Backsliding on Energy

Energy conservation in the United States, which had been improving significantly from 1970 to 1985, appears to have declined in the last two years--just when new studies indicate the crucial importance of a more efficient use of energy, according to “World Resources 1988-89.”

The United States uses double the energy that Japan uses to produce $1 in gross national product, according to a new evaluation based on energy intensity included in the report. “Among the developed countries of North America, the Pacific and Europe,” it is reported, “Canada, Luxembourg and the United States are the most energy-intensive; Denmark, West Germany, Japan and Switzerland are the least energy-intensive.”

America’s decline in energy efficiency is due primarily to higher consumption coincidental with falling oil prices, as well as relaxed energy policies, including deferred automobile fuel-efficiency standards, according to the report. Paradoxically, technologies are already in place that would permit large increases in energy efficiency. Among them are speed controls for industrialized motors to match output with load demand, and autos capable of going 60 miles to the gallon. But many of these innovations are being ignored.

The usefulness of conservation incentives and regulations is dramatized in the report with a special section that compares the experiences of Texas, with largely unmanaged growth, and California, with close controls from 1977 to 1984. “In 1984,” according to the study, “the average Californian used 267 kilowatt-hours less than in 1977, while the average Texan used 1,424 kilowatt-hours more.”

This is the third annual World Resources report, the work of the World Resources Institutein Washington and the International Institute for Environment and Development in London, in collaboration this year with the U.N. Environment Program. It covers, in addition to energy problems, a variety of environmental concerns, food and agriculture, forests, wildlife, population effects and fresh-water resources.