"Industry and government decision makers and others with a stake in the energy sector all need WEO-2012. It presents authoritative projections of energy trends through to 2035 and insights into what they mean for energy security, environmental sustainability and economic development."

At the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm on 29 Nov. 2012 (begins at 10 min from start of the video)

A summary review of 15 IEA World Energy Outlooks shows the following pattern.

1. The WEOs are embedded in a positivist pattern of futher growth and progress, as if the world were flat and resources infinite.
2. Resource scarcities and climate change are mentioned but the IEA is confident that technology can provide the solutions.
3. The forecasts generally cover a time span of 30 years, after which the IEA world ends.
4. The WEO occasionally refers to environmental problems such as biodiversity loss, water, desertification, and food production for a steadily rising world population. The "solutions" "must" be found, as if the use of the imperative would mean that solutions can be found.
5. Trade, economic growth, lifting poor countries out of poverty, and employment are the common theme for the positivist trends. No question is asked whether the earth can support ever more people and their products, and what happens when we have used up all natural resources, which include living matter and minerals, as well as soil fertility and livng space.
6. The unreflected BAU ideology that 1.4 billion people should get electricity, and thus get access to all electric amenities of the overdeveloped world, never mind where this electricity could come from.
7. Hydraulic dams are still seen as an option to increase electricity production, in spite of the fact that there is no water that could be used without harming biodiversity and food production.
8. The usual finger is pointed at energy subsidies, although some countries may have valid social reasons for such subsidies.
9. The IEA is blindly confident in the environmental harmlessness of unconventional oil and gas exploration, "if" the correct rules and technologies are applied.
10. Energy efficiency is seen as a solution, even allowing more economic growth, without questioning growth and concluding that growth is a suicidal policy on a finite world.
11. The IEA follows the prevailing opinion that greenhouse emissions and the effects of climate change can be mitigated by investment, i.e. technology and innovation. In reality there is no technology that could significantly reduce emissions and/or sequester greenhouse gases. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) can only be applied to power stations, and it is a questionable technology without any guarantee of long-term storage.

Further down we juxtapose some excerpts from the IEA WEOs from 1998 and 2012. [to be finished; last update 24DEC2012 (09DEC2012)] top Energy page list

Some IEA excerpts

WEO 2012 Executive Summary [new window]