Imperial Valley press., 1942-08-02
CAPITAL TALKS
by
Peter
Edison

Rationing of fuel oil for 400, 900
oil-burning home furnaces i'll II
eastern seaboard states is the nasty
prospect for the coming winter.
If that is strong language and
it Scares a lot of these 100000
oil-burning home owners into con-
verting their furnaces to coal, well
and good, that the purpose.
Nobody in government wants to
ration fuel oil. 1t is headache
OF only slightly less migraine Sc
verify than the headaches of gaso-
line or sugar rationing programs
But the wa things are heading
now, fuel oil rationing seems in
evitable.
1t is due To two Circumstance
es. First, To 4 conflict of author
ity and responsibility among
the various government agen-
cies responsible for making the
necessary decisions to increase
Ond, to the colossal dumbness
of the people in the threaten
ed area, who have laZily reius-
ed to do anything at all to pro-
tect themselves against this
shortage, in spite of repeated
warnings.
For months the Office of Petro-
leum Co-ordinator, the Office of
Price Administration and its divi-
sions of Civilian Supply and Ra-
tioning, the Office of Defense
Transportation, the War Produc-
ton Board, and the Department
of Commerce have warned Of this
impending shortage and advised
the people living in houses heated
by fuel oil to convert their units
to coal burning where that was
possible. Furthermore, the Office
of the Solid Fuels Co-ordinator has
been staging a campaign all spring
and summer, urging people to put
in their coal now SO there would
be no trouble about getting it in
the fall and winter. And on top
of all this, there has been the ac-
tual gasoline shortage, stuck like
a boil on the nose, to warn every
one that this fuel oil shortage was
real and no phony.
PUBLIC APATHETIC
In spite of all this, the reaction
of that portion of the public which
should have been concerned has
been an amazing hookWorm in
difference. The customary attitude
has been, oh, let the other fell
low convert People who have
found that conversion back to coal
might cost from $50 to SIS have
refused to make the expenditure,
apparently waiting for a govern
ment subsidy Others, who have
cleaned up the old coal bin in the
cellar, hesitate to convert it back
into storage space for the WIN
ter's fuel. Some have been unable
to get CRATES to reinstall in furn-
aces that formerly burned coal, due
to a confusion on priorities and al
locations of metal for manufacture
of the CRATES which are necessary.
Best guesses are that only
about 2 per cent, or $4,000 of
the 100000 oil burners in the
eastern states have actually
been converted to coal. The
average Oil-burning home fur
mace consumes about 1000 gal
Ions, or approximately SO bal
rels of fuel oil year. That
figures out to 10 million bar
rels to supply these eastern
states in an average winter. At
most, so per cent of this quaint
ity now seems available.
If fuel oil rationing comes, there
fore, the average home owner af
fected must expect TO get only
about 60 per cent of his usual 1000
gallons, or 1900 gallons.
If that doesn't scare EN-, what
will?
RESERVES DWINDLE
In peacetimes, it took is million
barrels of all petroleum products
per day to keep this eastern area
going BY gas rationing, consump-
ton has been cut down to l mil
lion barrels a day-a wonderful
saving But petroleum products
coming into this area now by oc-
casional tanker, By tank car, tank
druck, barge and pipeline total only
from 100000 TO 100000 barrels a
day. In other words the east is
using up its reserves at the rate
OF from 100000 to 100000 barrels
day.
II doesn't take a dOllar-a-