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Energy, food, environment: Realities, myths, options
Book reviews rues); the need for coordination of all relevant agencies; and the fall-off in energy savings over time in some cases, However, whilst such exercises should certainly be undertaken - both to adapt and improve energy efficiency programmes over time and to
efficiency programmes whilst equally searching ex poste analyses of very much larger energy supply-side investment in both R & D and production facilities are virtually nonexistent. Of course, this is no criticism of the present book but rather of the distorted perspectives so redolent of the
conditional optimism will also be found in the next chapter, where 1 will examine abovc all the changing perceptions of thc state of the global environment.
analyse the value for m o n e y o b t a i n e d - they do highlight a f u r t h e r c o n u n d r u m . It seems strange t h a t so m u c h effort s h o u l d be c o m m i t t e d to rigorous analysis of invariably small-scale utility, c o u n t y or local a u t h o r i t y e n e r g y
e n e r g y sector!
d e s e r v e d l y critical look linking b o t h n i t r o g e n a n d sulphur a n d industry and agriculture. C a r b o n dioxide ( C O D is m o r e of a p r o b l e m if the g r e e n h o u s e effect melts the glaciers a n d raises the sea l e v e l - Smil says we can cope. T h e same a p p e a r s to be true if it is simply staving off the next ice age, the p a n a c e a being the fact that increased
,John Chosshire SPRU Energy Programme University of Sussex Brighton, UK
Sweep it under the statistics ENERGY, FOOD, ENVIRONMENT:
plistic conclusion, I can only quote
Realities. Myths, Options
some of the a u t h o r ' s key s u m m a r y
statements. by Vaclav Smil
Oxford UniversityPress, Oxford, UK, 1987, 361 pp, £25.00
"Oh, w h a t a lovely b o o k ' . E v e r y student of the t h r e e E's - e n v i r o n m e n t , ecology and e c o n o m i c s - s h o u l d add this to the well t h u m b e d section of t h e i r libraries, It is a m o n u m e n t a l work, a multispectral sensing of w h a t is h a p p e n i n g to the world. W r i t t e n like a novel, it draws the r e a d e r on into an a m a l g a m of q u o t a t i o n s culled from a r a n g e of sources, a feast of political, social a n d economic comment and a refreshing use of d a t a a n d statistics. Vaclav Smil has a vast k n o w l e d g e of the global e n v i r o n m e n t - i n d e e d his insight into d e v e l o p m e n t s in C h i n a and J a p a n a l o n e m a k e this well w o r t h reading, T h e m o r e I read the m o r e fascinated I b e c a m e , but also the m o r e frustrated. T h e fascination was the elegant way the author has p i d g e o n h o l e d so m u c h from so m a n y disciplines a n d m a d e the synthetic whole so plausible. T h e f r u s t r a t i o n came in the i n t e r p r e t a t i o n which in essence says t h e r e is no real n e e d to w o r r y - c i v i l i z a t i o n has d o n e s o w e l l i n the past, especially o v e r the last 50 years, that we will be ok in the future as long as we d o n ' t rock the b o a t too much. In s u p p o r t of this r a t h e r sim-
ENERGY POLICY February 1988
His treatise on environment revolves around the three major cycles: carbon, nitrogen and sulphur. The simplistic idea of acid rain receives a
co2
c o n c e n t r a t i o n increases the rate of p h o t o s y n t h e s i s and d e c r e a s e s the rate of w a t e r loss - b o t h h o o r a y factors for the agriculturalists.
