Basic HTML Version
February 1971
The
PLAIN TRUTH
AS ELECTRICITY
DEMANDS SURGE...
Yearly electrical energy demands have
skyrocketed 145 times per person since
1900. During the next decade, Americans
alone are expected to consume 18 trillion
kilowatt hours of electrical energy. To
produce these power demands, total
generating capacity of all electrical power
plants must double by 1980, and double
again by 1990, doubling there.after every
1O years or less.
1
KILOWATT HOURS
PER PERSONI
1900
10
One of the items considered was the
world supply of fuels.
They foresaw the future possibility of
using energy equalling
100
BILLION
tons of coa! annually! Do we have suf–
ficient coa!, oi l and natural gas to fulfill
such voracious demands?
At the time, estimates put the total
world supply of coal which could be
practically mined at
2500
billion tons.
This alone would provide the world's
energy needs -
at the then cur–
rent rate of expenditure - for about
700
years.
Estirnates of oil reserves were put at
60
1970
80
90 2000
1250
bil!ion barreis. This could be
equated to about
280
billion tons of
coal. Adding actual coa! and natural
gas, the sum of these various sources of
fuels amounts to the equivalent of
about
3700
billion tons of coa!.
Resource experts estímate that
at mr–
rent ¡·ates
of expenditure the fuel supply
should be sufficient to last for a thou–
sand years.
But the rate of consumption is sky–
rocketing. Resources are dwindling
alarmingly. Said authors Brown, Bonner
and Weir: "At a twenty-five times
greater rate of consumption,
they wortld
11
last only a11other FORTY YEARS .
..
and we must recognize that, once
our petroleum and coa! have been
consumed, as far as the human species is
concerned, they will have disappeared
forever"
(The Next Hrmdred Years,
pp.
99-100).
It is of course very difficult to estí–
mate "proved resources," especially of
oil. Said resources expert Hans Lands–
berg: "Petroleum history is littered
with the remains of obsolete guesses,
sorne of which have turned out to
be
spectacularly wrong.. . .
"One of the reasons is that only that
relatively small part of oil occurrences
that exploratory drilling has proved to
exist can be correctly said to be 'known.'
Beyond, short of systematically digging
up the first
60,000
feet of the earth's
crust from pole to pole, one can go only
by inference"
(Natural Resomus for
U. S. Growth,
Hans Landsberg, Balti–
more, Johns Hopkins Press, 1964, p.
177).
The point is - there may be more,
but there may also
be
much less oil than
is expected. Energy requirements are also
little more than guesses based on
past increases and hypothetical future
considerations.
But, however long these fuels last,
they may one day be used up. They are
NONrenewable.
The Nuclear Power "Panacea"
Nuclear power plants have failed to
become the great boon they were once
expected to be.
Soon after World War
II,
the
"peaceful atom" was predicted to be the
power of the future. After al!, coal,
oil, and other fuels caused pollution.
Nuclear energy was
clean,
authorities
assured us.
Coal mining operatíons slowed their
progress, bowing to the "peaceful
atom." Many coal miners were thrown
out of work. Large regions, especially in
Appalachia, became depressed areas.
But many complications have arisen
for nuclear energy.
For one-
it
does poll11te .l
Potentially, nuclear energy is much
more dangerous and deadly than either
oi l oc
coa!. A certain amount of cadio–
(Text C01ltÍ?mes on page 14
-
photos on pages 12 and 13)