The Power Crisis​—Demand Outstripping the Supply

DOES your home have electricity? In millions of homes lights, refrigerator, television and many other appliances operate on electrical power. It is available at the turn of a switch. Yet, there is a shortage.

Already, in places, the demand for power has exceeded the supply, and lights have dimmed or gone out temporarily. The New York Times last summer reported: “Americans by the millions are living under the daily threat of power brownouts, blackouts and possible electricity rationing. But it is more than a seasonal shortage of power. It is part of a national crisis.”

Describing last summer’s situation, December’s Science Digest said: “Brownouts were common. Blackouts in some places became routine. Some of the power networks, teetering on the edge of electrical chaos, barely got by without massive catastrophes.” Were you affected?

These power failures inconvenienced some temporarily. Their elevators stopped operating. Their airconditioners ceased to function. Radios and televisions would not play. Refrigerators no longer kept food cold. And families with electrical cooking appliances could not use them to prepare meals.

Realizing the Crisis

But perhaps you have been unaffected, only hearing that there is a power crisis. And since your power supply seems reliable, you may have given the matter little consideration. Yet the situation is serious, probably more so than you realize. It is not just a matter of inconvenience due to some temporary power shortages and equipment failures. The threat is of total collapse, as energy expert Thorton F. Bradshaw, in an interview with U.S. News and World Report, observed:

“I don’t think most people will recognize this crisis until they go to a light switch, turn it on and nothing happens. Even then they will think, well, something has happened to whatever utility supplies their electricity. . . . we’ve always had such an abundance of cheap energy that people cannot believe that there is an energy crisis.”

Yet the crisis is real. And it is already beginning to be felt. For example, frequently last summer large consumers of electricity in New York city were called up and asked to cut back on their use of power, something the general public probably did not realize. Emphasizing the crisis, Commissioner William K. Jones of the New York Public Service Commission said in a seventy-seven page report:

“Over the long run it is plain that the city of New York and related portions of Westchester County cannot hope to survive under present conditions​—these areas are being strangled by the lack of an adequate supply of vitally needed electric power.”

Nor is the problem a sectional one, limited to one part of the United States. Speaking about the country as a whole, John A. Carver, Jr., member of the Federal Power Commission, said: “For the next three decades we will be in a race for our lives to meet our energy demands.”

Other countries, too, are affected, including Europe and Japan. Japan’s premier said that his country’s greatest problem was obtaining sufficient power. “Power is the key,” he said, “for the next 30 years.”

But why is there such a demand for power today? How much power is used? From where does it come?

Where We Get Our Power

THE electrical power consumed by many families today is simply fantastic. For example, to operate only an electric frying pan and a television requires power equivalent to that exerted by a team of two pulling horses! And that is a lot of power. For an average workhorse will pull on its harness with a force of 180 pounds.

Electrical power is measured in what are called watts and kilowatts. A television draws 300 watts of power, and an electric frying pan 1,200 watts. Other appliances need even more power​—a laundry dryer nearly 5,000 watts and an electric range over 12,000.

The amount of electricity used is measured in kilowatt-hours. Thus a kilowatt-hour represents the work done by one kilowatt of electricity during one hour’s time. But how much work will a kilowatt do in an hour?

It will do an amazing amount. In one hour it has been calculated that a workhorse will do the work equivalent to lifting 1,980,000 pounds one foot off the ground. A kilowatt of power in one hour will do about one third more work than even that.

Consumption and Cost

The average family in one section of New York city consumes daily, on the average, 17 kilowatt-hours of electricity, or nearly 23 horsepower-hours. That means an average family uses nearly as much electrical power as a horse would produce working around the clock, day in and day out, without ever stopping or getting tired.

In parts of New York city this power costs a family slightly less than 3 cents a kilowatt-hour, or not quite 50 cents a day for 17 kilowatt-hours. In certain other parts of the country, however, that amount of electricity costs much less​—only about a penny per kilowatt-hour. Also, as consumption goes up, cost per kilowatt-hour goes down. Thus large industrial consumers pay only a fraction of what small consumers do.

The demand for this relatively inexpensive, easy to utilize form of power has been phenomenal. In 1970 the United States consumed some 1,550,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours​—about five times the amount used in 1950! From 1969 to 1970 consumption leaped 9.2 percent. The United States produces about 35 percent of the world’s electric power, and the Soviet Union 15 percent.

In the United States, industry is the largest consumer. According to the Edison Electric Institute, industry uses about 41 percent of the electricity produced. Another 32 percent goes for residential use, while 23 percent is used by stores, shopping centers, office buildings, hospitals and other commercial concerns. The final 4 percent operates streetlights, subways and the like.

From where does this fantastic amount of electrical power come?

How Electricity Is Produced

Most electricity is produced from what are called “fossil fuels”​—oil, coal and natural gas. These fuels are burned at power-generating plants in huge furnaces. The furnace heats a water boiler to produce a superheated steam. The steam then rushes at 1,000 miles an hour into a huge turbine, and spins its bladed wheels. In hydroelectric plants, falling water, instead of steam, is used to turn the turbine. The turbine then drives a generator to produce electricity.

