forecasting

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Recent forecasts argue the U.S. will be energy independent in the next decade or maybe two. Or at least North America will be energy independent, with the U.S. taking the place of Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer.  The U.S. will also be a net energy exporter—meaning we will export a greater energy equivalent of...[read more]

Last month the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its World Energy Outlook 2012 and unfortunately the world outlook is not so good. To be more precise, a key conclusion of the report is that “Taking all new developments and policies into account, the world is still failing to put the global energy system onto a more...[read more]

Most of us have heard that Thomas Malthus made a forecast in 1798 that the world would run short of food, and that great famine would result. But most of us don’t understand why he was wrong. This issue is relevant today, as we grapple with the issues of world hunger and of oil consumption that is not growing as rapidly as consumers...[read more]

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The International Energy Agency forecasts that the United States will become the world’s largest oil producer by 2020, and will become a net oil exporter by 2030. What the forecasts ignore is the problem of diminishing returns.[read more]

If there is one thing we can learn from the headlines of the past week or so – Market Plunge Baffles Wall Street, Size of Spill in Gulf of Mexico is Larger Than Thought, ‘Amateurish’ Bomb Defused in Times Square—it is that we cannot reliably forecast the future, that the world is bound to surprise us, frequently in unpleasant ways, and...[read more]

Mathematician Mary Hutzler, is an important voice in energy forecasting. Before she left the Energy Information Agency in 2004, Mary had served as both the acting administrator and deputy administrator of the agency. She was also the director of the EIA’s Office of Integrated Analysis and Forecasting. After 25 years with the agency...[read more]

Philip Tetlock – the expert on political expertise – reviews three books on political forecasting for The National Interest, but the problem of selecting a good forecast equally applies in commerce: Reading these three books, it is easy to feel like a frustrated shopper wandering aimlessly down the forecasting aisle in the supermarket...[read more]