Notes on energy publications

There is no letup in the appearance of new energy publications for the general public. They range from quickie entrepreneurial efforts in which hastily patched together collections of diverse pieces capitalize on an "in" topic to books that profess—usually in modestly worded subtitles—to have found "the" solution or "the" reason for our energy travail. Recurrent themes center on energy—environmental conflicts (especially nuclear issues) and on governmental policy dilemmas. Some recently released items treating these themes are discussed below. They are not meant to be a representative sampling of the year's energy publications, but they do illustrate the range of material intended to influence public thinking.

• Barry Commoner, The Poverty of Power: Energy and the Economic Crisis (New York, Knopf, 1976) 314 pp., $10.00

Commoner interprets the energy crisis as "part of a complex set of crises not only in energy but in the environment and the economic system as well." This interconnected malaise he finds to be symptomatic of a common fault lying "deep within the design of the system that governs how wealth is produced, distributed, and used in the United States." Although it is Commoner's views on energy which carry him to his broad reflections on political economy, much of the book deals much more narrowly—and effectively—with the nature of different energy sources, forms, and systems. Considerable emphasis is put on efficiency of energy use. There is an illuminating treatment of the thermodynamic aspects of energy use—particularly "second law" principles, implying that energy "is efficiently used when the quality of the source is matched to the quality demanded by the task." Commoner argues for a by-passing of the nuclear option and (somewhat similarly to Lovins' views in the following review) for a transitional recourse to fossil fuels, which are deemed sufficient to take us to the solar energy stage. That, of course, is a scenario some may question.

The political-economic propositions are even more arguable, both in terms of specifics and generalities: that the "clever salesmanship of the petro-chemical industry [which] managed to convince the farmer that he should give up the free solar energy that drives natural cycles"; that General Motors is to blame for the disappearance of trolleys throughout America; and that at it is an intensification of energy use and energy-dependent inputs (such as chemicals) that has displaced labor, created unemployment, and produced a capital shortage. And why the profit system is, as Commoner suggests, inherently incapable of promoting wise resource management and environmental goals remains to be demonstrated.

• Amory B. Lovins, "Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?" Foreign Affairs, October 1976, pp. 65- 96

Lovins contrasts the characteristics and consequences of two divergent energy paths for the United States over the next fifty years. He calls these alternatives "hard" and "soft" technologies. The hard-technology future, of which Lovins despairs, includes clear bias toward central-station nuclear power and large-scale projects for coal conversion. Quite apart from burdening us with enormous capital obligations, he sees this path leading to environmental catastrophe. The soft option calls for widespread conservation, an aggressive exploitation of solar energy technologies, and a substantial paring-down of electrification in those functions (such as low-grade heat) in which direct-fuel use is far more efficient. A general attribute of the soft technology future is "decentralization"—which seems to imply, among other things, an ability to capture some of the energy losses associated with the centralized features of hard technologies.

Lovins considers "transitional" means of bridging established energy systems to the soft scenario. Here he calls for limited, but innovative, deployment of fossil-fuel-using technologies, such as fluidized-bed combustion. The article raises perhaps as many questions as it seeks to answer, but it is an important, skillfully argued exposition for which, for a change, the hackneyed term "provocative" is clearly appropriate.

• Richard B. Mancke, Squeaking By: U.S. Energy Policy Since the Embargo (New York, Columbia University Press, 1976) 181 pp., $8.95

Mancke treats with insight and a sense of balance the antecedents to the energy turbulence dramatized by the 1973-1974 crisis. By pointing up the erratic and contradictory nature of numerous policy decisions in the past (both before and after the October 1973 war), he seeks to establish a sounder basis for pursuing future energy goals.

As an example of questionable policy judgment, he cites natural gas price regulation that deters producers from expanding supply and consumers from conserving fuel. Governmental flip-flops regarding utilities' avoidance of coal combustion to protect the environment or shifting back to coal to save oil are a more recent case of policy ambiguity.

Mancke sees access to secure supplies, domestic resource development, environmental integrity, and equitable handling of higher prices as key long-run U.S. energy objectives. On the last point, he shows how proceeds of the higher energy prices he favors might partially be rebated to poor persons.

Mancke goes to some length to dispel the argument that oil companies engineered, or reaped excessive profits from, the energy crisis. Too much space is devoted to activities of the Federal Energy Office; and the somewhat awkward mid-1975 cutoff in Mancke's chronicling of recent events partially detracts from the book. (As a result, Mancke misses the December 1975 enactment of the federal law setting forth the future of the oil price controls, which he could only conjecture about.) But the book is sharply reasoned and, happily, lacks the emotional pitch present in many of the current, special-pleading discourses. With a bit of effort, accessible to the nonspecialist.

• Sheldon Novick, The Electric War: The Fight Over Nuclear Power (San Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 1976) illustrated, 376 pp., $12.50

Novick's book revolves around a dual theme: that nuclear energy is an unacceptably lethal technology and a lineal outgrowth of the drive for private corporate bigness fostered in the early decades of the century and sustained to the present day by private monopolistic interests (inadequately controlled by regulatory authorities). In passing, the author suggests that these vast concentrations of private power (in both senses) have effectively barred technological progress in such smaller scale systems as fuel cells and solar energy. But he does not face the question of why such advances have not materialized in countries, such as Britain and France, whose electric power companies are state owned and where, incidentally, nuclear energy is being pushed perhaps even more vigorously than in our private enterprise setting.

As for the hazards inherent in atomic energy, Novick presents a useful cataloging of the safety aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle—from problems of mining uranium ore, through reactor operation, to management of radioactive wastes. The trouble here is that the emphasis throughout is on the possibilities, rather than probabilities, of accident and failure. As a result, considerations of affordable and nonaffordable risks ("how safe is safe?") are effectively excluded from the argument.

Also omitted is an analysis of risks associated with alternative energy systems, such as coal. Yet, confronted recurrently with the need to weigh the relative benefits of different technologies against their inevitable risks, how can society be expected to exercise thoughtful judgment if its source of knowledge is framed in such absolutist terms? Choosing among greater or lesser evils is a painful, but inescapable, burden.