IEA – World Energy Outlook 2012 – Nov 12

November 12, 2012

NOTE: Images in this archived article have been removed.

Click on the headline (link) for the full text.

From the International Energy Agency website: "The 2012 edition of the World Energy Outlook was released on 12 November and presents authoritative projections of energy trends through to 2035 and insights into what they mean for energy security, environmental sustainability and economic development. Oil, coal, natural gas, renewables and nuclear power are all covered, together with an update on climate change issues. Global energy demand, production, trade, investment and carbon dioxide emissions are broken down by region or country, by fuel and by sector."

Image RemovedWorld Energy Outlook 2012
The International Energy Agency

From the Executive Summary:
A new global energy landscape is emerging The global energy map is changing, with potentially far-reaching consequences for energy markets and trade. It is being redrawn by the resurgence in oil and gas production in the United States and could be further reshaped by a retreat from nuclear power in some countries, continued rapid growth in the use of wind and solar technologies and by the global spread of unconventional gas production…

Taking all new developments and policies in to account, the world is still failing to put the global energy system onto a more sustainable path. Global energy demand grows by more than one-third over the period to 2035 in the New Policies Scenario (our central scenario)…Despite the growth in low-carbon sources of energy, fossil fuels remain dominant in the global energy mix, supported by subsidies that amounted to $523 billion in 2011… Emissions in the New Policies Scenario correspond to a long-term average global temperature increase of 3.6o C…

WEO 2012 Executive summary
WEO FACTSHEET
WEO Presentation to the press
(12 November 2012)


U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020

Lananh Nguyen, Bloomberg
U.S. oil output is poised to surpass Saudi Arabia’s in the next decade, making the world’s biggest fuel consumer almost self-reliant and putting it on track to become a net exporter, the International Energy Agency said.

Growing supplies of crude extracted through new technology including hydraulic fracturing of underground rock formations will transform the U.S. into the largest producer for about five years starting about 2020, the Paris-based adviser to 28 nations said today in its annual World Energy Outlook. The U.S. met 83 percent of its energy needs in the first six months of this year, according to the Energy Department in Washington.

“The IEA outlook feeds into the idea of a shift in the center of influence in the world oil market,” said Gareth Lewis-Davies, an analyst at BNP Paribas SA in London. “Given Saudi Arabia is willing to shift production up and down it will retain a large degree of influence, and remain important as a price-influencer.”…
(12 November 2012)


IEA calls for focus on energy efficiency

Nature Magazine Blog
The International Energy Agency (IEA) today implored policy-makers to focus on energy efficiency measures, to buy a little time before the world resigns itself to global warming of more than 2 °C.

Presenting the agency’s 2012 World Energy Outlook in London, the IEA’s chief economist Fatih Birol told reporters that he could see a “growing momentum in many countries to push the energy efficiency button”, but also that energy efficiency remained an “epic failure” in most nations’ energy policies. “The chances are slimmer and slimmer of avoiding a 2 °C rise,” he said. The IEA likes to talk about the time when existing factories, buildings and cars will ‘lock in’ greenhouse gas emissions that will push atmospheric carbon dioxide above 450 parts per million, the target thought to give an even chance of limiting global warming to 2 °C. Last year, it projected that time would come by 2017. Today, the agency said that energy efficiency measures could push the lock-in date out five years to 2022…
(12 November 2012)


IEA cuts global forecast for growth in nuclear capacity

Platts
The International Energy Agency has cut its 2011 projections for growth in installed nuclear power capacity by 10% to 580 gigawatts in 2035 in its latest World Energy Outlook issued Monday, Fatih Birol, chief economist of the Paris-based agency told a news conference in London to present the report.

In aggregate, world nuclear capacity in the WEO’s New Policies Scenario is about 50 GW lower than last year’s prediction, Birol said…
(12 November 2012)


Tags: climate change, Coal, energy efficiency, gas, Nuclear, Oil, Renewables