-58 The total contribution projected by the Department of Energy for synthetic transportation fuels in the year 2000 was 3.4 quads.* Most people today consider this an unrealistic goal. In the opinion of Audubon, synthetic fuels cannot make a contribution significant enough to justify sacrificing, in the name of national security, the environmental considerations at stake. Additionally, with projected capital requirements for energy possibly straining capital markets in the future, it makes no sense to allocate capital to the least effective programs. As long as the projected mileage rating of American automobiles is low by world standards, there certainly can be little justification for government to give priority to subsidies or loan guarantees for synthetic fuel facilities, especially those that are environmentally damaging. As a result, the National Audubon Society will push hard for maximizing auto efficiency and remain skeptical of the synthetic-fuels-for-transportation program, critically evaluating each facility for environmental and economic impacts on a case-by case basis. As for nuclear power, it is basically irrelevant to the oil crisis because nuclear power that generates electricity cannot substitute for significant quantities of oil. The reasons: 1. Only about 10 percent of petroleum products is used to generate electricity. And only a fraction of that 10 percent *2.1 quads from shale plus 1.3 quads from coal, Table 5.23 of Volume III of DOE's Annual Report to Congress for 1979. -59 is suitable for replacement by nuclear power. When oil is used in generating electricity, it is often consumed in "intermediate-load" plants which lie idle when demand is low. If nuclear plants were to be built specifically to substitute for this oil, these billiondollar plants would be idle during low-demand periods, driving the average price of electricity to greater heights. 2. Nuclear plants already under construction, which will be coming on line in the next decade, are not being built in areas where the bulk of the replaceable oil is being consumed. George Weil, Science, Vol. 209./ 3. Slackened growth in electricity demand in recent years has produced an overcapacity of electricity-generating facilities.* Few utilities can justify building any expensive new plants at the present time. Conversion of oil plants to burn coal appears to be a cheaper option. As Charles Komanoff and Vince Taylor of Komanoff Energy Associates pointed out in a letter in the New York Times on November 24, 1980: By the time new reactors could be completed--even Oil consumption by electric utilities thus far *According to the Edison Electric Institute, the U.S. overcapacity for 1979 was 36 percent in summer and 57 percent in winter. (It is the winter seasonal load that determines the need for baseload nuclear plants.) -60 Coal now supplies half of all U.S. electricity-- nuclear power. The increase alone in power pro duction from coal since 1978 is over two-thirds These oil-reducing trends can be expected to Thus, to pretend that synthetic fuels or nuclear power can be expected to have a major impact on the liquid fuels crisis is misleading and detrimental to resolving the crisis. We must do all we can to emphasize the need to switch to more efficient transportation. It is important to note that if there were a major breakthrough in the development of the electric car, such as a "super battery," then nuclear or coal-powered electricitygenerating plants could play a major role in replacing oil. There is little indication at present that anything other than a minor move to the electric auto is likely to occur in the next two decades. In any case, the performance characteristics of electric autos are likely to limit their use to "second cars. " -62 APPENDIX I The Buildings Sector Demand Side .The demand figures for the buildings sector have been based on four studies: Scenario A of the CONAES Study, the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Summer Study, Energy Efficient All of the studies show that dramatic improvements are possible in improving the efficiency with which we condition the climate in our buildings and the efficiency with which we operate our appliances. For the most part, Audubon has chosen to use the CONAES figures because they are presented in great detail. The one exception is in heating and cooling of buildings where, based on Audubon's in-house modeling of building energy demand, the Society has been less optimistic about the possible savings by about one quad. ** *Before coming to Audubon, Beyea spent four years at Princeton University's Center for Energy and Environmental Studies--spending onehalf of his time working on the housing energy conservation program. **Because it has recently been discovered that energy flows in houses are more complicated than previously realized, a considerable amount of technical training will probably be necessary before workers can produce in the field the savings estimated for existing homes from traditional engineering calculations. / D. Harrje, G. Dutt, J. Beyea, "Location and Eliminating Obscure but Major Energy Losses in Residential Housing," ASHRAE Transactions 85, Part II (1979)./ The training of a cadre of "house doctors" has been proposed to overcome this problem, but the idea has not yet received widespread acceptance. See Home Energy Efficiency Program, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Publication No. 96-61, July 31, 1979, U.S. Government Printing Office. _/ As a result, we anticipate a somewhat slower rate of efficiency improvements in older homes by 2000 than anticipated in other studies. Also, in new homes, we expect concern about indoor pollution to moderate planned reductions in ventilation rates. Nevertheless, Audubon projects that the energy required for space heating in the average year 2000 home will be less than half the current average amount. |