Over 80 percent of the electricity in the United States is produced in steam-turbine plants, while hydroelectric facilities generate most of the rest. The first steam-turbine electric plant went into operation ninety years ago in New York city. Today there are some 3,400 power plants throughout the country.

Actually the steam-turbine process of producing electricity is rather inefficient In the conversion process only about one third of the energy of the coal, oil or gas is turned into electricity. The other two thirds of the energy escapes in the form of waste heat and other pollutants. Also, up to 20 percent of the generated electricity is lost in its transmission from the power plant to the place of use.

The fossil fuel consumption of electric power plants staggers comprehension. A large coal-fired plant may burn over 600 tons of coal an hour! Coal is used to generate nearly half the electricity in the United States, and falling water, natural gas and oil produce most of the rest.

Of course, electricity is only one form of power. There are also increasing demands for power to run automobiles, fly airplanes, provide heat for homes, and so forth. For these purposes oil and natural gas are the principal energy sources.

Harm to the Environment

Of these various fuels, coal is the most damaging to the environment. For example, a Virginia Electric and Power Company plant, which consumes some 10,000 tons of coal a day, generates about 60 tons of fly ash and about 20 tons of irritating sulfur dioxide gas every hour, most of which is spewed into the air! Earlier this year legal action was announced against the Delmarva Power and Light Company in Delaware City for belching out 74,000 tons of sulfur dioxide each year.

Describing the air pollution problem, James R. Schlesinger, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, noted recently: “Fossil-fuel [electric power] plants contribute the bulk of sulphur oxides in the atmosphere and a very substantial proportion of the nitrogen oxides​—to say nothing of the particulates [solid matter].”

Also a factor in damaging the environment is the way coal is mined. Last year about 44 percent of the coal was strip-mined, desolating tens of thousands of acres of some of the most beautiful mountain country in the United States. Typical of the recent protests against this practice is that of congressman Ken Hechler, who said this February:

“The coal and power barons and certain Western legislators are trying to subjugate the people of the Appalachian states and rip up our hills and pollute our streams to serve the power-hungry needs of the big cities. We have reached the point where we’re going to stand up and fight against this policy.”

Yet a switch from the use of coal in electric plants, which New York city completed this year at considerable expense, does not solve the problem. For oil and gas also pollute. The sulfur content of oil, too, is poured into the air, and natural gas emits oxides of nitrogen when burned. And there is also the problem of the waste heat from electric plants that is discharged into nearby rivers and lakes, at times dangerously raising their temperatures.

Is the present power crisis due to this threat to the environment? Or, are there other factors that are even more serious?

Why Today’s Power Crisis?

ALL power has a source. A horse, for example, derives its power from the chemical energy stored in the vegetation it eats. Vegetation is the source of muscle power, both of animals and humans.

Until the present century man relied heavily upon muscle power to accomplish his work, using either his own muscles or those of animals. Also, men burned vegetation​—wood—​releasing its energy for use. As recently as 1870 energy from wood provided most of man’s power needs, running early steam engines, riverboats and railroad locomotives.

Use of Fossil Fuels

As industry grew, however, man needed more power to drive newly invented machines. Fossil fuels laid away in the earth ages ago were utilized. Coal was dug up and used in increasing volume. By 1910 it was the energy source for three quarters of man’s power needs.

In about 1859 man began using, on a large scale, another fossil fuel, drilling a successful oil well that year. A principal use of oil today is to provide power for automobiles and other forms of transportation. The United States alone now uses, on the average, about 646 million gallons of oil (petroleum) a day!

More recently, particularly since World War II, the earth’s stores of natural gas have been trapped. A network of about 800,000 miles of underground gas pipelines has been built in the United States, four times the length of the nation’s oil pipelines. Gas that a housewife cooks with may have traveled nonstop from gas fields many hundreds of miles away.

Today more than 95 percent of the energy needs of the United States is supplied by these fossil fuels. In 1970, oil provided about 43 percent, natural gas about 33 percent, and coal some 20 percent of the country’s total energy needs. The rest of the power was supplied principally by hydroelectric facilities. This dependence on fossil fuels is at the root of the power crisis.

The Crisis

The New York Times, March 19, 1972, explained: “The crunch is being felt because our energy resources​—coal, oil and natural gas—​are beginning to run out and the demand of the rest of the world for these resources is increasing more rapidly than that of the United States.”

What would happen if these energy sources were suddenly gone? Man’s present industrialized way of life would die! Automobiles, buses, trains and airplanes would stop. Most lights, television, refrigerators and other electrical appliances would cease to function. This is the basis of the crisis.

But are fossil fuels really “beginning to run out”? Some have considered them practically limitless​—at least good for thousands of years. What has happened?

Rapid Depletion

Demands for power have grown faster than anticipated. Fossil fuels have been consumed at a fantastic rate. Each day, on the average, the world takes from the earth about 2,000 million gallons of oil! In 1970 the world figure increased 9.5 percent over the year before. If that rate continued, oil use would more than double in ten years. Western Europe’s oil consumption actually tripled in the last ten years. Regarding the astounding demand for fossil fuels, last October’s Science Digest said:

“Rapid depletion of the world stock of these vital raw materials becomes grimly dramatic when you realize that as of 1968, half of the oil which man used throughout history he produced during the preceding 12 years. Indeed, most of the world’s consumption of fossil fuels has taken place in the last quarter century.”

