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The chief economist at the International Energy Agency said recently that conventional oil production will peak in the year 2020. It’s an assessment that represents a sharp reversal for the IEA, which undertook a detailed study of oil production decline rates in 800 of the world’s largest oil fields. In an interview with George Monbiot of the Guardian newspaper, Fatih Birol of the IEA took a position based on the results of that study that contradict the agency’s previous position that oil supplies were abundant enough to transition the global economy into a future of sustainable energy sources. Energy analysts and environmentalists have for years been warning that global oil supplies will reach their peak sooner rather than later, and then start declining, setting off an economic disaster as prices of everything that depends on oil will soar. Oil prices have actually dipped by 75% in recent months, after a summer of record-breaking high prices. But, many economists warn that the next giant wave of high oil prices is around the corner. In the mean time, some scientists fear that peak oil may lead to a transition toward a coal-powered economy. Coal is even more detrimental to the earth’s environment than oil in terms of releasing green house gases into the atmosphere. And coal, like oil, is a finite energy source.

GUESTS: Robert Bryce, author of Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence, and Managing editor at Energy Tribune Magazine, Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist working for the Carnegie Institution at Stanford, recently named one of eight “Science Heros of 2008” by New Scientist magazine.