"The most optimistic projections are the ones produced by the US Department of Energy, which claims that this will not take place until 2037. But the US energy information agency has admitted that the government’s figures have been fudged: it has based its projections for oil supply on the projections for oil demand,(5) perhaps in order not to sow panic in the financial markets. Other analysts are less sanguine. The petroleum geologist Colin Campbell calculates that global extraction will peak before 2010.(6) In August the geophysicist Kenneth Deffeyes told New Scientist that he was “99 per cent confident” that the date of maximum global production will be 2004. Even if the optimists are correct, we will be scraping the oil barrel within the lifetimes of most of those who are middle-aged today. The supply of oil will decline, but global demand will not. Today we will burn 76 million barrels; by 2020 we will be using 112 million barrels a day, after which projected demand accelarates.