From: Student Pugwash USA <uspugwash@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.org.pugwash
Date: 14 Dec 92 11:49 PST
Subject: Re: *Tough Questions: Fall 92 News
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1758700030:cdp:1758700037:000:4318
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!uspugwash    Dec 14 11:49:00 1992


Tough Questions - Conference Issue 1992

ENERGY OPTIONS : EMBRACING A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
By Andrew Young

A central question presents  itself in planning for a sustainable 
global future: How can we meet the rapidly expanding energy demand, 
and at what cost?  The demand for energy will continue to increase, 
as energy provides a means to meet basic human needs for increasingly 
large populations throughout the world.  For example, half of the 
planetUs population depends on fuel wood to provide meals; 
inhabitants of the more extreme latitudes rely on heating to survive 
harsh climate conditions; and energy is required to build and operate 
sanitation systems that prevent communicable diseases from decimating 
heavily populated areas.  Now more than ever there exists a direct 
link between access to energy and survival.  However, energy issues 
extend far beyond the comparatively narrow realm of technology and 
environmental science.  To address the broader scope of energy 
problems, our working group, Energy Options: Their Social and 
Environmental Impact, organized the analysis of energy options and t
heir implications into the categories of technological issues, 
institutional influences, and political interplay.  

     From the technological perspective there is much promise for a 
sustainable future, assuming that the new technologies are nurtured 
and implemented.  Energy-efficient technologies offer huge potential 
for environmental and economic savings.  One compact flourescent lamp 
factory, for example, can displace the energy need that is provided by 
a base-load, coal-fired power plant at 1/139 of the cost.  There is 
also much room for efficiency improvement.  Japan, who has yet to meet 
its full potential of energy efficiency, still enjoys twice the 
efficiency of the United States, and four times that of the former 
Soviet Union.  

     Renewable energy also shows much promise for the future and is 
economically competitive today. Wind power can currently be produced 
for $.07/kWh and solar thermal for approximately $.08/kWh, as compared 
to $.094/kWH for nuclear power.  These renewable energy costs are 
expected to drop even lower in the near future.  Nuclear power has 
also seen many recent innovations, but the question of safe waste 
disposal remains unsolved.  

     If technology promises to solve our energy problems, then why is 
there such great concern about energy now?  At this point, political 
and institutional factors lend serious complication and challenge to 
our vision of an economical, equitable, and environmentally benign 
energy future.  In most of the world, electric power is heavily 
subsidized, while energy efficient and environmentally-sound 
technologies are not. Financially, this  encourages the wasting of 
energy which restricts the availability of energy services.  To 
further pave the way for energy efficiency, utility energy sales 
should be decoupled from profits.  The emphasis should be placed on 
providing energy services, i.e., the end-use benefits, and not placed 
simply  on the amount of electric power sold.  

     Harmful environmental and health externalities associated with 
the fossil fuel and nuclear industries have also been ignored in 
energy pricing, and prices have not reflected the social costs.  
Placing the cost of externalities 'up-front' in the form of an 
environmental tax would help ensure the success of beneficial energy 
technologies and would prevent our and future generations from having 
to pay the 'cost' of todayUs energy consumption tomorrow.  Instituting 
an externality tax is not a simple solution, however.  It must be done 
in a way that equitably distributes the burden of transition to a soft 
energy path until the new technologies have proliferated.  In 
addition, though it is clear that non-renewable power sources are 
unsustainable, the complexity of our biosphere makes it difficult to 
foresee the broader effects of pollution and consumption, much less 
attach a price to them.  

     In conclusion, the Energy Options  working group exposed some of 
the incredible complexities of the problems surrounding energy and 
sustainability.  The problems are global in magnitude and influence. 
Accordingly, they require solutions which embrace a global perspective.