The International Energy Agency is the energy think tank for rich and emerging countries. But there are other reasons why we should pay attention to what they say.
The first is because the IEA puts out each year the World Energy Outlook (WEO) assessment, which is the definitive word on who has energy, what kind, how the energy being used, and what the trends are. This is why the WEO is the barometer against which policymakers and the private sector make forward energy projections.
2. The second reason for listening to the IEA is because they have done an exceptional job of drawing attention to the more than 1 billion people who lack access to energy (other than biomass fuels, which sits at the bottom of the energy ladder.) The IEA’s Chief Economist, Turkish-born Fatih Birol, has for many years led the call for greater attention and funding to the issue. Needless to say, we’re huge fans of Mr. Birol.
3. The third reason is they put out awesome, information rich charts and graphs! (Yes, we’re total graph nerds at The Charcoal Project)
Check out our other stories on Mr. Birol and the IEA’s WEO for 2009.
The 2010 World Energy Outlook report is due out shortly. Here’s a preview of what Mr. Birol had to say to Reuters:
* 1.2 bln people without power access by 2030, 1.4 bln now
* Universal access to energy would boost oil demand 1 pct
* Number of people relying on biomass stoves to grow by 2030
By Muriel Boselli PARIS, Sept 21 (Reuters) – It would cost $36 billion per year to enable the world’s 1 billion energy-starved people to access energy supplies at home by 2030, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday.
The IEA said in an excerpt of its 2010 World Energy Outlook that some 1.2 billion people, equivalent to China’s population, would still have no electricity by 2030 if governments made no change to existing policies, down from 1.4 billion currently. The $36 billion per year only represented 3 percent of global energy investments projected by the agency to 2030.
“This is peanuts compared to other investments which are made,” Fatih Birol, chief economist at the IEA, said in an interview. In Nigeria for instance, Africa’s top oil producer, where half the 152 million population has no access to electricity supplies, it would cost the country 0.4 percent of its oil and gas revenues to fix the situation, Birol said.
Achieving universal access to energy supplies would only boost oil demand by less than 1 percent and carbon dioxide emissions by 0.8 percent, Birol said, adding this was because most people who lack access to electricity live in rural areas. “Since they are not connected to the cities, in most cases decentralised systems such as wind, mini-hydro or solar, will be used,” Birol added.
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