FROM HERE TO THERE

It is one of the most difficult decisions to make and one of the most fateful ones. The penalty for error is usually in the millions, and sometimes in the billions. Even a "simple" case like power plant at the mine mouth versus transportation of coal to an urban power plant is different in each instance, and even for the same project the engineers may be of different opinions.

And the system engineers have the easiest job, for they deal with comparatively hard numbers Then come the economists and financial experts; and when they have made a decision, the lawyers will opine whether it is workable. The final draft of the project, as often as not, is butchered by the bureaucrats and enchained by the environmentalists; and if the politicians get their hands on it, it's good-bye to the remnants of the project.

In the Kaiparowits project in Utah, for example, EPAcrats required lights on the transmission towers to ward off birds, though they would actually have attracted them; fish nets placed over pumps in Lake Powell at depths where there are no fish; and helicopters for use in areas where the habitat of kangoroo rats might have been disturbed. By the time the movie actors, rock stars and politicians had been,over the project with their expertise, the delays and obstructions so raised the cost of the project that it is now for all practical purposes dead. Chalk up another victory for the uplifting cause of lifting up the price of electricity until only Robert Redford and John Denver can afford it.

Take a look at two here-to-there cases of energy.