Energy: A Matter Of Choices (1973)

[Music] a but [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] it takes a lot of energy to run an industrial society less than 6% of the world's population lives in the United States but we consume over 33% of the world's energy we've used that energy to create a way of life less the Envy of many people almost all our energy comes from the burning of fossil fuels coal natural gas and oil they were formed eons Ago by the energy of the Sun and stored in the earth until we started using them take oil we get almost half our energy from it at the rate we're using it there should be enough oil left to last a several more decades besides some geologists estimate that half the world's oil reserves are still to be discovered we use oil and its byproducts to heat our homes and businesses power about 83 million cars and trucks and to make electricity natural gas it supplies us with about a third of our energy the known supply of natural gas should last another 30 or 40 years and some geologists say that there's a lot more to be found we use gas to cook our food heat and cool our homes and to make electricity coal about 20% of our energy and several hundred years Supply left coal goes into heating making steel paving road but mostly to make electricity we convert the energy of falling water into electricity less than 4% of our energy is produced this way and the percentage is going down because there aren't any more big rivers to put new dams on and finally the nuclear energy of uranium atoms provides about 1% of our energy high quality uranium should hold out for possibly 30 or 40 more years to be useful nuclear energy too has to be converted into electricity so it looks like our energy source are plentiful enough to last us well into the future right and I joined with Consolidated Edison in asking the full cooperation of New York citizens in reducing their consumption of power we called him up and he says conserve all the light you could what can I conserve I have no lights at all and suddenly we woke up one morning and found that uh homeowners businessmen and others were unable to get uh sufficient fuel many cities and towns have been hit by energy shortages including Princeton Minnesota in the middle of winter when energy is needed most the Princeton Power Plant was within a few days of running out of fuel to generate electricity schools had to let out early businesses industry had to close early Street lighting had to be turned down everyone had to conserve power the same thing's been happening everywhere since the early ' 70s not just in the United States but in many Industrial ized countries suddenly energy seemed to be getting scarce why when we have such a wealth of energy sources available why now all at once and most important what can we do about it the problems with electricity developed in much the same way they did with other forms of energy and today's crisis in electrical energy is typical of today's or tomorrow's or the next day's crisis in oil natural gas or even coal in the minds of most people electricity and all it stands for are associated with one man Thomas [Music] Edison his first power plant supplied 59 customers with all the electricity they wanted or at least all they could pay for [Music] before long our taste for electricity was becoming a ravenous appetite in the cities electricity became big business just press the button electricity was there to make life easier if you live near a power plant and if you could afford it but lots of people didn't and couldn't that's the old way way the hard way yes there is a machine to do the wash but it runs by electricity there are lamps you don't have to clean and trim and fill but they run by electricity here on the farm where it's needed most electricity is hard to get seems wrong [Music] somehow in the 1930s and 40s all that changed people wanted more power so we just built more power plants more dams and we gave them the power they wanted Mighty Colorado flows as strong be so Uncle Sam said River I'd like to use your energy I want to build a mighty Dam to get some electricity now all the folks in this land River work for me the name of the people of the United States to whom you bold at arm are a symbol of greater things in the future I call you to life it's our own power and our own light and it will belong to all of us all of us here together it's a friendly sound when the motor whs it's a friendly sight when the lights go on it's the light and power we've never had but we've got it now together the public wanted an unlimited supply of energy um in all ways energy to run its factories energy to light its homes energy to build its Automobiles and utilities were responsive to that they were doing what they were supposed to be doing in less than 30 years our demand for power went up almost nine times and the supply went right up with it now there was plenty of power to go around and it was cheap enough so almost everybody could afford it of course to help pay for all these power plants and to keep the price of power low the utilities had to make sure there was a demand it's so hot in this Igloo well martle sure Charlie when are we going to move hi I'm Mary Medallion the all electric girl oh an all electric kitchen it's so clean because it's flameless and cool every room can be cool and comfortable with electric air conditioning and so it went yesterday's luxuries became today's necessities [Music] but what did it cost us really cost us weren't we paying a price all along that didn't show up on our electric bill you leave your windows open 10 minutes after you clean your house you have this black foot all over the floor the baby can't even crawl on the floor his clothes his hands are filthy they have to put a plant somewhere where there's not that many people we discovered that the environment has limits limits to the amount of pollution the air can absorb limits to the amount of water available to cool thousands of power plants limits to how much a river can be heated up without unexpected or unwanted results is electricity Penny cheap when we have to scar thousands of acres of land to dig up coal and when we get through using up all our energy resources what'll be left sure electricity is a public service but it's also a public problem because we know how to control the energy but not the harmful effects of using it gradually more and more people ask whether the real costs of producing electricity were Justified and we're protesting the proposed expansion of the Con Edison plant it's the first time they've ever protested since 1928 but they they literally believe and as you can see that it's a question of life and uh breath in public hearings all over the country people opposed power plant construction slowed it down or stopped all together that the standards which are proposed are inadequate as we're going to have to realize that technology is not going to solve our problem and we are concerned obviously with the safety of children and people in the area must be willing to limit ourselves to conserve research and development for Southern California Edison Company the utilities who will responsible for providing power warned that there would be problems ahead if