Doomsters and doombusters To p r o v e his p o i n t ( s ) the last c h a p t e r
Major cycles After a well argued chapter on energy which includes detailed appraisal of the p r o m i s e and p r o b l e m s of fossil fuels, t h e reason b e h i n d the U S A and S w e d e n ' s decision to put a t o m i c power o n ice, a n d an e c o n o m i c look at a l t e r n a t i v e s including b i o m a s s he concludes: Wolf Hafele and Amory kovins, the two extremists of the global energy debate sharing a belief in a rather quick technical fix, albeit from different directions, arc wrong. At thc beginning of the next confury we shall be living neither in the world of burgeoning synthetic fuels and fast breeder reactors with nearly doubled encrgy consumption, nor in one powered by tiny gizmos on the roofs and in the backyards and using impressively much less energy than now. Gadgets of both categories will be around but - it is an unglamorous forecast - the most, or the Icast, surprising fact will be how the everyday energy supply realities of the year 2/)1)5 will resemble those of 1985. Likewise concluding an exciting resume of world diet a n d food production which includes a sideways look at the fads a n d fancies of the h e a l t h food cults, he states: Finally, the most fundamental consideration of all: if we continue to do well in staple grain production and reduce somewhat our high consumption of animal foods there will be no need for any shocking food novelties for generations to come. And this
briefly compares the doomsters and the doombusters, brushing both aside with his often used insinuations "increasingly naive interpretation" a n d ' t h e y simply s h o u l d n ' t write such nonsense'. T h e t r o u b l e is that a n y o n e with a s m a t t e r i n g of scientific t r a i n i n g c a n ' t help but agree. So you feel yourself b e i n g lulled into a c o m p l a c e n c y which says 'we h a v e n ' t d o n e so badly in the past, have we'? So we shoukl be able to look after the future, s h o u l d n ' t we'?" T o a University Professor living in affluent C a n a d a , it may well look that way, but what of the view from the s o u t h e r n half of the p r o b l e m , or even from the u n e m p l o y e d e n d of the M a n itoba street. T h e "progress' of the last 50 years (which we must r e m e m b e r started with an a b u n d a n c e of space, energy, raw materials a n d o p p o r t u n i t i e s at the disposal of a h u m a n p o p u l a t i o n of a m e r e two billion) may have got us to a state in which m o r e people are b e t t e r fed, clothed and h o u s e d t h a n ever before. But ask the 10l) 000 people w h o will die of s t a r v a t i o n before the day is out, what do they think'? Also ask some p e r t i n e n t q u e s t i o n s a bit n e a r e r h o m e , a b o u t i n n e r city decay, u r b a n v a n d a l i s m , rural dep r i v a t i o n , u n e m p l o y m e n t , regional a n d n a t i o n a l b a l a n c e of p a y m e n t s , loss of a m e n i t y lands, tribal lands, h u m a n
81
Book reviews
rights, the overcrowded 'honeypots' of national parks and freeways (to freedom?). A livable environment is much more than carbon, nitrogen and sulphur c y c l e s - things that can't be really quantified neither can they be swept neatly under the statistics, Is there really any sense in the poorest third of the world starving as they sweat under a tropical sun often destroying their native forests and soils in an attempt not to feed themselves, but in order to service a debt of one trillion dollars. An obscene sum of money and lent in all good faith to build megadams, power stations, to buy tractors, agricultural chemicals
Uranium symposium URANIUM AND NUCLEAR ENERGY: 1986 edited by Peter Bird
The Uranium Institute, Publications Section, Twelfth Floor, Oowator House, 68 KnightsOridgo, london $ W I X 7LT, UK, 1987, xix + 452 OP, £49
This official record of the Uranium Institute's eleventh annual symposium is a well produced volume and goes a shade beyond chronicling the papers and armaments in an attempt to drag and discussions of a couple of days in them into this 21st century 'quasi-why September 1986: some of the authors worry nirvana' the author just thinks have in minor ways corrected their might come about. A real ' O What a original offerings, Lovely War' syndrome. Please reThe symposium was held in the member as you read this, the outcome shadow of a nuclear disaster. The of the 'never cry wolf' story is that the chairman, Frederick Bonner, a conboy was eaten by the wolf. sultant to the Central Electricity Generating Board, in his foreword Masterful overview calls foolish any attempt to deny the problems set by 'the sombre events The cries of Commoner, the Ehrlichs, which took place at Chernobyl'. Lovins, Myers and the others the However, he dismisses as a dream the author villifies may have been ex- impression in some minds, deepened treme, but they played a major part in by the catastrophe, that contemporstimulating environmental concern aneous falls in oil prices make nuclear and the drawing up of the laws and power no longer necessary. On the guidelines which the author accepts as contrary, the faster we use up fossil an important part of his 'conditional fuels the sooner we shall have to resort optimism'. They have also stimulated to nuclear power. Bonner insists that, the writing of this book which I hope despite Chernobyl, nuclear power is will be read by many people of many 'environmentally very much better disciplines, for it is a masterful over- than fossil fuels'. Cheaper, too, in view both in black and white and in many countries, and tending to stay full colour of the status quo of that way because more intensive Spaceship Earth. If, as stated in the counter-pollution is bound to push up opening gambit, everything is ok as generating costs. Bonnet is pleased long as nature's environmental setwith the growth of international colvices are in operation, surely as we laboration after Chernobyl, as exemreplace more and more of the natural plified in the significantly greater imdiversity of rivers, lakes, grasslands, portance of the International Atomic forest, estuaries, seas and soils with Energy Agency ( I A E A ) and in the concrete, t a r m a c a d a m , genetically Uranium Institute's own efforts, uniform monoculture and energy guz- There are no nuclear-free zones, he zling machinery, this is a time for says, echoing the conclusions of a concern rather than complacency. House of Lords report. He goes on to call for international agreement on all aspects of reactor safety and operaProfessor David Bellamy tion, plus rigorous international inThe Conservation Foundation spection. All in all, he sees nuclear London, UK power forging ahead, though still
