Two historical changes in the narrative of energy forecasts

A collection of 417 energy scenarios was assembled and harmonized to compare what they said about nuclear, fossil and renewable energy thirty years from their publication. Based on data analysis, we divide the recent history of the energy forecasting in three periods. The first is defined by a decline in nuclear optimism, approximately until 1990. The second by a stability of forecasts, approximately until 2005. The third by a rise in the forecasted share of renewable energy sources. We also find that forecasts tend to cohere, that is they have a low dispersion within periods compared to the change across periods