In the March 1998 issue of Scientific American Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrère published the classic article “The End of Cheap Oil” (http://dieoff.org/page140.htm [1]). That article became the starting point for the debate that has subsequently developed around a future peak of oil production. During the autumn of 2000 there were several people who inspired Colin Campbell to take a lead in the debate and who assisted in the production of the first issue of his famous newsletter that began in January 2001.

We initial few were also privileged to participate in Colin Campbell’s network that he named ASPO, The Association for the Study of Peak Oil. The expression, “Peak Oil” was coined and, in May 2002, ASPO was formally established at a meeting in Uppsala, Sweden. The rest is history.

In the October 2009 issue of Scientific American there is an article by Leonard Maugen with the title “Squeezing More Oil From The Ground”, http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ARTICLEID_CHAR=C860BC5F-237D-9F22-E8F21CB0D564DA03 [2]



The journal announced that the article was in preparation already in April (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=squeezing-more-oil-edit-this [3]). At that time they wrote, “Your feedback will be considered by the writer and editors as they complete the final draft of this article, which will appear in an upcoming edition of Scientific American 
magazine.”

The article is now published but is not accessible on the net without a financial contribution. Leonard Maugen’s article criticizes the 1998 article that Colin and Jean wrote. Jean has now carefully analysed Maugen’s article and Colin has approved Jean’s comments. You can read Jean’s comments on ASPO’s homepage.

http://www.peakoil.net/publications/comments-on-squeezing-more-oil-from-the-ground [4]