Watching the Watchdogs: 10 Years of the IEA World Energy Outlook « integral permaculture.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is the energy watchdog of the industrial world. The developed nations of the world were caught off guard by the oil crisis of 1973. They then realized energy resources are so fundamental to all of civilization, and recognized how vulnerable we are to supply disruptions. Forty years ago in 1974, the International Energy Agency was formed, tasked with keeping an eye on these precious resources, and providing policy makers around the world with information to make better informed planning decisions.
The primary deliverable from the IEA is the massive World Energy Outlook (WEO) report that is released annually in November. Concerned about peak oil, I began reading the Executive Summary to this report 10 years ago. Five years ago I wrote a summary of what the report has been telling us from 2005 – 2009, concerning issues related to peak oil: The IEA and World Oil Supply Projections. Given that another 5 years have passed, I offer an update, which will bring us to today’s release of the 2014 World Energy Outlook.
The short version is this: The IEA World Energy Outlook has gradually moved from rosy to pessimistic reports over the last ten years, or what Stuart Staniford called “increasingly reality-based.” Over the last decade, the report’s projected oil demand has gradually decreased by 20 million barrels per day (mb/d), and the projected costs have continued to rise. Yet even their most pessimistic reports, I believe, fail to capture true reality. It seems that politics plays a strong role in what is allowed to be published. It also must be stated that predicting the future “is a fool’s errand,” as Kurt Cobb reminds us in his review of the 2013 report.
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