How to read energy journalism

[Viva_La_Revolution]

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/energy-futurist/why-energy-journalism-is-so-bad/219
great article, go read the whole thing :)

...I realize that this all may seem a bit wonky and hard to understand, so I’ll finish with a few words to the wise for the unwary reader.

1. Be skeptical. You will have to make up for the missing skepticism and curiosity of the journalists you’re reading. If the article is all sunshine and roses, and includes no caveats or alternative views, it will be more useful to you as fishwrap than information.

2. Discount the sources. If the cited authority represents the oil and gas industry, you should view their forecasts as propaganda, not truth. Particularly when the authority is from an OPEC producer. OPEC (like the IEA) is a fundamentally political organization, and everything they say in public has a political calculus behind it. For example, I read the unconventional oil optimism expressed by the Saudi official cited at the top of this piece as their way of jawboning down peak oil fears, and throwing analysts off the scent of a trail which leads to serious questions about whether Aramco can increase spare production capacity, and whether the world’s most productive oil field, Ghawar, has indeed gone into decline.

3. Do the math. If the numbers cited don’t add up, then you would be wise to question the validity of what you’re reading. Most of the time it’s simple arithmetic you can do in your head. More ambitious readers will want to bust out a spreadsheet and have a go at the details.