ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the current (mid-2000) ‘business as usual’ or ‘reference case’ scenarios of energy and oil trends to 2020 of the three main agencies that expose their projections – and their methods – to public scrutiny. 1 These are:
the European Commission (EC), through its 1999 ‘Shared Analysis’ based on the POLES model of the Institut d’Economie et de Politique de l’Energie, referred to here as EC (POLES);
the Energy Information Agency (EIA) of the US Department of Energy, in its annual International Energy Outlook, referred to here as EIA (IEO-00) or EIA 00; and
the International Energy Agency (IEA), through its biennial World Energy Outlook, referred to here as IEA (WEO-98) or IEA 98. A new World Energy Outlook was due for publication in November 2000.
