A 'Peak Oil' Prediction Surprise From the International Energy Agency (cnbc.com)
- Reference: 0180078712
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/11/15/0352221/a-peak-oil-prediction-surprise-from-the-international-energy-agency
- Source link: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/13/what-now-for-peak-oil-unpacking-the-ieas-shift-on-fossil-fuel-demand.html
> In its flagship [2]World Energy Outlook , the Paris-based agency on Wednesday laid out a scenario in which demand for oil climbs to 113 million barrels per day by 2050, up 13% from 2024 levels. The IEA had [3]previously estimated a peak in global fossil fuel demand before the end of this decade and said that, in order to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, there [4]should be no new investments in coal, oil and gas projects... The IEA's end-of-decade peak oil forecast kick-started a long-running [5]war of words with OPEC, an influential group of oil exporting countries, which accused the IEA of fearmongering and risking the destabilization of the global economy.
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> The IEA's latest forecast of increasing oil demand was outlined in its "Current Policies Scenario" — one of a number of scenarios outlined by the IEA. This one assumes no new policies or regulations beyond those already in place. The CPS was dropped five years ago amid [6]energy market turmoil during the coronavirus pandemic, and its reintroduction follows [7]pressure from the Trump administration... Gregory Brew, an analyst at Eurasia Group's Energy, Climate and Resources team, said the IEA's retreat on peak oil demand signified "a major shift" from the group's position over the last five years. "The justifications offered for the shift include policy changes in the U.S., where slow EV penetration indicates robust oil [consumption], but is also tied to expected increases in petrochemical and aviation fuel in East and Southeast Asia," Brew told CNBC by email. "It's unlikely the agency is adjusting based on political pressure — though there has been some of that, with the Trump administration criticizing the group's supposed bias in favor of renewable energy — and the shift reflects a broader skepticism that oil demand is set to peak any time soon," he added...
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> Alongside its CPS, the IEA also laid out projections under its so-called "Stated Policies Scenario" (STEPS), which reflects the prevailing direction of travel for the global energy system. In this assumption, the IEA said it expects oil demand to peak at 102 million barrels per day around 2030, before gradually declining. Global electric car sales are much stronger under this scenario compared to the CPS. The IEA said its multiple scenarios explore a range of consequences from various policy choices and should not be considered forecasts.
Thanks to Slashdot reader [8]magzteel for sharing the news.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/13/what-now-for-peak-oil-unpacking-the-ieas-shift-on-fossil-fuel-demand.html
[2] https://www.iea.org/news/as-risks-multiply-in-a-world-thirsty-for-energy-diversification-and-cooperation-are-more-urgent-than-ever
[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/24/demand-for-fossil-fuels-set-to-peak-by-2030-but-its-not-enough-iea.html
[4] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/18/stop-investing-in-fossil-fuels-to-meet-net-zero-targets-iea-says.html
[5] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/05/peak-crude-demand-is-fueling-anger-and-argument-in-the-world-of-oil.html
[6] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/26/why-oil-prices-went-negative-and-why-they-can-go-negative-again.html
[7] https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-official-pressure-international-energy-agency-drop-climate-mission/
[8] https://slashdot.org/~magzteel
Plastics and oils (Score:2, Informative)
Green energy requires oil based plastics and oil based chemicals. EVs require oil based plastics and oil based chemicals. Fuels are needed for extraction and transportation of raw materials such as lithium and cobalt. Fuels are needed to run the intricate Asian supply chains the low cost global economy depends on - itâ(TM)s all by ship. Improvements in EV technology arenâ(TM)t going to eliminate the dirtiest fuels from transportation. This explains why: [1]https://youtu.be/w__a8EcM2jI?s... [youtu.be]
[1] https://youtu.be/w__a8EcM2jI?si=pL8S1et5-u0w1-WQ
Re: Plastics and oils (Score:1)
What about hemp?
We will burn (Score:3)
Every liter of oil, every cubic meter of gas, and every metric ton of coal that we can extract, in addition to consuming every watt of renewable energy we can produce.
Nobody will stop voluntarily. For all our intelligence and civilization, humans are exhibiting classic animal behavior that any ecologist or evolutionary biologist would instantly recognize. A species of animal will expand it’s range and utilization of resources until external circumstance force it to stop.
I’m not gonna judge or preach. But, let’s face the facts. This is what’s happening. On this score, we’re no different than a termite mound or a species of squirrel.
Re: (Score:2)
We're like the photosynthetic microbes that caused the Oxygen Catastrophe.