82
struggling to regain public confidence. The book contains five papers and discussion under the heading 'Energy policy issues'. Dr Helga Steeg gives the International Energy Agency's view of world energy prospects generally and of nuclear power's role in bringing 'energy security', which countries abandoning nuclear will be forced to seek elsewhere. A trio of I A E A authors follows, advocating nuclear for developing countries that do not have hydroelectric potential and in which the coal option is more expensive. Dr Tom Stauffer, of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, Washington, USA, describes the interaction of nuclear and oil economics and predicts rises in oil prices following the lack of new nuclear stations, rises that will probably be more violent if new plants are further delayed because of currently low oil prices. Dr John Siegel of the US Atomic Industrial Forum sees his country as the next big nuclear power market as much new generating capacity is becoming increasingly necessary and, because, in his view, only uranium and coal (both equally problematical to the press) would give the USA a balanced electricity supply in the long term. A lawyer, Marcus Rowden, dwells on institutional changes taking place in the U S A and, in his opinion, benefiting the nuclear power programme there. Energy policy issues are reflected repeatedly in other sections of the book; for example, the four papers and discussion under 'Public attitudes and waste management'; the five papers under 'The uranium market'; the section on new technology in the enrichment of uranium and the sections on uranium mining and production all contain nuggets for the policy prospector. Useful additional features of the book are lists of the world's nuclear power plants and uranium production facilities.
Arthur Conway Harrow Middlesex, UK
ENERGY POLICY February 1988
efficiency programmes whilst equally searching ex poste analyses of very much larger energy supply-side investment in both R & D and production facilities are virtually nonexistent. Of course, this is no criticism of the present book but rather of the distorted perspectives so redolent of the
conditional optimism will also be found in the next chapter, where 1 will examine abovc all the changing perceptions of thc state of the global environment.
analyse the value for m o n e y o b t a i n e d - they do highlight a f u r t h e r c o n u n d r u m . It seems strange t h a t so m u c h effort s h o u l d be c o m m i t t e d to rigorous analysis of invariably small-scale utility, c o u n t y or local a u t h o r i t y e n e r g y
e n e r g y sector!
d e s e r v e d l y critical look linking b o t h n i t r o g e n a n d sulphur a n d industry and agriculture. C a r b o n dioxide ( C O D is m o r e of a p r o b l e m if the g r e e n h o u s e effect melts the glaciers a n d raises the sea l e v e l - Smil says we can cope. T h e same a p p e a r s to be true if it is simply staving off the next ice age, the p a n a c e a being the fact that increased
,John Chosshire SPRU Energy Programme University of Sussex Brighton, UK
Sweep it under the statistics ENERGY, FOOD, ENVIRONMENT:
plistic conclusion, I can only quote
Realities. Myths, Options
some of the a u t h o r ' s key s u m m a r y
statements. by Vaclav Smil
Oxford UniversityPress, Oxford, UK, 1987, 361 pp, £25.00
"Oh, w h a t a lovely b o o k ' . E v e r y student of the t h r e e E's - e n v i r o n m e n t , ecology and e c o n o m i c s - s h o u l d add this to the well t h u m b e d section of t h e i r libraries, It is a m o n u m e n t a l work, a multispectral sensing of w h a t is h a p p e n i n g to the world. W r i t t e n like a novel, it draws the r e a d e r on into an a m a l g a m of q u o t a t i o n s culled from a r a n g e of sources, a feast of political, social a n d economic comment and a refreshing use of d a t a a n d statistics. Vaclav Smil has a vast k n o w l e d g e of the global e n v i r o n m e n t - i n d e e d his insight into d e v e l o p m e n t s in C h i n a and J a p a n a l o n e m a k e this well w o r t h reading, T h e m o r e I read the m o r e fascinated I b e c a m e , but also the m o r e frustrated. T h e fascination was the elegant way the author has p i d g e o n h o l e d so m u c h from so m a n y disciplines a n d m a d e the synthetic whole so plausible. T h e f r u s t r a t i o n came in the i n t e r p r e t a t i o n which in essence says t h e r e is no real n e e d to w o r r y - c i v i l i z a t i o n has d o n e s o w e l l i n the past, especially o v e r the last 50 years, that we will be ok in the future as long as we d o n ' t rock the b o a t too much. In s u p p o r t of this r a t h e r sim-
ENERGY POLICY February 1988
His treatise on environment revolves around the three major cycles: carbon, nitrogen and sulphur. The simplistic idea of acid rain receives a
co2
c o n c e n t r a t i o n increases the rate of p h o t o s y n t h e s i s and d e c r e a s e s the rate of w a t e r loss - b o t h h o o r a y factors for the agriculturalists.
