San Francisco Bay Oil is a coalition of six groups concerned with the ramifications of peak oil (petroleum depletion) and surrounding economic, social, and environmental issues. By aligning our groups together, we are able to share information and resources in an efficient and timely manner. This web site provides space for our groups (including all outposts of the Post Carbon Institute) to remain connected.

Please use the navigational tool above to find out specific information about these groups. Further peak oil links (or problems or questions about the website) and a search feature of this site are linked to the buttons below.

In addition to this web space, San Francisco Bay Oil has an "umbrella" Yahoo discussion group (which also functions as the home discussion group for East Bay Peak Oil). On the individual group pages there are also links to their specific mailing lists (if they have such), specific resources and media provided by or relevant to their group function, information about their meeting times and locations, and other events or projects associated with the individual groups.

If you are new to the concept of peak oil or stumbled upon this page, peak oil is a geological phenomenon first noted and defined by Shell Oil geologist M. King Hubbert in the 1950s. What his observations predicted, correctly, is that an oil well, an oil producing nation, and eventually the entire world about midway in the production of the available petroleum would reach a level when it would be impossible to increase the extraction of the resource, and it would then begin to decline, regardless of the effort put forth to produce more of it. The curve associated with this phenomenon (and it applies equally well to many other finite resources) is now named after Hubbert.

As our modern world is entirely dependent upon the energy growth that petroleum petroleum provides, as well as the vast number of products associated with petroleum, not only for transportation (which is what most people think of first) but also for food production and a vast swath of consumer items, we will have serious problems in the next years as this phenomenon unfolds. We are presently at the time when many industry analysts, geologists, scientists, and concerned citizens have noted that the peak of world production is very near. What this bodes for our world is unchartered territory and a major concern voiced by the people who are associated with our groups and others around the world.

Strategies for dealing with peak oil vary from group to group and from individual to individual, and these often are the fodder for very animated discussions on our mailing lists, among members at meetings, or in informal social gatherings.

Links below can be used to join the main bay area wide discussion group at Yahoo (some of the individual groups in this coalition have their own discussion groups, which are noted in the pull-down menus at the top of their information pages), to explore other links, resources, and groups, or to email the webmaster regarding this site. Please report any broken links, problems, etc.