As I mentioned in my blog last week, I was in Paris the week of October 6, attending the Schlumberger Information Solutions (SIS) Global Forum. There were a lot of interesting speakers in attendance, needless to say, but the one I found the most interesting was Dr. Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA). Dr. Birol presented a lot of information that I think would be of interest to readers of E&P, which is one of the reasons I included some comments from his presentation in a Web exclusive story last week (https://www.epmag.com/webonly/item13054.php). CO2 capture and storage was one of the main focuses of Birol’s talk, some of which I presented in my article, but a 20-minute presentation doesn’t do justice to the subject. Later this month, the IEA is releasing a report that addresses this subject in more detail, “CO2 Capture and Storage: A Key Carbon Abatement Option.” If the excerpts that made their way into Birol’s presentation at the forum are any indicator, the report will be well worth reading. One of the things that isn’t included in my write-up is some of Birol’s comments on coal and how it factors into the world energy equation. The focus these days when we’re looking at India and China is the huge growth in demand for oil and gas. The fact of the matter is, though, that coal has had enormous growth in those countries over the same timeframe. The implications in terms of CO2 are significant, but they have somehow ended up under the radar. The IEA is investigating a broad range of topics that will impact our industry in the short and long term, much of which will be included in the organization’s “World Energy Outlook 2008,” which is due to be released at the end of November. It too will be something that will be worthwhile to spend time reading. There are many other reports available through the organization as well, including many on technology. To see more specialized reports and to access additional information, visit http://www.iea.org/.