118. HUBBERT'S NUCLEAR FUTURE
The following thought-provoking figure was drawn by the godfather of peak oil himself, M. King Hubbert, in his 1956 paper Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels(pdf):
Some nimwit in the comments is trying to advance the idea that "peak fossil fuels" in the diagram refers to peak oil. Let's put that nonsense to rest. In Figure 29, which precedes Figure 30 above, Hubbert shows the relationship between peak oil and nuclear power in the U.S.:As you can see, when Hubbert wants to refer to peak oil, he uses the label "PETROLEUM". When he wants to refer to peak fossil fuel he uses the label "FOSSIL FUELS".
It's interesting to note that the U.S. is right on schedule according to Figure 29. Net summer capacity in 2004 of operable nuclear generating plants in the US was about 100 million kW (source: DOE, Annual Energy Review 2004, P. 274).