. I was a Hubbert man, and I didn't know why McKelvey was so wrong or what his method was in making his calculations, but I just thought that this was very bad advice to come from the official people in the government.

DR: Yes, you and Hubbert spoke about paper barrels and arm-chair discoveries in one correspondence.

SU: Probably those figures of speech I was using came from Hubbert.

DR: Yes, he once said postulation is a cheap way of finding oil.

DR: Well, I was very impressed by the suggestions that you put out there for a national-energy policy when you were talking to the National Press Club in 1974. You were talking about encouraging conservation, penalizing waste, stopping sprawl and highway construction and ramping up renewable energy and public transport.

SU: You know, we literally threw the railroads away. They were the big horse, they carried us in the war, they carried everything, you traveled on trains, you know, and we had gas and rubber rationing during the war. Did you know, when we were studying the interstate highway legislation (I voted for it, nobody voted against it), on the floor of the house in 1955 or 1956, when I was a freshman congressman, I went back and read the debates on this legislation, and whether this made sense in terms of oil (it was about the time Hubbert came out with his prediction), but there was no discussion of, "Well, does this make sense, how much oil do we have, how long can we keep it going," because in the 1950s out of WWII, you were very conscious of having what resources you would need if there was another big war within the country. You know, we stockpiled copper; we stockpiled other metals after the war.