What Can History Teach Us? A Retrospective Examination of Long-Term Energy Forecasts for the United States

Abstract

▪ Abstract This paper explores how long-term energy forecasts are created and why they are useful. It focuses on forecasts of energy use in the United States for the year 2000 but considers only long-term predictions, i.e., those covering two or more decades. The motivation is current interest in global warming forecasts, some of which run beyond a century. The basic observation is that forecasters in the 1950–1980 period underestimated the importance of unmodeled surprises. A key example is the failure to foresee the ability of the United States economy to respond to the oil embargos of the 1970s by increasing efficiency. Not only were most forecasts of that period systematically high, but forecasters systematically underestimated uncertainties. Long-term energy forecasts must make assumptions about both technologies and social systems. At their most successful, they influence how people act by showing the consequences of not acting. They are useful when they provide insights to energy planners, influence the perceptions of the public and the energy policy community, capture current understanding of underlying physical and economic principles, or highlight key emerging social or economic trends. It is true that at best we see dimly into the future, but those who acknowledge their duty to posterity will feel impelled to use their foresight upon what facts and guiding principles we do possess. Though many data are at present wanting or doubtful, our conclusions may be rendered so far probable as to lead to further inquiries… ( 1 ), p. 4.

Energy Demand Models For Policy Formulation: A Comparative Study Of Energy Demand Models

“…The virtue of simple models is that the skill and data requirement is low and such models are more tractable rather than the hidden assumptions of complex models (Brown, 1984). This is further supported by Craig et al (2002) who found that many long-term forecasts using sophisticated models for the USA produced inaccurate forecasts in the past. Armstrong (2001) …”

“…See also Munasinghe and Meier (1993), Siddayao (1986), Codoni et al (1985), Donnelly (1987) for further details. 6 See Codoni et al (1985), Siddayao (1986), Munasinghe and Meier (1992), Craig et al (2002) for further discussions on some of these models.…”

“…Reviewing energy demand forecasts in the United States, Craig et al (2002) show that most of the forecasts overestimated the demand by 100%. The models employed suffer from a long list of limitations.…”

“…A number of surveys of energy demand models have appeared previously, including, among others, those by Hartman (1979), Bohi (1981), Bohi and Zimmerman (1984), Craig et al (2002), Worrel et al (2004), Wirl and Szirucsek (1990). These studies, however, focus mainly on developed countries.…”

Communicating uncertainty in the IPCC’s greenhouse gas emissions scenarios

“…Based on the four scenario families, six scenario groups were developed. 14 There is no traditional trend/Business-as-Usual scenario (Craig et al 2002;Turkenburg 1993), because the long-term scope of the climate change problem requires strategic orientation on several possible developments. In SRES, there are four so-called scenario families and all scenarios are "equally possible" (SRES, p172).…”