EMF OP 49 Projecting Energy Trends Into the New Century

Well before the 1973 oil price shock, analysts frequently forecasted future energy market conditions (e.g. see Putnam 1953 and Schurr and Netschert 1960). Today the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) routinely report energy outlooks based upon evolving technology, economics, and policy assumptions. We will refer to such systems as energy projection frameworks. In addition, many energy-based models have been recast to help analysts project long-term energy patterns and their influence on global climate change. We will refer to these systems as integrated assessment (IA) models (Weyant 1999). This article briefly discusses the more readily available and routinely produced energy projections from the first group of models and highlights their most recently available estimates. It will focus on the underlying energy trends to provide a perspective on future emissions growth but will not directly examine the environmental implications of these energy projections.