Industry / Business
Energy experts call for conservation steps U.S. should act now to develop ways to use more coal as energy source, but conservation is unly short-term answer A leading energy supplier, a leading energy consumer, and a top government official all agree: Energy conservation must play a major role in solving U.S. energy problems. Appearing together on a panel at a recent Conference Board meeting on "Energy Shortages: Strategies and Impacts to 1980," C. Howard Hardesty, Jr., executive vice president of Continental Oil, said, "To help ease our im-
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mediate supply problems, there is only one answer, conservation." Louis H. Roddis, Jr., vice chairman of the board of Consolidated Edison, echos these sentiments. "Energy conservation is the one area where we can go to work right away and show immediate results. Conservation is also a long-range, as well as a short-term project," he says. Russell W. Peterson, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), complains that too much of the energy debate so far has been focused on supply. The fundamental issue that has been ignored is how much energy should we plan to consume. "I strongly believe that the only answer to our energy dilemma is to commit our nation to a resolute long-term program of energy conservation," says Mr. Peterson. As part of this program, CEQ has come up with what it calls the "half8
C&EN April 1, 1974
and-half plan," which it has submitted to the Federal Energy Office. The plan is based half on energy growth and half on energy conservation. Assuming that U.S. population in the year 2000 will be 250 million, a figure that Mr. Peterson says is consistent with our present declining rate of population growth, the plan envisions a growth of direct per capita energy consumption of 0.7% per year and an additional 0.7% savings per year through energy conservation. "Since each B.t.u. saved is a B.t.u. that can be put to work elsewhere, the half-and-half plan would provide each person with an effective 1.4% increase per year in energy used," Mr. Peterson points out. And he notes that 1.4% was the average growth rate in per capita energy consumption from 1947 to 1972. This period was one of the most pro-
Hardesty ductive in U.S. history, Mr. Peterson adds. And he thinks that continuing at a 1.4% effective growth rate will provide generously for future economic development. It would provide each U.S. citizen about 50% more energy in the year 2000 than he consumes today. Since 1947, U.S. energy consumption has more than doubled—from 33 to 75 quadrillion B.t.u. annually. But Mr. Peterson doesn't think that recent trends in energy consumption can be sustained. The Department of the Interior has projected U.S. energy consumption in the year 2000 at 192 quadrillion B.t.u., about two and a half times last year's level of 75 quadrillion B.t.u. To achieve this, the U.S. would have to import 61 quadrillion B.t.u. of oil and gas, which is equal to its entire 1968 energy consumption. CEQ's half-and-half plan, on the other hand, permits self-sufficiency
and still provides for continued economic growth, says Mr. Peterson. It targets a total energy consumption of 121 quadrillion B.t.u. in the year 2000, 71 quadrillion B.t.u. less than Interior's projections but still a 65% increase over last year's level. What makes Mr. Peterson think that the plan will work is the fact that the U.S. has been on an energy binge and that past wastefulness presents many opportunities for future savings. "We use twice as much as the average Englishman, two and a half times as much as the average German, and four and a half times as much as the average Japanese," he points out. Mr. Peterson firmly believes that conservation must be an important part of future energy programs. On the other hand, some segments of industry are proposing a different kind of halfand-half plan, "half-baked proposals based on half-answers designed to gut environmental legislation." These will backfire, he says, because the public wants a balance between adequate energy and a clean environment. Mr. Roddis agrees that there should be such a balance but he implies that the scales may be tipped too much in favor of the environmentalists. "I think environmentalists should have to file specific economic impact statements on the cost of the measures they propose to protect the environment," he says. Although everyone speaks of environmental imperatives, there are economic imperatives as well, says Mr. Roddis. "I am not aware that the public has given an unrestricted proxy to anyone to decide that environmental costs don't matter," he says. One area in which there is an imbalance between "foggy objectives and hard costs" and between "unreasonable restrictions and inadequate and overpriced power" is coal, says Mr. Roddis. And he makes it clear that Con Ed will continue to press for the right to use coal as well as oil for fuel. "It was environmental restrictions and regulations alone," says Mr. Roddis, "that turned the nations' utilities away from coal." When Con Ed had to stop burning coal in 1971 and reduce the sulfur content of oil from 1% to 0.3%, it had to cancel long-term contracts for coal and oil at favorable prices. At the time, the company warned that the cost to its customers would rise by about $80 million per year over 1971 prices. The current price of oil has pushed the increase to more than $500 million per year. "Customers are complaining bit-
