ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

Exclusive of its numerous agencies and related organizations (UNESCO, ILO, World Bank, IMF, etc.), the budget of the United Twerps and Butchers is now passing the 2 gigabuck mark, of which you, the US taxpayer, pay 25% plus.

In the energy field, you get your money's worth by such publications as Improved Cooking Stoves in Developing Countries, published by Earthscan, a London/Washington "editorially independent news and information service on global environment and development issues." Its editorial independence is ensured by funds from the UN Food & Agr. Organization, the UN Development Program, the World Bank, and the Swedish and Dutch foreign hand-out programs.

The book contains wisdom for which the Third World millions have been breathlessly waiting, for example: "The open fire possesses a number of extremely important advantages. It has zero cost, and no special tools are needed to construct it...Where cutting tools are primitive or unavailable to women, it may be the only practical way of using the large pieces of dead wood gathered during fuel collection...Another important point is that the stones can be positioned to provide stable support for different shapes and sizes of pots...[Certain] porridges require prolonged stirring in the pot while they are being cooked. This means that the pot must be securely supported and prevented from sliding about; the three stones around the fire can be ideal for this task."

This is, of course, the sort of energy technology that Amory Lovins and Jeremy Rifkin have been recommending to the world all along as they are carried from lecture to lecture by four-engined jumbo jets, and one wonders where the ingrates of the Third World get the idea that the white man is arrogant.

Meanwhile, another market for alternative energy has opened: Red China, where Caspar Weinberger has been playing the "China card" in weapons transfer negotiations. (The idea of playing two crooks against each other was successfully tested in the 1930s when many Western politicians actively helped Hitler to strengthen him against the Soviets. This ingenious policy culminated in the Nazi-Soviet pact of August 1939, which ushered in World War II.)

China Industrial Development, Inc., of Monterey Park, Calif., is "initiating contact with Western firms active in the alternative energy fields. A series of exhibitions in the Beijing [Peking] Laboring People's Cultural Palace, scheduled for early 1984, will provide Western companies with opportunities...The Chinese commitment to this endeavor is sanctified [sic] by the authoritative State Council of the People's Republic of China...

"The transfer of alternative energy technologies," says CID president Ching, "is an important part of our plan to develop environmentally sound production and distribution systems of energy for use in both industrial and agricultural processes."

If this is to be taken at face value, it means that the "authoritative?" State Council, presumably after reading Yergin and Stobaugh, has gone soft in the head; that would mark not only the first good news out of Red China in many years, but also the first benign result achieved by the "soft technology" sages.

As Western businessmen flock to the Palace of the Laboring People in Beijing [Peking] for beejing [peeking] and bojing [poking] around for deals with the Chinese totalitarians, they will doubtlessly note that for once this will not just be a technology transfer, but a genuine exchange of experience; for in spite of the many cancellations of electric power plants in America, the People's Republic remains far ahead in the field of alternative energy, as witnessed by the photograph below ("Energy Flow in the Developing World" by V. Smil, Amer. Scientist, Sept/Oct 1979, p. 522-3), taken in the construction of a canal near the Hunai River. We have brought this photo before [Nov 79], but think it bears reprinting.