Official Words on Peaking Oil
The 2008 World Energy Outlook, published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), assessed a 6.7% annual rate of decline in production at the world's 800 largest oilfields. In a video interview with The Guardian's George Monbiot, IEA chief economist Fatih Birol predicted a 2020 peak in global commercial oil supplies.
Last week, Michael Klare offered this reading of the U.S. Energy Information Administration's 2009 International Energy Outlook (IEO).
As recently as 2007, the IEO projected that the global production of conventional oil (the stuff that comes gushing out of the ground in liquid form) would reach 107.2 million barrels per day in 2030, a substantial increase from the 81.5 million barrels produced in 2006. Now, in 2009, the latest edition of the report has grimly dropped that projected 2030 figure to just 93.1 million barrels per day--in future-output terms, an eye-popping decline of 14.1 million expected barrels per day.
Hat tip: Transition PDX
