[THS] ECOLOGIST: How a 22-year-old student uncovered peak oil fraud

[Peter Webster]

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/437079/how_a_22yearold_student_uncovered_peak_oil_fraud.html

How a 22-year-old student uncovered peak oil fraud

Tom Levitt
10th March, 2010

Lionel Badal was working on his undergraduate dissertation when he suddenly found
himself privy to information that he knew must be made public

When will we reach the peak of global oil production? It’s a question of crucial
importance as governments around the world prepare for a world of declining oil
resources, in which we will be much more reliant on alternative sources of energy.

The body on which the UK and others rely heavily to make that assessment is the
International Energy Agency (IEA) based in Paris and set up in the aftermath of the
oil crisis between 1973 and 1974.

For years, IEA reports have been reiterating the conclusion that peak oil was not a
problem. Behind the scenes however, it is now clear that senior staff thought
otherwise.

It was only through the work of 22-year-old Lionel Badal, a politics student at Exeter
University, that the truth about this cover-up finally emerged.

First enquiries...

It started innocently enough, as Lionel, working on his undergraduate dissertation on
peak oil, set about trying to arrange interviews with politicians and figures working
inside and outside the oil industry.

He was surprised when the IEA agreed to allow him to interview one of their top
officials.

In the end the first official pulled out of the interview but he was replaced by one of
his colleagues, a senior economist at the organisation. The new interviewee turned
out to be far more forthcoming than his superiors might have wanted.

December 2008...

Lionel met the official at the IEA’s Paris headquarters. His interviewee was initially a
reluctant speaker.

‘He was very concerned about how I would quote him and where it would appear –
just from this I knew the meeting could be interesting,’ says Lionel.

‘He then asked if he was the first person I had interviewed still working in the
industry. I replied that yes he was (I had tried speaking to OPEC but had been told
they did not do interviews). After hearing this he said this was a problem.

‘He didn’t say why but it was obvious he did not want to be the only one speaking
out.’

Most of the interview was ‘interesting but nothing revelatory’, remembers Lionel, but
that changed towards the end when the official was asked for his opinion on
predictions for peak oil.

The IEA has repeatedly said oil output can increase until at least 2030 as long as
'adequate investments are made in exploration and development'. Other analysts,
including those behind the UK Energy Research Centre report on peak oil, say this is
'wildly optimistic' and that the IEA does not have the evidence to back up this
prediction.

Far from sticking to the IEA line, the official said he was actually very worried about
peak oil and shared some of the more pessimistic concerns.

‘From that meeting I understood there was a problem,’ says Lionel, ‘as publicly the
IEA did not say this type of thing.’

Over the next few months Lionel continued his research and met with politicians in
France.

Spring 2009


By early 2009 he had finished his research and contacted the IEA official to send him
his dissertation. He also told him about the contact he had had so far with French
MPs concerned about peak oil. The IEA official told him that he respected one of
the politicians with whom Lionel had met and later agreed to testify to other
politicians about the problem.

It was a pivotal moment - through his involvement in an undergraduate disseration, a
key IEA official was prepared to go public about what his organisation really thought
about peak oil.

July 2009


By July, Lionel had managed to arrange a meeting between himself, the IEA official
and the MEP Corrine Lepage, a former French environment minister and well-known
figure in French politics. Clearly pleased to meet such a respected figure, the IEA
official became much more open about the downplaying of peak oil concerns at the
agency.

‘He told her reports had been modified and that there were pressures on the IEA
from the US not to make too pessimistic predictions,' Lionel remembers. 'He said just
as peak oil theorists claimed, there was a big problem with oil.’

By the end of the meeting the IEA official had agreed to write a briefing note for the
MEP on the issue. But by then Lionel thought the issue needed to be made public.

‘I knew on her own the MEP could not do anything about the problem. But I also
knew that some British journalists were writing a lot about the issue, so a few weeks
later I asked the IEA official whether he would be willing to testify anonymously to
journalists.

The official was initially sceptical, preferring to inform politicians in a discreet way. But
a few weeks later, Lionel pressed him again on the issue and he agreed.

‘I think arranging the meeting with the French MP definitely helped. It gave me some
credibility as she was well known. He was certainly not naïve about the whole process
and understood that his career could be at risk.’

September 2009


Having been given the green light, Lionel contacted two journalists at the Economist
and the Independent.

The Independent was slow to respond and did not seem convinced by the story,
remembers Lionel, but the Economist journalist agreed to meet the following month
when he was in London. However, at the meeting he said he could not immediately
write about the issue as he was working on other stories.

‘I also got the feeling his position was isolated at the Economist and that the
magazine would not want to take a stance by running such a story on peak oil,’ says
Lionel.

October 2009


Soon after these first attempts to make the issue public, the respected NGO Global
Witness released a report on peak oil, Heads in the Sand. Reading Guardian
journalist Ashley Seager's article on this report, Lionel decided to contact him and
sent information about his IEA whistleblower to both Seager and the paper’s
environment columnist, George Monbiot.

Seager forwarded it onto the Guardian’s energy editor, Terry Macalister. By
coincidence the IEA was preparing to publish its latest annual report on oil supply
and demand in early November. With the launch scheduled to take place in London,
the Guardian had the perfect opportunity to maximise exposure of the story.

November 2009


Macalister spoke to Lionel’s IEA official, and on November 10th, 2009 - the same day
that the IEA’s chief economist Dr Fatih Birol was launching the agency’s major annual
report - the story appeared on the Guardian’s frontpage.

As expected, the reaction was huge. ‘Peak oil whistleblower’ stories were splashed
across the media.