terly, but we find no support from those who require the actions," says Mr. Roddis. By switching just two Con Ed plants to coal, the company could stop buying $200 million worth of imported oil at current prices, says Mr. Roddis. In stead, it only would have to buy $100 million worth of domestic coal, which would help the country's trade balance. And the savings could be passed along to the customers. More important, he says, all of this can be accomplished with no deterioration in public health. Conoco's Hardesty agrees that the country must act immediately to de velop ways to use more coal as an ener gy resource. Coal, he says, is our most abundant domestic energy resource. The U.S. has about half the world's supply—some 3.2 trillion tons. Of this, about 150 billion tons of recoverable coal are presently known in formations that can be mined by present technolo gy. "Our coal resources are the energy equivalent of three Saudi Arabia's," says Mr. Hardesty. But, he adds, this tremendous energy wealth is doing the U.S. a minimum amount of good right now because it is mining no more now than it did 25 years ago. However, coal alone won't do the trick. In fact, Mr. Hardesty doesn't think that all possible energy forms available to the U.S. will give the country self-sufficiency by 1980. If all conditions were perfect, he says, the U.S. could become self-sufficient only if it increased domestic oil and gas pro duction by 37% compared to 1970 and increased coal production by 176%. In addition, self-sufficiency would require 435 new nuclear plants, eight shale oil plants, 13 oil-from-coal plants, 30 gasfrom-coal plants, and 19 geothermal plants. But, Mr. Hardesty notes, it takes from three to 10 years to bring on a new oil field. Current lead time for coal mines is two to five years. New nuclear plants require, at best, seven and a half years. "We couldn't do it that fast even if things were perfect," Mr. Hardesty claims. As a result, by 1980, he esti mates, crude oil still will have to sup ply about 40% of U.S. energy demand and the country will still depend upon the Eastern Hemisphere for at least 8% of it. Natural gas still will supply about 30% of the demand. Coal will be able to furnish only 19% and nuclear power only 8%. And Mr. Hardesty says that condi tions are far from perfect. Necessary legislation is lagging. Many environ mental questions remain unresolved. That's why Mr. Hardesty thinks that conservation is the only short-term an swer to our energy problems. If the U.S. saved 10% on total energy con sumption, he points out, it would be the same as developing 200,000 new oil wells, or developing 2930 new coal mines, or building 211 additional nu clear plants.
Plans to pipe Alaskan gas south take shape A consortium of 27 U.S. and Canadian companies wants to build a controver sial natural gas pipeline from Alaska's North Slope through Alaska and Cana da to the border of the continental U.S., a project whose $5.7 billion price tag could make it the largest civilian construction effort ever undertaken. If applications filed simultaneously with the Federal Power Commission in Washington, D.C., and the National Energy Board in Ottawa are approved by mid-1975, according to Alaskan Arctic Gas Pipeline Co. (the U.S. part of the venture), construction could begin as early as the winter of 1976. Startup of gas delivery through the system will be mid-1978, with addi tional gas coming on stream in mid1979. At full capacity the 48-inch steel pipeline will move 4.5 billion cu. ft. of gas a day to U.S. and Canadian mar kets. The proposed system will carry gas tapped from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay fields and Canada's adjoining Macken zie River Delta south along a route paralleling Canada's Mackenzie Moun tains to the U.S. border near Calgary, Alta. From there it will feed into a $2.6 billion, 3700-mile pipeline also pro posed by Arctic Gas that would feed gas to the western U.S., with a leg to the eastern states terminating near Pittsburgh, Pa. Construction of the Alaskan and northern Canadian seg ments of the pipeline will be done in the winter to mitigate damage to the permanently frozen tundra, and con struction in the southern portion (pri marily that in the U.S.) will take place in the summer months when the ground is soft. A competing proposal by El Paso Natural Gas Co. for an all-Alaskan route also is in the works, but has not been filed with FPC yet. This plan calls for an 800-mile pipeline from the Alaskan gas fields to a warm-water port near Valdez, Alaska, where the gas would be liquefied for shipment by water to the West Coast. Cost of the El Paso project would be $3.5 billion, in cluding six cryogenic tankers, a liquefication plant in Alaska, and a regasification plant in California. Action by FPC on the Arctic Gas fil ing is not expected until the El Paso proposal is submitted sometime this summer. Only one of the plans will get the nod, since the 26 trillion cu. ft. of proven gas reserves in the North Slope is sufficient to support only one pipe line. El Paso stresses that its proposal is for an all-U.S. route, whereas the Arc tic Gas route is almost exclusively Ca nadian. El Paso says that benefits of U.S. controls of the pipeline are "in sharp contrast to foreign control where national goals and attitudes may not parallel those of the United States,
but, in fact, may be contrary." Alaskan Arctic Gas president Robert W. Ward, former lieutenant governor of Alaska, notes, however, that natural gas flow ing from western Canada to eastern Canadian markets already moves part ly through the U.S., apparently imply ing that the U.S. has a potential coun ter in the event of difficulties with the Canadians. But he's quick to point out
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that U.S. and Canadian relations al ways have been amicable and he doesn't foresee any real problems. Arctic Gas proposals are under at tack not only by competitors, but by environmentalists as well. Concern centers on disruption of the Alaskan wildlife range in northern Alaska by a 195-mile link in the pipeline connect ing the Prudhoe Bay fields with the Mackenzie Delta. U.S.-based Friends of the Earth claims Arctic Gas was remiss in considering only two of five possible routes for the pipeline, both of which cross the wildlife range. Says the group, "A pipeline on or near the range would wreak havoc with one of the few productive ecological systems in Alas ka." FOE favors the El Paso plan for a pipeline in the corridor already set aside for the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipe line, which has been approved by the government. April 1, 1974 C&EN
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