The Forgotten Fundamentals of the Energy Crisis

• Main Author: Bartlett, Albert A.
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Scholars' Mine 1976
• Subjects: Chemical Engineering; Energy Policy; Arctic; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/umr-mec/103; https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1102&context=umr-mec

Papers at an energy conference may tend to deal with details. The details are important, but only if they relate to the national or global picture. We know that an energy crisis has motivated us to look at all manner of detail in regard to our own particular uses of energy. We hear political leaders of the United States speaking of "energy self-sufficiency" and of "Project Independence". We have the vague feeling that arctic oil from Alaska will relieve the energy crisis, and we are told that the United States is in good shape in the long run because of our vast deposits of coal. What are the facts? Rather than take you into the sticky abyss of statistics, I wish to rely on a few data and the pristine simplicity of elementary mathematics. With these basic tools I believe I can give you a new and reasonably clear understanding of the gravity of the energy problem.