I have spent countless hours this year listening to conference presentations and webinars about the utility of the future, with wise heads from every sector of the industry discussing what changes are coming, when they will arrive and what it all means. The talks have been interesting, if not a bit predictable, but they have all missed a central point: No matter how smart the forecaster or how thoughtful the analysis, unforeseen technologies or unexpected events are certain to render them essentially meaningless.
Think that is too harsh an assessment? Well, then, take a tour with me of the Energy Information Administration’s 2004 (yes, I said 2004) Annual Energy Outlook. Before we begin, let me offer a quick caveat: I am a big fan of EIA and its data collection and interpretation work since it is not tied to any side of the debate. This impartiality is vital; you can quibble with the numbers, but at least you don’t have to worry that they are skewed because of who was footing the bill.
Trust me, I don’t normally peruse back issues of EIA’s outlook, but I pulled it up for some other research and the more I read, the more intrigued I became. And as I read, I couldn’t get over the feeling that while the analysis was just 10 years old, it seemed to be talking about a different world than the one we live in today.
Natural Gas Turnaround
Let’s start with this: “The most significant change made in the AEO2004 energy supply projections is in the outlook for natural gas,” EIA wrote. “Domestic natural gas production increases from 19.1 trillion cubic feet in 2002 to 24.1 trillion cubic feet in 2025 in the AEO2004 forecast, an average increase of 1.0 percent per year.”
According to current EIA data, actual U.S. domestic natural gas production topped 24.3 tcf in 2013.
So what happened?
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