Doomsters and doombusters To p r o v e his p o i n t ( s ) the last c h a p t e r
Major cycles After a well argued chapter on energy which includes detailed appraisal of the p r o m i s e and p r o b l e m s of fossil fuels, t h e reason b e h i n d the U S A and S w e d e n ' s decision to put a t o m i c power o n ice, a n d an e c o n o m i c look at a l t e r n a t i v e s including b i o m a s s he concludes: Wolf Hafele and Amory kovins, the two extremists of the global energy debate sharing a belief in a rather quick technical fix, albeit from different directions, arc wrong. At thc beginning of the next confury we shall be living neither in the world of burgeoning synthetic fuels and fast breeder reactors with nearly doubled encrgy consumption, nor in one powered by tiny gizmos on the roofs and in the backyards and using impressively much less energy than now. Gadgets of both categories will be around but - it is an unglamorous forecast - the most, or the Icast, surprising fact will be how the everyday energy supply realities of the year 2/)1)5 will resemble those of 1985. Likewise concluding an exciting resume of world diet a n d food production which includes a sideways look at the fads a n d fancies of the h e a l t h food cults, he states: Finally, the most fundamental consideration of all: if we continue to do well in staple grain production and reduce somewhat our high consumption of animal foods there will be no need for any shocking food novelties for generations to come. And this
briefly compares the doomsters and the doombusters, brushing both aside with his often used insinuations "increasingly naive interpretation" a n d ' t h e y simply s h o u l d n ' t write such nonsense'. T h e t r o u b l e is that a n y o n e with a s m a t t e r i n g of scientific t r a i n i n g c a n ' t help but agree. So you feel yourself b e i n g lulled into a c o m p l a c e n c y which says 'we h a v e n ' t d o n e so badly in the past, have we'? So we shoukl be able to look after the future, s h o u l d n ' t we'?" T o a University Professor living in affluent C a n a d a , it may well look that way, but what of the view from the s o u t h e r n half of the p r o b l e m , or even from the u n e m p l o y e d e n d of the M a n itoba street. T h e "progress' of the last 50 years (which we must r e m e m b e r started with an a b u n d a n c e of space, energy, raw materials a n d o p p o r t u n i t i e s at the disposal of a h u m a n p o p u l a t i o n of a m e r e two billion) may have got us to a state in which m o r e people are b e t t e r fed, clothed and h o u s e d t h a n ever before. But ask the 10l) 000 people w h o will die of s t a r v a t i o n before the day is out, what do they think'? Also ask some p e r t i n e n t q u e s t i o n s a bit n e a r e r h o m e , a b o u t i n n e r city decay, u r b a n v a n d a l i s m , rural dep r i v a t i o n , u n e m p l o y m e n t , regional a n d n a t i o n a l b a l a n c e of p a y m e n t s , loss of a m e n i t y lands, tribal lands, h u m a n
81
Book reviews
rights, the overcrowded 'honeypots' of national parks and freeways (to freedom?). A livable environment is much more than carbon, nitrogen and sulphur c y c l e s - things that can't be really quantified neither can they be swept neatly under the statistics, Is there really any sense in the poorest third of the world starving as they sweat under a tropical sun often destroying their native forests and soils in an attempt not to feed themselves, but in order to service a debt of one trillion dollars. An obscene sum of money and lent in all good faith to build megadams, power stations, to buy tractors, agricultural chemicals
Uranium symposium URANIUM AND NUCLEAR ENERGY: 1986 edited by Peter Bird
The Uranium Institute, Publications Section, Twelfth Floor, Oowator House, 68 KnightsOridgo, london $ W I X 7LT, UK, 1987, xix + 452 OP, £49
