Control update: energy crisis--where are we headed?

The availability of relatively inexpensive energy has been one of the driving forces that has led to an improved standard of living in the world, starting with Watt's steam engine in the early 1800s, and accelerated by the discovery of oil in Pennsylvania in the late 1800s. Most of us don't think about energy until we gas up the family car, and lately that has been a harrowing experience. This recent rise in gasoline prices reflects the more general rise in energy prices, although in constant dollars, gasoline is cheaper today than 10 years ago and much cheaper than 80 years ago.

One of the biggest consumers of electrical energy in the United States is the industrial refrigeration business. Many of the plants that are in use today were designed and built at a time when energy costs were not an important part of the cost equation.

Refrigeration facilities being designed today usually reflect the industry's concern for energy use, via larger condensers, low temperature drop evaporators, and other features that reduce energy use.

There are several reasons for the increase of electrical energy costs, including 1) the increasing cost of getting oil out of the ground, 2) restrictions on the use of coal and nuclear energy, 3) restrictions on domestic drilling and 4) instability in the Middle East and Venezuela, where a significant percentage of our oil comes from. At one time in the United States, most of our electricity was generated with hydroelectric dams, providing very cheap power. Today about 50% is from coal burning power plants, 20% from nuclear, 18% from natural gas and 12% from hydro. Because of regulatory restrictions, it has been impractical for the past two decades to build any new plants other than natural gas, which has driven the price of natural gas to be 5 times as expensive as coal, and ten times as expensive as nuclear.

The increase in electrical energy costs in the last 30 years has led to increased conservation and wiser use of our energy resources. This has helped reduce pressure on the cost of electrical energy, but more cost increases can be expected in the future, as the economy continues to grow. It is now up to congress to help clean up the regulatory roadblocks to power plant construction that exist today, and it appears that they are beginning to move in that direction. Because America has vast reserves of coal, and new technology to burn it more cleanly, we will probably see more coal-burning plants being built in the future.

The cleanest option for generating electrical energy is nuclear, which has been hamstrung for political reasons for the last 30 years. The last nuclear power plant sold in the United States was in 1972. One of the reasons for the regulatory roadblocks was the lack of a location for long-term storage of spent fuel. It now appears that the spent fuel facility at Yucca Flats is inching toward approval, which will eliminate that basis for not building nuclear power plants. The new designs of nuclear power plants include improvements based on the experience of operation of over 100 power plants domestically and many times that worldwide. Because the cost characteristic of a nuclear power plant is that the plant cost is high, while the fuel cost is low, the currently low interest rates also bode well for revival of the nuclear option.

So, between increased use of cheap, plentiful coal, nuclear and perhaps even more natural gas, it appears that we have assurance of many generations of power to keep our economy going. It is inevitable that the cost of power will continue to rise, however, which means that all users will be more careful about how much energy they use, compared to past practices. Remember that in the 1920s, experts predicted that we would run out of oil by 1940, and in 1950, they said we would run out in 1990. So the current projections that we will run out of fuel in 600 years or so should be comforting to all of us.