New trends in physics teaching, v.4; The ... - unesdoc - Unesco

The energy crisis
to the right of the peak. We have used one half of the recoverable petroleum that was ever in
the ground of the United States and in the future the rate of production can only go downhill.
However until the late 1970s American demand for petroleum continued to grow exponentially
and the difference between demands and production was made up by imports. Bold initiatives
by the Congress could temporarily reverse the trend and could put a small bump on the downhill
side of the curve. Alaskan oil can also put a little bump on the downhill side of the curve.
The most dramatic conclusion that Hubbert draws from his curve for the complete cycle of
United States oil production is that the consumption of the central 80 per cent of the resource
will take place in only 67 years!
It is sobering to face the downhill side of the curve and to note that in the past the rise in our
annual consumption of energy per head has gone hand-in-hand with the increase in our standard
of living. It is more sobering to note the close coupling between our production of food and our
use of petroleum. It is even more sobering to note that as long ago as 1956 Dr. Hubbert addressing
a large group of petroleum engineers and geologists said ‘According to the best currently
available information, the production of petroleum and natural gas on a world scale wil probably
pass its climax within the order of half a century, while for the United States the peak of production
can be expected to occur within the next 10 or 15 years.’ (i.e. between 1966 and 197 1 .)
We now know that that peak did occur in 1970!
The United States is not alone in having reached the peak of production. There are signs that
the Soviet Union may also be nearing that peak, if it has not already done so; and this is likely
to be true of world production.
MISREPRESENTATIONS OF THE ENERGY PROBLEM
We have now established the critical background of facts and information that are needed to
understand the energy problem and can turn our attention to public representations of the
pioblem.
The most common misrepresentation in the news and other reports on energy is to quote the
life expectancy of a resource based on the assumption of zero growth. This assumes that rate of
consumption (tonnedyear) wil not grow above the present rate until the resource is exhausted.
Sometimes the assumption is stated explicitly as, for example, in Simon [ 101 : ‘We have half of
all the coal reserves in the non-communist world, of which at least 425 X lo9 tonnes are immediately
recoverable. At 1973 levels of consumption we have enough for 800 years.’
Sometimes the assumption is not stated as in an advertisement by the American Electric Power
Company which claimed in 1975 [ 111 : ‘We are sitting on half of the world’s known supply of
coal - enough for 500 years.’
Sometimes the assumption is stated but then rapid growth (which invalidates the assumption)
is predicted or advocated. Here are quotations from an advertisement by the Exxon Corporation
in 1975 [ 121 : ‘At the rate the United States uses coal today, these reserves could help keep us in
energy for the next 200 years. . . . Most coal used in America today is burned by electric power
plants. . . . (which). . . . consumed about 400 million tons of coal last year. By 1985 this figure
could jump to nearly 700 million tons.’
It is obviously and demonstrably misleading to tell people that coal or some other nonrenewable
resource, will last for x centuries ‘at present rates of consumption’ when it is a matter
of blind faith that the United States and world economies must maintain steady growth of the
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