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IEA’s Chief Economist Fatih Birol: Quit Oil Before It Is Too Late

BERLIN, April 8- “We should leave oil before oil leaves us,” summarized the International Energy Agency’s chief economist, Fatih Birol, the outlook for the world’s future energy situation in a lengthy question-and-answer interview this month with the German monthly journal “Internationale Politik” (International Politics).

Headlined “The Sirens Are Wailing,” Birol, in a conversation with Astrid Schneider, spokeswoman of the Alliance 90/The Greens in the German Bundestag parliament and scientific adviser to the German “Energy Watch Group,” said the scissor combination of expected lower oil production and higher demand between now and 2015 may result in relatively gradual energy price increases - not necessarily skyrocketing price spikes. It may give mankind “some time to adjust,” he added. “But looking at this long-term, it becomes clear that nothing changes whether oil runs out in 2030 or 2040 or 2050.”

Asked an apparently incredulous Schneider: “Is that what you are saying?”

“Yes,” replied Birol, director of the IEA’s respected World Energy Outlook series which published its most recent report last November. “One day it will definitely be finished. And I think we should leave oil before it leaves us. That should be our motto. We should prepare for that day with research and development, how we can replace oil, what kinds of living standards we will be able to maintain, what alternatives we can develop.”

The German-language interview was summarized by HyWeb, the German hydrogen energy technology Internet website which also provided a link to the original transcript, http://www.internationalepolitik.de/archiv/jahrgang-2008/april/--die-sirenen-schrillen--.html published by the German Ludwig-Boelkow-Systemtechnik (LBST) think tank. LBST published similar findings last October, after warning ten years earlier that global maximum oil production was likely to occur before 2010.

(A more detailed version of this report will be published in the upcoming May issue of “The Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Letter”).

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