Into the Crystal Ball | Green Energy News

December 14, 2003 – Vol.8 No.38

INTO THE CRYSTAL BALL.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) can’t tell us exactly what will happen in the future (energy-wise) but with a wide array of data at its finger tips it can make some best-guesses.

The division of the Department of Energy has issued its yearly long-range, two-decade forecast, with (comments by this editor.)

-- Overall, U.S. energy consumption will increase by 1.5 percent per year for the next 20. (That kind of growth should keep the energy sector of the economy busy.)

-- U.S. domestic crude oil production will increase from 5.6 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2002 to a peak of 6.1 million bpd in 2008. Thereafter it will decline to 4.6 million bpd by 2025. (Domestic crude reserves are dwindling.)

-- By 2025 domestic demand for oil will increase from 20 million bpd to 28.3 million bpd.

-- By 2025 our dependence on imported oil and refined products will go from 54 percent in 2002 to 70 percent. (We’ll be taking more oil from Iraq and now that Libya has promised to give up its weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. will have access to that oil too - eventually.)

-- Adjusted for inflation, oil will rise in price from $27 a barrel in 2002 to $52, adjusted for inflation, in two decades, . (The wildcard is the China factor. If China continues to pursue gasoline fueled cars, and its economy continues to grow, it will be sucking up petrol at an alarming rate putting pressure on global oil supplies/prices. But China is also aware of this problem and has taken steps to avoid energy dependency)

-- Natural gas consumption will grow by 1.4 percent each year from 22.8 trillion cubic feet (tcf) in 2002 to 31.4 tcf in 2025, yet U.S. production will drop to 23.79 tcf by 2020. (Read tight supplies, thus more need for imported natural gas in the liquid form - LNG.)

-- Coal will be the primary fuel for power plants, from 50 percent today to 52 percent by 2025.

-- Renewable power generation will grow by 1.9 percent per year to 518 billion kilowatt hours. State mandates for renewable energy will help that growth. (Like the overall growth figure for energy that’s a substantial amount of business. However it should be greater, shouldn’t it?)

-- No new nuclear power plants will be built but generating capacity at current stations will increase.

-- Carbon dioxide emissions will increase 1.5 percent per year (That goes along with the overall growth figure, with most energy still coming from carbon sources.)

-- (Hydrogen is not mentioned in the report, but again the EIA can make predictions only on available information. The work already undertaken to actually BUILD a hydrogen economy is minuscule compared with the entire energy economy. Hydrogen isn’t yet on the EIA radar screen .)

For the Early Release of the Annual Energy Outlook 2004 visit the EIA at http://www.eia.doe.gov/ (click What’s New, scroll down)