IEA BLOCKS NEW ENERGY, PUSHES OIL—ENERGY WATCH GROUP

Pronouncements from the International Energy Agency (IEA), the world energy resource authority of the 30 industrial-nation Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), are veritably apocryphal. Yet a new report from Energy Watch Group argues the IEA’s reports are little short of propaganda for the fossil fuels and traditional energy industries.

Wind Power in Context – A clean Revolution in the Energy Sector: “…the IEA Outlook remains attached to oil, gas, coal and nuclear, and renewables seem to have no chance to reverse this trend. This organization, whose constitutional task would be to protect consumers from price hikes and to deliver energy security, has been and is deploying misleading data on renewables for many years…One has to ask if the ignorance and contempt of IEA toward wind power and renewables in general is done within a structure of intent. Renewables tend to look ever expensive and close to irrelevant while oil, coal and nuclear look irreplaceable in the IEA World Energy Outlook reference scenarios. Is it this message that big companies and US presidents need to fight a war for oil, subsidies and profits, disguised as a ‘war on terrorism’?”

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A sample of Energy Watch Group's findings: “Despite all wind industry indicators pointing at an acceleration of capacities, the IEA in its 1995-2007 forecasts has predicted continuous stagnation of annual wind capacity additions for at least the next ten years…The IEA numbers were neither empirically nor theoretically based…While for the short-term the IEA acknowledges a healthier growth perspective for the wind sector, the growth of annual additions over the whole 2010-2030 period remains at only 2.2 percent per year, which is a very low projection compared with the mean growth of 30.4 percent per year over the 1998-2007 period…"

In a statement accompanying the report’s release, the author continued his bold accusatory stance.

Rudolf Rechsteiner, member of the Swiss parliament/author, Wind Power in Context…: "They are delaying the change to a renewable world. They continue touting nuclear and carbon-capture-and-storage, classical central solutions, instead of a more neutral approach, which would favour new solutions."

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The Energy Watch Group report focuses on wind energy and presents a thorough statistical analysis of 4 varying future scenarios. This leads to findings for all 4 scenarios that sharply differ from the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2008. (See WIND TO PASS GAS WITHIN 6 YEARS – IEA) While the IEA predicted significant growth in New Energies, the Energy Watch Group report concludes wind will become “…a backbone of the power business.”

The report lists 16 convincing arguments for why wind is preferable to traditional electricity generation (fossil fuels and nuclear) technologies (enumerated below). Many of the same arguments could be made for the preferability of all the New Energies over the poisons of the past.

Wind Power in Context…: “Wind power generation will be of the same volume as conventional generation as soon as 2025 if historical growth of the wind sector continues (A, C-scenarios). In that case, high market shares of wind will dominate the power plant industry over the next 15 years (accompanied by solar expansion)…”

The report also shows the IEA to have been as inaccurate in its oil price predictions as it has been about New Energy.

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The report concludes with a lengthy and technical evaluation of the potentials of wind (specifically) and New Energy (in general) and concludes they are the most cost effective choices going forward.

John Hemming, member, British Parliament/member, Energy Watch Group: "The IEA has been complacent, and part of the conventional wisdom that the solution is more oil and gas. The British government relies on the IEA. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king — but the IEA's one eye has a cataract."

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International Energy Agency 'blocking global switch to renewables'; International Energy Agency accused of consistently underestimating potential of wind, solar and sea power while promoting oil, coal and nuclear as 'irreplaceable' technologies
David Adams, 9 January 2009 (UK Guardian)

WHO
Energy Watch Group; International Energy Agency (IEA); Rudolf Rechsteiner, member, Swiss parliament and Swiss parliament energy and environment committee and author, Wind Power in Context – A clean Revolution in the Energy Sector

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WHAT
Wind Power in Context – A clean Revolution in the Energy Sector comes to significantly different conclusions about New Energy’s available and installed resources than the IEA and argues that the IEA creates the impression the world must remain reliant on fossil fuels when the accurately evaluated potential of New Energy presents an alternative.

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WHEN
- Wind capacity has doubled every 2-to-3 years since 1998.
- 1998: IEA predicted world wind would total 47.4 gigawatts by 2020, a capacity reached in 2004.
- 2002: IEA revised estimate predicted world wind would total 104 gigawatts by 2020, a level passed in summer 2008.
- 2015: The IEA World Outlook 2008 predicts expansion of wind from 2006 to 2015 but a slowdown after that. Energy Watch Group contends IEA gives no explanation for a fall off and sees none.
- The Rechsteiner report was completed in December 2008 and released January 9.

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WHERE
- Both the new report and IEA’s World Outlook consider global energy supplies.
- The Energy Watch report has specifics on New Energy development in the U.S. and Europe as well as Texas, Germany, Spain and other individual cases.
- The report provides 4 differing scenarios for the development of New Energy through 2040.

WHY
- The governments of the 30 nations that constitute the OECD accept the OECD’s judgments as legitimate and unbiased. Energy Watch Group contends the are biased and inaccurate.
- The report documents at great length the many inaccurate IEA forecasts in New Energy growth and fossil fuel prices.
- Rechsteiner contends the IEA is staffed by oil industry people.
- The Energy Watch Group report enumerates 16 reasons wind preferable to traditional electricity generation (fossil fuels and nuclear) technologies:
(1) It is cost-free;
(2) It is virtually infinitely renewable;
(3) It is abundant and access/supply can’t be cut off;
(4) It has a certain life-cycle-cost;
(5) It is presently cost competitive with other generation sources;
(6) Wind generates no emissions, pollution or hazardous waste;
(7) No water for cooling is required;
(8) Wind has a positive EROEI;
(9) There is easy access to wind technology everywhere;
(10) Installation development is a year or less;
(11) Innovation cycles are fast and continuous;
(12) Wind is young, with improving technology and decreasing cost;
(13) Wind is a “big” distributed generation, allowing a far wider spectrum of participants than the fossil fuels and nuclear businesses;
(14) Wind sources are in many cases proximal to demand centers (1-1000 miles);
(15) Wind creates jobs, tax revenues, rural income options, remote infrastructure opportunities, community investment opportunities and other benefits;
(16) Wind energy replaces import expenses with local technology development, local energy generation, local know-how development and local human labor.

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QUOTES
Wind Power in Context… , conclusion: “Due to rising fuel costs for non-renewables we expect that interconnection, balancing and storage issues can and will be resolved within reasonable terms and at reasonable costs. The main driver of this movement is market economics. Incentives for wind integration are given by cost savings. Incentives for storage facilities are given by excess wind power which is and will be available in huge and cheap volumes at times of low demand. These additional supplies will drive the construction of new, affordable back-up storages.