Re: We will burn (Score:1)
Are they saying peak oil demand will occur before peak production? How come fertility is dropping below replacement? Did the stone age end because we ran out of stones?
Re: (Score:2)
> I’m not gonna judge or preach. But, let’s face the facts. This is what’s happening. On this score, we’re no different than a termite mound or a species of squirrel.
If everyone gives up their free agency and lives more like termites we can carry on longer before it all collapses. But it is going to collapse in the end eventually regardless.
So it's a problem that will solve itself (Score:2)
In either a great way or a horrifying dystopian way.
Either we get rid of billionaires and ruling classes and we rule together without demanding leaders control us or we let the billionaires take over and become trillionaires and then completely dismantle capitalism. Once that happens the economy collapses, all of us basically regress into feudal poverty and about 1% of the population will still have modern technological civilization and the other 99% will have basically nothing.
That's the plan anywa
Re: So it's a problem that will solve itself (Score:2)
This has nothing to do with billionaires. You can decide right now to stop buying plastics, stop replacing your phone every year, give up your car and move to a city center, and stop supporting businesses that are oil based. If everybody who is concerned about oil consumption did this, oil consumption would shrink. Oil companies are simply meeting demand, burning more. Instead we want someone else to do something about it but no one can really say what that something is. Easier to blame the billionaires whe
Re: (Score:2)
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Walt Kelly
Re: (Score:2)
> This has nothing to do with billionaires. You can decide right now to stop buying plastics, stop replacing your phone every year, give up your car and move to a city center, and stop supporting businesses that are oil based.
I don't want to stop buying plastics. I want to have the option to buy actually recycled plastics that actually get recycled. We can do this but we don't. We don't because the people with all the money who therefore control the means of production decide that we don't. "We" is a stretchy word. So is "you" and so's "can". Sure, you can choose to opt out of society, but it would make more sense to make society not shit all over everything.
Re: (Score:2)
[1]Collective action problem [wikipedia.org]
Or maybe the idea that efforts like environmental protections are down to individual changes is and always has been a tactic by those polluters to shift blame and responsibility off to the consumer, the consumer who by individually entity have very little effect. Case in point plastic recycling; pushed for decades and decades by plastic producers as viable when it was never really so and they knew it all along. The goal of that little charade like all these claims of "oh just plan
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem
Re: So it's a problem that will solve itself (Score:1)
Without capitalism, AI, and social media, will we be happy again?
Tired of getting burned, so to speak (Score:2)
Fell for this prediction years and years ago..then they discovered fracking. I'll believe it when the pumps run dry.
Technology (Score:2)
The oil industry has a half dozen or so new technologies for extracting oil from the ground that wouldn't be otherwise accessible. They aren't using them because it costs a lot to ramp up manufacturing and deployment of new gear, and training people to use it. Fracking and traditional pumping work fine for now. Once what's available gets harder to extract using those methods, prices will go up and they'll switch to a different technology.
"net-zero emissions by 2050" (Score:2)
What does "net-zero" mean? What does "carbon neutral" mean? Humanity will always produce large amounts of CO2 making concrete and through agriculture (and other sources). To get to "net-zero" doesn't that mean that industrial scale CO2 removal needs to begin immediately?
Peak oil? (Score:2)
Wow. Hey, I know! Someone go find the Doomsday clock people. With those and maybe the end-of-antibiotics folks we can round the whole establishment anxiety parade in a weekend.
NOT a prediction FFS (Score:1)
"The IEA said its multiple scenarios [...] should *not* be considered forecasts"
So Slashdot runs this with the headline: "A 'Peak Oil' Prediction Surprise From the International Energy Agency"
FFS
Re: (Score:2)
> multiple scenarios
They missed a few important ones. Like the one about the [1]aliens. [cartalk.com] Personally, that's the one I'm waiting for.
[1] https://www.cartalk.com/radio/letter/guy-test
It's a "scenario" added under pressure (Score:2)
If you read around a few more articles on this, the new "scenario" assuming no changed regulations or programs anywhere, was added under "pressure". The IEA has some independence, and came up with the peak-before-2030 scenarios a few years ago.
OPEC+ reacted in horror and condemnation, of course, - how dare they effectively call it a sunset industry that will shrink through the 2030s - and set up their own predictions group that came up with a scenario like this one. IEA, (which isn't entirely independe
Wrong about Production, Too (Score:2)
They weren't just wrong about consumption/demand. I've said before that the peak oil wikipedia article has been one of the more amusing ones to follow for a while:
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Figure 1: What we propagandized to you for decades and hoped to influence public policy with.
Figure 2: How pants-shittingly wrong we were.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil