Peak Oil and the IEA (What they don't want you to know…)

…On the 26th of November 2008, I sent an interview request to Dr. Birol, in order to discuss how Peak Oil would affect International Relations (my degree’s dissertation topic). While he was first “delighted” to meet with me (as reported by his assistant), he then cancelled the meeting. Nevertheless, Dr. Birol asked me to meet one of his “senior colleagues” at the IEA, Olivier Rech.

On the 18th of December 2008, I met Mr. Rech at the IEA HQ in Paris.

Mr. Rech, who was a key contributor to the 2008 WEO, clearly recognised the reality and seriousness of the impending crisis (yes, Peak Oil is real and yes, ASPO is likely to be right). As an example, he declared that:

“What we understand today by mobility, such as spending a weekend at 1000 km, maybe in 20 years, the height of exoticism will be to go on a weekend at 20km of distance”.

During the conversation, Mr. Rech also mentioned the difficult topic of global population in a post-Peak Oil world:

“(Dr. Colin) Campbell effectively says that agricultural production will collapse because fertilisers will run out, by a lack of fuel and that the variable of adjustment to the problem will be the global population. Frankly I don’t know. It is so cataclysmic that me, I, I reach my limits. I reach my intellectual limits on that.”

So while the British Government (and many others) declares that it “does not feel the need to hold contingency plans specifically for the eventuality of crude oil supplies peaking between now and 2020″, a senior energy expert at the IEA – the body that advices our governments on oil – who wrote part of the 2008 WEO, cannot rule out the death of a significant part of humankind in the coming decades.

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P.S.

This article was originally submitted to The Oil Drum (one of the leading Peak Oil news webpage). While the editors initially accepted to publish the article, at the very last moment they changed their mind. In other words, an article on Peak Oil was censored by… The Oil Drum (TOD).

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