Margaret M. Loos
History
The United States attempted to implement an energy policy in 1977 under President Carter. America had reached a use of 235,000 calories per person per day. America had summoned seemingly limitless supplies of energy for its needs.
The American megalopolis of superhighways, hermetically sealed buildings and shopping malls enclosed in artificial climates seems almost designed to squander energy in the unconscious belief that it can never run out.
But it can. The oil and gas that make up about three-quarters of America’s fuel were created in finite supply millions of years ago. At the rate they are being burned, they will begin playing out sometime around the year 2000 give or take a decade or so.
This article in
Time
, April, 1977, forecast closed factories, and cold, dark homes unless our government mastered the problem. It continued:
Americans will be asked, possibly even ordered to conserve energy by insulating their homes and factories. They will have to pay gradually increasing fuel bills, pay higher-and-higher gasoline taxes, drive smaller cars, perhaps breathe air polluted by coal fumes, take first steps toward using solar energy to heat at least their water and learn to cope with the perils of nuclear power.
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Update
In the past four years most of these predictions have come true. However, a real energy policy has not been developed. Some of the suggestions at that time were in the following areas:
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1. Conservation—This has been attempted. For example, insulation of homes encouraged by tax credits and money-saving incentives has saved measureably and more can be done.
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2. Coal Usage—James Schlesinger, the energy chief at that time was quoted as saying that we had enough coal available for 400 years. Although this may be true problems in converting equipment from oil and gas fuels have deferred its use. Also, coal creates undesirable pollution as a side effect of its use.
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3. Auto Efficiency—Cars were ordered to achieve an average of 20 miles per gallon by 1980. This goal has effectively been reached by smaller, lighter, fuel-efficient cars. A goal of 27.5 miles per gallon is set for 1985.
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4. Natural Gas—The chief problem was its limited availability and the inequity in prices between the gas producing states and other consuming states. Price decontrol is now being effected in this area.
