Gale on Energy Alternatives

Gale frames the energy question in relatively narrow terms. He rightly emphasizes our lack of serious commitment to effective energy policies but implies there are few options to expanded energy supplies as future demand increases. We are told all sources are tainted by environmental hazards but nuclear power appears the least troublesome--if not for emotional reactionaries and murky politics which cloud rational thought.

If we really want to be sensible about our options, why not take a cue from utilities who found conservation more profitable than new sources? Consider the words of physicist Amory Lovins (“To Save Energy, Oceans, Billions--and the Air We Breathe” Opinion, Oct. 30, 1988): “Since 1979, Americans have gotten more than seven times as much new energy from savings as from all net increases in supply, and more new supply from renewable sources than from fossil and nuclear fuels. Savings achieved since 1973 are saving $150 billion in annual energy costs today. . . . Even so, we’ve barely scratched the surface of how much efficiency is available and worth buying.”

Who would have thought there was so much potential for creating wealth merely by not throwing it away? Even a headstrong consumer society might get used to that idea if it were painless enough (read: incentives, glamour). Maybe not, though. A mandate for efficient energy use might inadvertently lead to a more competitive business climate, forcing us to gaze on fewer foreign cars and high-rises against a cleaner skyline. This would be an obvious deline in our standard of living.

KENT STROTHER

Whittier