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Key Oil Figures Were Distorted by US Pressure, Says Whistleblower

 Terry Macalister, Guardian UK

Monday 09 November 2009


Exclusive: Watchdog's estimates of reserves inflated says top official.

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.

The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation's latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies.

Read more about the potential innacuracy of the latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply by clicking here.

 

 

  

Comments

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Good. I hope we run out

 Tue, 11/10/2009 - 23:36 — Anonymous (not verified)
Good. I hope we run out soon. It may be the only thing that will spur us to switch away from fossil fuels to green energy and save the human race. But more likely we'd just move on to dirtier and more expensive forms of fossil fuels. If so, we deserve what we will get.

"switch away from fossil

 Wed, 11/11/2009 - 07:05 — Bearzerker (not verified)
"switch away from fossil fuels to green energy and save the human race"... say what?... if you really wanna save the huma race... deal with overpopulation first... thats the number one reason for our current enviro-distasters... over logging/deforestation due to human impact is the main cause of your concerns... concerning this article... "Lawrence Solomon: Endless oil" [http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/09/12/lawrence-solomon-endless-oil.aspx] plus numerous other scientific papers refute this article... there is much science on both sides of the argument but wrt running outta oil... they've been saying this since the 70's and still we're a petro-hooked nation... no political will to move to a cleaner hydrogen based economy

How can we believe anything

 Wed, 11/11/2009 - 13:43 — Anonymous (not verified)
How can we believe anything from any agency about any subject? The oil interests will not stop until they drain every last drop from the planet and leave the consumer standing at the pump. We bail out the auto producers who in turn produce more cars with no real change except a few more miles to the gallon. How did that happen?

It's true that

 Wed, 11/11/2009 - 17:21 — Anonymous (not verified)
It's true that overpopulation is one of the main root causes of global warming, but exactly how do you propose we bring the population down quickly enough to avoid a global warming disaster? Even if you somehow banned all new births, just waiting for enough people to die would not reduce emissions quickly enough. I agree that overpopulation needs to be addressed, but that alone will not stop global warming before we suffer horrendous effects. In the short term we must switch completely to green energy and electric vehicles and make everything more energy efficient, or else we will fail.

23:36 — Anonymous: It

 Thu, 11/12/2009 - 02:31 — Anonymous (not verified)
23:36 — Anonymous: It isn't good to run out of oil before we've done something about replacing it. It also isn't good to just keep using oil, even if we had an unlimited supply of it. Oil is not just a fuel source. It's the single greatest threat to our environment today (with possible exceptions including “clean” coal and nuclear power). Its continued use really could cause another ice age. If that happens, you won't be smiling when you say "I told you so". You'll be too busy stockpiling weapons (if you can get a conservative to sell you one) to fight your neighborhood's very own civil war, stockpiling food for your children and stockpiling wood to stave off freezing to death. It's going to be an agonizing cruel death for billions of people. Don't worry about over-population Bearzerker. If we just run out, without preparing first, then we'll have the same civil war and decades of getting used to living, once again, as if this were the 18th Century (no, not even the 19th Century). Maybe the outcome would be less tragic. Maybe the ensuing economic collapse and civil unrest would only kill numbers in the hundreds of millions. Either way, wishing to be proven right is a stupid waste of time right now. Politicians will have to be FORCED into taking this seriously by voters, BEFORE voters are forced to suffer the consequences. That is going to require foresight. When was the last time American voters and politicians had the foresight and political will to fix a problem BEFORE suffering from its aftermath?