When all is said and done, the two things standing in the way of a serious fuel shortage this coming winter are the hope that the cold will not be severe. and the hope that the Arabs will continue in their disunity. If the average temperature drops a mere 3° below normal (or if Europe has a severe winter, using up its refinery capacities), or if the Arabs decide merely not to increase their exports, it could mean the difference between nuisance and disaster.

Until late summer, there was still a choice: Suspend the 1970 Clean Air Act and allow coal to be used in power plants, even if sulfur dioxide standards are temporarily violated. Although the Clean Air Act will eventually have to be amended or repealed anyway (see following item), such action would come too late to make much difference in the winter: A power plant is not a bonfire where fuels can be switched at a moment's notice.

In the face of the looming crisis, President Nixon proposed regulations to conserve tight supplies of low sulfur petroleum fuels. However, only one of these regulations w ill increase the actual energy supply this winter.

This is a small relaxation of the clean air standards to the extent allowed by the Clean Air Act, and bars the "fuel switchers," mainly power plants and other industries using large boilers, from switching from coal (and natural gas) to low sulfur oil, which is needed to heat homes.

The reason why they are switching to oil is short supply in the case of gas, and stringent sulfur standards in the case of coal. Primary standards (protection of health) remain in force, but enforcement of secondary standards (protection of vegetation and property) will be delayed. This, it is estimated, will free an additional 200,000 to 400,000 barrels of heating oil per day. But that is not enough protection against a cold winter, as Nixon well knows. There may be shortages of home heating oils, he warned, and though the administration has so far opposed fuel oil rationing, it is drawing up contingency plans for a cold winter.

Cold or not, the White House must impose fuel rationing, said a group of utilities responsible for 25% of the country's electricity pleading with energy czar Love, or the nation faces black outs from coast to coast this winter. These utilities made it through the summer by dipping into their winter oil stocks, buying power from other companies, and postponing maintenance on older power plants; they found the relaxation of the clean air standards quite insufficient to avoid a power crisis this winter. As we go to press, it seems all but certain that mandatory allocations of fuel oil and propane will be decreed by the White House. A contingency plan even includes general rationing.

Trouble isthat rationing does not create more fuel; it merely decides who is to be on the bottom of the priority list. Home owners will not make it to the top; that is occupied by hospitals, power plants, essential transportations and all types of emergency services. Yet most experts are agreed that the specter of a fuel crisis this winter could have been avoided had Congress amended the Clean Air Act and raised the permissible sulfur level to l% in oil (it is now, roughly speaking, 0.7%) and relaxed the sulfur requirements on coal. It is too late for that now.

Vol. 1, No. 2 Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Volume 1 Issue/No.: Vol. 1, No. 2 Date: October 01, 1973 04:59 PM Title: Bottleneck or "bottom of the barrel"? Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive All rights reserved.