Presents midterm forecasts of energy supply, demand, and prices through 2020 prepared by the Energy Information Admin. (EIA). The projections are based on results from EIA's National Energy Modeling System. Discusses evolving legislative and regulatory issues. Also discusses macroeconomic projections, world oil and natural gas markets, oxygenates in gasoline, distributed electricity generation, electricity industry restructuring, and carbon dioxide emissions. Also analyzes energy market trends. The analysis in this report focuses primarily on a reference case and four other cases that assume higher and lower economic growth and higher and lower world oil prices than in the reference case. Tables.

Presents forecasts of energy supply, demand, and prices through 2020. The report begins with an "Overview". The next section, "Legislation and Regulations," describes the assumptions made with regard to laws that affect energy markets and discusses evolving legislative and regulatory issues. "Issues in Focus" discusses current energy issues -- appliance standards, gasoline and diesel fuel standards, natural gas industry expansion, competitive electricity pricing, renewable portfolio standards, and carbon emissions. It is followed by the analysis of energy market trends. Extensive charts, tables, and graphs.

"The projections in the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA's) Annual Energy Outlook 2012 (AEO2012) focus on the factors that shape the U.S. energy system over the long term. Under the assumption that current laws and regulations remain unchanged throughout the projections, the AEO2012 Reference case provides the basis for examination and discussion of energy production, consumption, technology, and market trends and the direction they may take in the future. It also serves as a starting point for analysis of potential changes in energy policies. But AEO2012 is not limited to the Reference case. It also includes 29 alternative cases (see Appendix E, Table E1), which explore important areas of uncertainty for markets, technologies, and policies in the U.S. energy economy. Many of the implications of the alternative cases are discussed in the 'Issues in focus' section of this report. / Key results highlighted in AEO2012 include continued modest growth in demand for energy over the next 25 years and increased domestic crude oil and natural gas production, largely driven by rising production from tight oil and shale resources. As a result, U.S. reliance on imported oil is reduced; domestic production of natural gas exceeds consumption, allowing for net exports; a growing share of U.S. electric power generation is met with natural gas and renewables; and energy-related carbon dioxide emissions remain below their 2005 level from 2010 to 2035, even in the absence of new Federal policies designed to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions."--Executive Summary (p. 2).