Such a rate of consumption has a snowballing effect, picking up incredible speed. For example, electrical power consumption has been more than doubling every ten years in the United States. This means, as Scientific American, September 1971, observes: “During the next 10 years the U.S. will generate as much electricity as it has generated since the beginning of the electrical era.” The consequences of a doubling rate of consumption every ten years is staggering.

Although no one knows how much coal, oil and gas are stored in the earth, for the sake of illustration let us assume that 5 percent of the total supply has thus far been consumed. This means that at a rate of doubling consumption every ten years, all of earth’s fossil fuels would be used up in some forty years!

“Beginning to Run Out”

The rate at which earth’s fossil fuels are being consumed is frightening to many. Some experts say that their depletion is ‘only a little more than a generation away.’ In a 1969 report to the United States president, the National Academy of Sciences predicted: “It will take only another 50 years or so to use up the great bulk of the world’s initial supply of recoverable petroleum liquids and natural gas.”

However, this prediction of three years ago may well be highly optimistic. Already the natural gas supply is running out. In a staff report this February, the Federal Power Commission noted that the shortage beginning last year “has marked a historic turning point​—the end of natural gas industry growth uninhibited by supply questions.” The report concluded: “The burden of alleviating the deficiency will fall upon other fuels.”

Yet oil, too, is in short supply in the United States. Already more than a quarter of the country’s oil is imported​—about 164 million gallons every day, on the average. But according to a recent Department of the Interior report, these imports will have to be more than doubled by 1980.

Dependence on Foreign Oil

Although oil discoveries have been made in Alaska, the bulk of earth’s known remaining oil resources is in other lands, particularly the Middle East. Thus United States Assistant Secretary of the Interior, Hollis M. Dole, says “this country is going to have to go where the oil is​—Africa and the Mideast—​to make up its fuel deficit.”

Yet a growing dependence on Middle East oil only accentuates the power crisis, as the New York Times, December 7, 1971, indicated:

“The State Public Service Commission has asserted that ‘current political realities,’ including ‘continued smoldering of Arab-Israeli conflict,’ have made the state’s electric utilities increasingly vulnerable to interruption of their residual oil fuel supply. Nearly all such oil is imported.”

Reports the Miami Herald: “Middle East oil is so important that the United States is willing to run the risk of nuclear confrontation to protect it.” Yes, nations today would risk war to get the oil that is necessary to keep industry going, cars moving, television sets operating and lights burning.

Yet why cannot coal instead of oil be relied upon as the principal energy source? The United States reportedly still has vast quantities of coal.

Plenty of Usable Coal?

The problem is, most coal is too full of sulfur to meet present environmental standards. Laws in an increasing number of cities will not permit coal with a sulfur content of more than 1 percent to be burned. That is why more and more communities are replacing coal in power generating plants with the less polluting fuels, oil and natural gas. Contrary to what some persons seem to think, man simply does not have the know-how to remove sulfur pollutants from coal or oil. President Nixon in his June 4, 1971, energy message explained:

“A major bottleneck in our clean energy program is the fact that we cannot now burn coal or oil without discharging its sulfur content into the air. We need new technology which will make it possible to remove the sulfur before it is emitted to the air.”

True, there is coal available that possesses little sulfur. But it is very likely to be near the earth’s surface, and is thus obtainable only by strip-mining methods. And strip-mining so ruins the land that laws have been proposed to outlaw it.

Coal deep in the earth, on the other hand, is difficult and expensive to get at, and is likely to have a high sulfur content. Thus T. F. Bradshaw, president of Atlantic Richfield Company, observed: “Coal, as a matter of fact​—at least in the short run—​is likely to be in short supply in spite of these large reserves.”

A Dilemma

Man faces a real dilemma. Today’s industrialized society needs vast quantities of power to operate. Yet fuel supplies are running out, particularly those that cause least pollution. If available fuels are used, people are slowly poisoned by the pollution. But if they are not used, modern industrialized society slowly dies for lack of power.

Apparently humans will make dangerous choices to maintain their present industrialized, power-consuming way of life. Thus, while acknowledging the seriousness of the fossil-fuel shortage, S. David Freeman, former energy adviser to President Nixon, observed:

“The exhaustion of energy resources is not itself apt to be the crux of the problem. . . . The quantities of carbon monoxide, small particulate matter and other potential pollutants projected over the next two decades are so large as to suggest the possibility of fundamental changes in our environment.”

Obviously a change is needed, and it must come soon. The present means of power generation needs replacement. This is generally recognized. In fact, the replacement choice has apparently already been made​—it is nuclear power. The United States is practically committed to it.

But is nuclear power safe? Is it a wise choice? How is electricity generated from nuclear energy? Such questions we will leave to a following issue to discuss.

[Picture on page 17]

OUR MAJOR POWER SOURCES ARE GONE!

NOTHING WORKS ANYMORE!

Could the present crisis lead to this?