This official record of the Uranium Institute's eleventh annual symposium is a well produced volume and goes a shade beyond chronicling the papers and armaments in an attempt to drag and discussions of a couple of days in them into this 21st century 'quasi-why September 1986: some of the authors worry nirvana' the author just thinks have in minor ways corrected their might come about. A real ' O What a original offerings, Lovely War' syndrome. Please reThe symposium was held in the member as you read this, the outcome shadow of a nuclear disaster. The of the 'never cry wolf' story is that the chairman, Frederick Bonner, a conboy was eaten by the wolf. sultant to the Central Electricity Generating Board, in his foreword Masterful overview calls foolish any attempt to deny the problems set by 'the sombre events The cries of Commoner, the Ehrlichs, which took place at Chernobyl'. Lovins, Myers and the others the However, he dismisses as a dream the author villifies may have been ex- impression in some minds, deepened treme, but they played a major part in by the catastrophe, that contemporstimulating environmental concern aneous falls in oil prices make nuclear and the drawing up of the laws and power no longer necessary. On the guidelines which the author accepts as contrary, the faster we use up fossil an important part of his 'conditional fuels the sooner we shall have to resort optimism'. They have also stimulated to nuclear power. Bonner insists that, the writing of this book which I hope despite Chernobyl, nuclear power is will be read by many people of many 'environmentally very much better disciplines, for it is a masterful over- than fossil fuels'. Cheaper, too, in view both in black and white and in many countries, and tending to stay full colour of the status quo of that way because more intensive Spaceship Earth. If, as stated in the counter-pollution is bound to push up opening gambit, everything is ok as generating costs. Bonnet is pleased long as nature's environmental setwith the growth of international colvices are in operation, surely as we laboration after Chernobyl, as exemreplace more and more of the natural plified in the significantly greater imdiversity of rivers, lakes, grasslands, portance of the International Atomic forest, estuaries, seas and soils with Energy Agency ( I A E A ) and in the concrete, t a r m a c a d a m , genetically Uranium Institute's own efforts, uniform monoculture and energy guz- There are no nuclear-free zones, he zling machinery, this is a time for says, echoing the conclusions of a concern rather than complacency. House of Lords report. He goes on to call for international agreement on all aspects of reactor safety and operaProfessor David Bellamy tion, plus rigorous international inThe Conservation Foundation spection. All in all, he sees nuclear London, UK power forging ahead, though still
82
struggling to regain public confidence. The book contains five papers and discussion under the heading 'Energy policy issues'. Dr Helga Steeg gives the International Energy Agency's view of world energy prospects generally and of nuclear power's role in bringing 'energy security', which countries abandoning nuclear will be forced to seek elsewhere. A trio of I A E A authors follows, advocating nuclear for developing countries that do not have hydroelectric potential and in which the coal option is more expensive. Dr Tom Stauffer, of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, Washington, USA, describes the interaction of nuclear and oil economics and predicts rises in oil prices following the lack of new nuclear stations, rises that will probably be more violent if new plants are further delayed because of currently low oil prices. Dr John Siegel of the US Atomic Industrial Forum sees his country as the next big nuclear power market as much new generating capacity is becoming increasingly necessary and, because, in his view, only uranium and coal (both equally problematical to the press) would give the USA a balanced electricity supply in the long term. A lawyer, Marcus Rowden, dwells on institutional changes taking place in the U S A and, in his opinion, benefiting the nuclear power programme there. Energy policy issues are reflected repeatedly in other sections of the book; for example, the four papers and discussion under 'Public attitudes and waste management'; the five papers under 'The uranium market'; the section on new technology in the enrichment of uranium and the sections on uranium mining and production all contain nuggets for the policy prospector. Useful additional features of the book are lists of the world's nuclear power plants and uranium production facilities.
Arthur Conway Harrow Middlesex, UK
ENERGY POLICY February 1988