ENERGY RATIONING

We have now endured three campaigns against the use of coal, oil, and natural gas. First, it was claimed that we were running out of these commodities. World use of hydrocarbons must be sharply reduced immediately, we were told, because supplies of coal, oil, and natural gas were soon to be exhausted, leaving us without them even for uses where there are no substitutes. This first excuse was a sort of "endangered species'' argument casting the continued users of hydrocarbons

as poor stewards of the Earth's rapidly diminishing resources. As it turned out, the world is awash in hydrocarbons with an approximately 1,000-years' supply, even assuming a doubling of world population, high living standards for everyone, and the generation of all energy from burning hydrocarbons. (See "Future Energy Sources,'' Access to Energy 24, p 1-2, July 1997.) This has been reflected by steadily diminishing free market hydrocarbon costs, with the occasional price increases clearly being the result of political and not natural causes.

Second, it was claimed that global cooling was being caused by the burning of hydrocarbons in human activities. This claim was made during an unusually cold period of global weather, although that period began long before there was significant human use of hydrocarbons. Immediate and sharp reductions in hydrocarbon use were advocated by "environmental scientists'' in order to curtail this disastrous global cooling. Not only was there not a shred of evidence to support this hypothesis, but temperature records showed that, in the early part of the 20th century, the atmosphere was actually becoming a little warmer.

Third, it was claimed that global warming was being caused by the release of carbon dioxide during the human burning of coal, oil, and natural gas. Remarkably, this claim was made by many of the same people who had warned about global cooling. We must, we have been told, immediately and sharply curtail our use of hydrocarbons in order to prevent catastrophe from global warming - even though there is not yet a shred of credible evidence that human release of carbon dioxide is significantly warming the atmosphere.

Five excuses - three energy sources - one result. The only energy sources not currently under attack are those that are, as yet, impractical for the generation of substantial amounts of electric power. The inescapable conclusion is that these political children want energy rationing - by whatever excuses it may be obtained.

Why? Consider "The Sky is No Limit'' in Green & Gold 7, p 3, July 1997, available from P. O. Box 74416, Lynnwood Ridge, Pretoria 0040, South Africa, which quotes The Energy Outlook 1997, published by the Energy Information Administration, EIA, of the U. S. Department of Energy. EIA predicts that world energy demand will rise 54% between 1995 and 2015. It is predicted that, by 2015, the developing countries of Asia alone will use 9% more energy than the United States. Electricity consumption is predicted to rise 75% between 1995 and 2015, which will require the equivalent of 5,000 additional 300-megawatt electric power plants.

These large increases in energy use are partly the result of increasing population and partly the result of increased world-wide economic development, especially in Asia. Fortunately, there are several practical methods for generating this energy, plenty of industrial and financial resources to build the necessary facilities, and proven fuel reserves to power them for the next 20,000 years (See again Access to Energy 24, p 1-2.) - methods, means, and fuels that we have been told, five times for five different reasons, not to use.