By Amy Myers Jaffe
The conventional wisdom about steadily rising demand is wrong. Within two decades, global oil use will start to fall.
When it comes to oil demand, the conventional wisdom is clear: Population growth and a rising global middle class guarantee that demand—and prices—will rise over the coming decades. It is a story line that is almost universally accepted by investors, governments and industry alike.
But like many such consensus views, it is one that should be treated with caution.
The world’s economy is experiencing transformational changes that, I believe, will dramatically alter patterns of energy use over the next 20 years. Exponential gains in industrial productivity, software-assisted logistics, rapid urbanization, increased political turmoil in key regions of the developing world, and large bets on renewable energy are among the many factors that will combine to slow the previous breakneck growth for oil.
The result, in my opinion, is as startling as it is world-changing: Global oil demand will peak within the next two decades.
Read the full Wall Street Journal feature.
