Commentary: ASPO-USA Meets with DOE Officials — Some Things We Learned

On Monday, December 17, representatives of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas USA (ASPO-USA) met with senior officials of the Energy Information Administration (EIA), including Administrator Adam Sieminski, and staff from other offices within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The meeting was arranged following a letter that ASPO-USA sent to Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Sieminski after his appointment as EIA administrator earlier this year. The letter outlined key questions and concerns regarding oil and gas information that EIA provides.

Previous long-term government, industry oil forecasts badly overestimated supply; why should we listen now?

The reverence accorded each new forecast of future energy supplies from international and government agencies and from major oil companies seems to go far beyond that accorded to the oracle of Delphi in ancient Greece. That oracle’s record may be lost in the mists of time, but we can check the record for these modern energy oracles.