Word: books
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...book's basic thesis, which was reported in Foreign Affairs and TIME last spring, is both conventional and incontestable. It is that the nation's four basic fuels-petroleum, natural gas, coal and nuclear-are either depleting or face strong public opposition, and new energy sources must be phased in before the old are totally exhausted. The surprising aspect of Energy Future is its optimistic assessment of the potential of solar energy and conservation to carry the load as those "new sources...
...conservation chapter, written by Yergin, is more persuasive though somewhat extravagant. He argues that with only minor adjustments in life-style and no decline in economic growth, Americans could consume 30% to 40% less energy than they do today. In the book's best passages, Yergin cites illustrations ranging from Dow Chemical's 40% reduction in energy use to Colgate-Palmolive's 18% cutback to show that many companies have continued to expand while saving energy. The examples are impressive. Nonetheless, there is a critical point at which sizable reductions in energy could provoke a tailspin...
...found in drilled-out America. The authors largely write off as impractical the attempts to recover left-behind oil in old wells. Natural gas, in their view, also has a dim future because proven reserves have been steadily shrinking. Even before Three Mile Island, notes the book, nuclear power was declining. Finally, mining, transportation and pollution problems rule out big increases in coal production...
...book's main flaw is that it gives up too quickly on the existing fuels, while placing too much faith on the unproven performance of solar and conservation. Both of those deserve to be encouraged, but so do existing and future fuels. Oil can be stretched by technological ingenuity, and the potential for developing the nation's shale resources is vast...
...book went to press, of course, before President Carter made his bold proposal for a crash program to produce synthetic fuels from sources as varied as shale, coal, sugar beets and even garbage. Congressmen are increasingly worried that his program may be too costly, too ambitious, too bureaucratic. Yet synfuel is precisely the sort of project, though dismissed by the Harvard experts in advance, that holds tremendous promise. Already, synfuel is being produced economically abroad. For the U.S. to downplay it and put most of its chips on solar and conservation would...