unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (09/24/89)
Forwarded From: rutgers!hplabs.hp.com!cdp!tgray
(reprinted without permission)
[From _The New York Times_, 9/21/89, p. D1]
ENVIRONMENT DOMINATES 91-NATION ENERGY TALKS
By Matthew L. Wald
Special to the New York Times
MONTREAL, Sept. 20 -- In a striking shift of focus, the 3,400
delegates gathered here from 91 countries to discuss the world
energy picture have one dominant concern: the environment. Price
and supply, the traditional focus of energy suppliers, have
almost been squeezed off the agenda.
The delegates represent some of the world's most prominent
experts on oil, coal, natural gas, shale oil, hydroelectricity,
nuclear power, photovoltaic power, solar thermal power and even
peat moss. But in most of the 160 technical papers presented
here, the dozens of panel discussions and the major addresses,
the worry at this triennial event has shifted from oil embargoes
and declining reserves of fossil fuels to urban smog, acid rain
and, above all, global warming.
The question, clearly, is no longer where the fuel will come from
-- one study released here noted a 30% increase in estimated oil
reserves in the last three years -- but how to use it safely.
The producers clearly have cause for worry. Industrial emissions
of carbon dioxide, which scientists believe must be limited to
slow global warming, could be 70% higher than current levels by
2020, assuming moderate economic growth, according to a major
study released today by the World Energy Conference.
Changes in the Atmosphere
"It is unambiguous and beyond doubt that we are changing the
composition of the atmosphere by a measurable and important
amount," said Lord Marshall of Goring, chairman of Britain's
Central Electric Generating Board, in a keynote address. The
program includes an outline for a panel discussion on global
warming, listing topics for discussion, but begins by saying,
"The existence of a greenhouse effect is not to be debated."
For such a huge group of energy suppliers to put price, supply
and production technology in second place is surprising, many of
those present said. John Wakeham, Britain's Secretary of State
for Energy, contrasted the concern now with the belief by
Western nations in the 1970's that oil and other fuels were
dwindling. That, he said, "has been revealed as a gloomy fantasy
and one of the most spectacularly mistaken forecasts of recent
history."
But even after the oil glut of 1986 drowned the talk of shortage,
the talk did not shift to the environment. "You would never have
heard this three years ago," said Elihu Bergman, executive
director of Americans for Energy Independence, a conservation
organization based in Washington. "This conference is
symbolically legitimizing what we have known in the States:
environmental policy is driving energy policy."
A speech by Lee M. Thomas, the former administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency, reinforced the point. Mr.
Thomas detailed decisions ranging from handling of the wastes
from oil drilling to requiring anti-pollution equipment on power
plants that cast his agency in the role of making energy policy.
In another speech, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney made a similar
point. "Environmental sensitivity and economic growth, fueled by
energy, go hand in hand," he said. "We no longer have the luxury
of trying to have one without the other."
The carbon dioxide study, assembled by 30 experts from 18
countries and 9 international organizations, assumed only a small
increase in each person's energy use over the period, but a near-
doubling of the population in the third world, from 3.6 billion
in 1985 to 6.3 billion in 2020.
The conference also released a separate study hinting that the
reserves of fossil fuels are plentiful. A triennial study of
resources found that global recoverable reserves of hard coal are
up 80% since 1986, oil reserves are up 30% and natural gas is up
14%.
What was less clear than supply was where energy policy was being
driven. Lord Marshall's prescription was nuclear power, a view
that did not create a clear consensus here. Another conflict was
between delegates from the third world and the developed
countries over who would have to improve energy efficiency to
minimize releases of carbon dioxide and other gases.
Chauncey Starr, the founder and former president of the Electric
Power Research Institute of Palo Alto, CA, pointed out that each
North American uses, on average, seven times as much energy as
people of the third world. For "a huge portion of the world
population," he said, the primary concerns are "food supply and
enough fuel for cooking and warmth." If that population
increases its energy consumption only modestly -- 2.3% a year,
Mr. Starr said -- the combination of population growth and higher
consumption would quadruple world energy demand in 75 years.
Mr. Starr and others suggested investing in efficiency,
especially in the third world; for example, Mr. Starr said, the
efficiency of cooking over an open stove is 3%, versus 20% in a
clay oven, a percentage increase far greater than that available
in the industrial world.
But that focus may be wrong, said another delegate, Jassim al-
Gumer, director of the economics department at the Organization
of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, in Kuwait. "They have
such little to spend on pollution, or energy," he said of the
nonindustrial countries. India, he said, uses a barrel of oil a
year for each person, Brazil 3 and the United States 45. "How
much pollution is coming from the 45 barrels versus the one
barrel?"
For the developing countries that aspire to use more energy,
limits on use to slow global warming seem unfair.
"Industrialized countries should recognize that they are to carry
the lion's share of the total burden because they consume 80% of
world energy resources," said Bong Suh Lee, the South Korean
Minister of Energy Resources.
More than unfair, it may be impossible, said the British
Secretary of State for Energy, John Wakeham. In any
international agreement to cut emissions from burning fossil
fuels, he said, "We have to recognize that some backs are broader
than others; the costs that are an inconvenience in the developed
countries may make the difference between life and death in the
third world."
But allocating the burden, experts said here, would be difficult.
Speaking for the United States, W. Henson Moore, the Deputy
Secretary of Energy, sounded distinctly unwilling to take too
large a role, or to take substantial action before everyone else
agreed. "The good done by one country is offset by the increased
damage done by another," he said.
But the United States and the rest of the world would feel a
substantial effect from third-world energy growth, according to
the study on energy growth, "Global Energy Perspectives 2000-
2020."
Whether the level of carbon dioxide output represents an
unrealistic constraint on the scenario painted by the study was
not clear to the participants. Klaus Brendow, the director of
the energy commission of the United Nations Economic Commission
for Europe, noted that the scenario assumed that fossil fuels
would provide about 80% of energy in 2020, down from 88% in 1985.
"The risks of a global warming resulting from such a bias are
obvious," he said, calling for more research into renewable
energy.
The scenario established in the study predicted that with
moderate economic growth, third world use of coal would triple
between 1985 and 2020; use of oil would double, and use of
natural gas would more than triple. Worldwide, the study said,
coal use would be up by 51%, oil by 66% and natural gas by 58%.
It also assumed that the use of nuclear power would more than
triple, to account for 7 or 8% of energy supplies, compared with
4% now. An estimate by the organization in 1983 had put nuclear
at 12% by 2020, but it was scaled back because construction has
dropped off.
*******************************************************************
Tom Gray Council for Renewable Energy Education
{standard disclaimer applies}
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