the needed power plants were not built if we want to clean up the environment in Southern California we're going to need more electricity not less and to meet this growing demand Southern California Edison must be permitted to build more power plants the need is now so next time somebody says we don't need more electricity ask him if we don't need a cleaner environment [Music] meanwhile no nobody wants any energy near them and yet at the same time they've developed this paradoxical point of view of demanding more energy and this is the environment that we're in by the early 1970s demand was going up faster and faster but Supply well you can see where we're headed unless we start doing something about it now well what if we increase our supply put our technology to work in as many ways as possible if we don't have enough power plants we should build new ones faster or expand the old ones if we keep increasing the demand the way we are we'll have to complete one new power plant every 25 days for the next 15 20 years can we really do that we can install special equipment to cut down on the pollution who's going to pay for that expensive equipment and besides no anti-pollution system is 100% efficient ient something always gets out but what about looking for some of those fossil fuel reserves GE in the earth that'll take lots of time lots of money and it'll just use up our resources Lots faster besides there's another problem that has government officials worried and I happen to know that we'll be importing uh by the Year 1980 to 85 50% of our oil I think the political ramifications are frightening it would cost our nation so much to import all of this oil that we should at least be willing to spend 50 billion over a decade to find a new source of energy and take away our dependency upon oil now that's a good point we should develop new energy sources like nuclear energy build more of these plants and go Full Speed Ahead on developing the socalled breeder reactor which produces more fuel than it consumes seems to be one of our best bets for increasing our energy Supply in the future maybe but many scientists are convinced that nuclear power plants are not as safe as they should be but even if they were it would take 10 or 15 years to build these new reactors and what are we going to do with the huge quantities of radioactive waste these plants will produce bury them can we guarantee that they'll be safe there for thousands of years and how ethical is it to make future Generations look after our garbage scientists are working on another kind of nuclear energy that doesn't have these problems and that's nuclear fusion the same reaction that gives the sun its energy once it's perfected fusion power will give us an unlimited supply of energy if we learn to perfect it but even the most optimistic scientists think that fusion power may not be developed for 50 years if then if ever there's the heat of the Earth's interior drill down to a layer of hot rock and use it to produce steam then pipe the steam to a conventional power plant like anything else drilling steam Wells takes time and money and there aren't many places in the world where we can use this method then let's capture the energy of the sun itself it's free and there's plenty of proof it works the general arrangement of the solar heating system is a collection of glass covered panels on the roof of the house and this Heats air and that hot air then is delivered to a storage unit in the house then whenever the house requires heat that hot air is distributed to the rooms through the ordinary piping system environmentally we feel that solar is probably the least detrimental of any of the energy sources there's every reason to expect that solar heating would be in substantial use in another 10 years 10 years 15 years 50 years we can't wait that long to increase the supply we've got to try other things right now like reducing the demand so we'll all sacrifice and go back to the old ways of doing things hardly not many of us would be willing to do that the idea is to use our energy more intelligently I mean is it really necessary to design Office Buildings like green houses so they need as much power for heating and cooling as a fair-sized town is it really cheaper in the long run for a developer to cut down all shade trees build homes with little or no insulation and then make the home owner pay extra to heat and cool his house what price are we really paying for the convenience of not having to open freezers and refrigerators making and using aluminum cans consumes about four times as much energy as using returnable glass bottles but does the drink in the cans taste any better it takes three times more energy to build a mile of Super Highway than a mile of Railway and then it takes five times more energy to move the freight by truck than by train are these sensible choices or the automob feel one4 of all our energy goes into the gas tank but 3/4 of what goes in as valuable energy comes out the tailpipe is waste and that's not counting the energy it takes to make and sell the car in the first place do do you really think people are going to change their attitudes and the way they do things well not everybody but some people are some stores have started turning off lights and escalators right after the customers leave buildings that used to be brightly lit at night now burn as few lights as possible and some of the utilities themselves have changed their ways do we really need all this or can we make do with this now it won't solve the energy crisis but it can help people very clearly stated to us in a variety of ways that they felt it was a part of utility obligation to deal with the question of energy conservation encouraging signs sure but attitudes changed slowly remember Princeton Minnesota well at the same time that Princeton was about to run out of power and heating oil was running low oil refineries not far away were operating near capacity to produce gasoline gasoline which was selling at Cut Rate prices and plans on bringing even more energy consumers into the area were going full speed ahead but who has the right to tell a businessman that he can't make a profit on his investment or tell the town it can't grow just because energy scares I think the consequences of continuing as we are are very clear that it will no longer be a matter for voluntary Choice it will be a matter for government regulation we begin to realize that we have to have a plan and that the only one that can Implement a a plan of this nature or develop a plan of this nature is the government one way or another we'll have to make some choices if we want to solve the energy crisis ask ourselves questions like if we develop new methods of transporting people to save energy what will it do to our economy to those of us whose jobs depend on the old ways of doing things if we change the way we Design Homes and businesses to make better use of energy how will that change our family Liv life our whole society because our society will be changed by both new ways of reducing the demand and new ways of increasing the supply the question that faces us is how will these changes be made will we decide on them or will the energy crisis decide them for us e