Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
relationships that may be cumulative. For example, environmental, political, and economic bar-
riers may combine to make oil shale development undesirable. Alternatively, these barriers may
sometimes conflict with each other, necessitating trade-offs of one for another. Technical barriers
to use of a potentially environmentally benign nuclear fusion technology may be most difficult to
overcome. Or an economically attractive coal combustion technology may be environmentally
undesirable.
The current so-called energy crisis seems to be due to a flaw in the armor of a great nation.
Actually it is not a one-time crisis, but a recurring problem. After all, the first American “energy
crisis” was the subject of a White House Conference in 1908 (White 1908) due to the perceived
profligate waste of coal and natural gas resources that were then being used faster than new reserves
were being found. High oil prices in early 2008 were reason for concern, but did not threaten the
demise of the nation. In the short term, the U.S. energy policy problem appears to be principally
a foreign policy problem, political in nature, based on U.S. relationships with Israel and several
other Middle Eastern nations. Failure of the United States to balance its support for Israel with its
need for Middle Eastern oil has created a host of difficulties for national energy policy. The energy
policy problem in the United States is secondarily an economic problem, because our appetite for
imported oil has made our economy vulnerable to disruption. Americans are not used to paying
the full price for energy production and utilization, and do not care for rapid price increases for
anything. Thirdly, the U.S. energy policy problem is an environmental problem, because many
of the least expensive and most used resources have significant detrimental effects on the human
environment.
Thus, those who approach energy policy from the supply side of the problem see it as policy
designed to remove or overcome these barriers to expanded energy conversion and distribution.
They seek to remove political, economic, and environmental barriers to increased energy con-
sumption, rather than to suppress demand or make decisions based on cost analysis. Presidents
Nixon, Reagan, and George W. Bush emphasized supply expansion. Recent proposals to open
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the outer continental shelf to increase drilling for oil and
natural gas and to reduce safety requirements for new nuclear plants are manifestations of this
approach. Significant barriers inhibiting the use of various energy sources will be identified in
the course of this topic.
Persons emphasizing demand suppression have focused on reducing energy consumption in their
energy policy proposals. This approach is critical of consumerism and advances the proposition that
our energy problems are attributable to human nature, which is viewed as inherently self-centered.
Those who favor demand suppression maintain most people crave an ever higher standard of liv-
ing, no matter how well off they may be. They suggest human beings have an insatiable appetite
for material goods: cars, homes, boats, expensive clothing, and restaurant meals.
Most goods and services are produced through expenditure of energy during production and
transportation to point of sale. Even the few notable exceptions are vulnerable: a scenic view is an
aesthetic enjoyment, yet manufacture of a camera and transportation to a scenic location require
use of energy; knowledge for the sake of knowledge entails travel to a library or use of the Internet
for research, which also requires use of energy.
To most people in the United States and the world, America means
more:
affluence, expansion
of frontiers, a rising gross domestic product (GDP), and a higher standard of living; that is, the
United States is associated with
growth
, and growth is perceived as inherently good. Thorstein
Search WWH ::
Custom Search