MARXIST ENERGY CONSERVATION

[Anti-]Business Week joined the maritime holocaust chorus, of course ("Accident at Sea Raises Nuclear Alarms"), but perhaps more interestingly brought an interview with "physicist" Lovins (July 23 p.96-L).

When I accuse Lovins of preaching Marxist economics, I do not refer to Karl, but to Harpo: more particularly to the film (A Night at the Opera?) when a train carrying the Marx Brothers must at all costs arrive at its destination earlier than the villains who are racing it by car. The train's engine runs out of coal, and in what must surely be the classic example of no-growth energy conservation, the Marx Brothers burn the carriages of the train for fuel. As you read the great energy prodigy's wisdom, you may find it impossible not to think of Harpo, his half-crazed eyes bulging in gleeful joy as he sharpens his axe amidst a torrent of sparks on the spinning wheels of the train.

As previously [Jun 80] pointed out in more detail, if shoe manufacturers were only smart enough to follow the advice Lovins gives to utilities, they would make money by promoting a barefoot society and lending people money to nurse their sore feet. From that point of view Lovins says nothing new: the utilities can make money by writing off nuclear plants even when the plants are finished and licensed, and he expects electricity demand to ratchet downward in the medium and long term, which wisdom is illustrated by the chart below, and by the news that the electricity demand in the first half of 1984 was up by more than 8% over the first half of 1983.

Growth of consumed US electric energy, absolute (in quads, right scale) and as a percentage of energy growth (in quads, left scale), exclusive of transportation. (Based on a chart in Public Utilities Fortnightly, 4/26/84, p.3, itself based on DoE Annual Report to Congress for 1982.)

* During the post-embargo period, when total energy growth was slowed and per-head consumption was falling (especially in the 1980-1982 recession), electricity kept increasing its share of the total energy mix.

The only truly interesting point in the interview is that a weekly claiming to be written for business repeatedly publishes these absurdities; but this is in line with the rest of the magazine, which brings headlines like "Why Kohl Needs a Visit from East Germany's Honecker." (The reason is the same as why we all need a hole in the head.)

As for Lovins, though he will probably never equal Harpo, one cannot deny his considerable talent as a comedian, and that may be the reason why the drop-out, briefly and unsuccessfully enrolled in an undergraduate physics program, has recently been elected Fellow of the American Assn. for the Abolition of Science (AAAS), together with such eminent scientists as Alvin Toffler and Timothy J. O'Leary (Science, 7/27/84, p.388). I trust that Paul Ehrlich and Omar Shariff have already been elected in previous years.