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News of the World Bank
News of the World Bank World Bank outlines key environment actions
Thailand expands electricity transmission
In 1987 this column reported that the Bank was to take important measures to preserve the environment in the projects which it helps to finance. A good number of such projects which can seriously affect the environment occur in the energy sector. The Bank's Senior Vice President for Policy, Planning and Research, David Hopper, now calls for much greater cooperation among all official and nongovernmental organizations involved in development. World Bank News of 3 March 1988 outlines the key actions concerning the energy sector which are now being taken by the Bank in these matters.
Work Bank News of 3 March 1988 announced that Thailand will meet the growing electricity demand, especially in the industrial sector, by expanding its electricity transmission system. The Bank is to contribute towards the project with a loan of US$111) million. During the next seven years, electricity demand is postulated to grow at the rate of about 7%~year, with shortages developing by 1990. The total project will cost US$231 million and is for helping to stave off these shortages by building new power lines, expanding existing lines and upgrading centres of transmission. The Electricity Generating Authority of Thaihmd is providing US$87.3 million towards the project and US$11.3 million is being provided by commercial banks.
•
•
•
•
•
•
424
The Bank now has almost 60 professionals working directly on environmental problems. There are a further 30 scientists and p r o j e c t officers w o r k i n g on directly related activities, as well as many specialized consultants. The full portfolio of the Bank's projects is now under review to d e t e r m i n e additional changes necessary to insure improved environmental results. The environmental staff is involved in all new project preparation. Environmental assessments have been launched in five seriously affected nations, the first of 30 countries that will be evaluated over the next five years. The Bank is now an active participant in efforts to implement a global forestry action plan. The Bank's project supervision missions oversee the handling of compensation provided to persons being resettled as a result of development projects, eg claims for hydroelectric schemes. The Bank's policy states that, unless suitable resettlement arrangements are made, it will not finance the project in question.
Energy reforms in Argentina receive co-financing The E x p o r t - h n p o r t Bank (EXIM Bank) of Japan is to provide an 'untied' co-financing loan of Yen 67.7 billion (US$373 million) to support reforms in Argentina's energy sector, says World Bank News of 3 March 1988. The other participant of the cofinancing scheme are the World Bank; US$200 million (July 1981) plus a supplementary loan of US$116 million (May 1986) for a refinery project; and US$180 million in 1985 for a gas utilization plus technical assistance project. The loans from EXIM Bank and the World Bank supports the government of Argentina to first, help improve the overall efficiency of two major oil refineries in the country; second, promote increased gas usage; and third, strengthen the planning and financial management of Argentina's largest state enterprise, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales (YPF). This is the third collaboration between the World
Bank and the EXIM Bank in Latin America, under the new 'united' facility of EXIM Bank, whereby procurement of goods and services under the EX1M Bank loan is open to all member countries of the World Bank. The other two collaborations under the 'united' arrangement were in Colombia and Mexico. The World Bank will supervise procurement.
World population and energy What the world's population is likely to be next century is of vital importance to those trying to predict energy requirements, World Bank News of 3 March 1988 announced the publication of an important book in this respect, World Population Projections: 1987-1988 Edition. The world's population topped 5 billion in mid1987 and is growing presently at about 7 million/year. If this continues then the global total will be 6 billion in only another 10 years or so. Higher growth rates in population are met with in sub-Saharan Africa, at about 3.2%/ year; 414 million in 1988, expected to double in the next 20 years. Of the developing regions of the World, Asia has the lowest fertility rate, and is likely to double its population in another 15(1 years. Latin America and the Caribbean are likely to double their populations by 2039, and developing nations in Europe, Middle East and North Africa likely to double by 2023. The book warns that, although the world's population growth rate, currently at 1.7%, is gradually falling towards 1% by (say) 2025, the actual number of people needing the finite resources from this planet is increasing (important with respect to all resources, including energy resources). Some important indications are: • •
• •
India will catch up with China in population size by about 2145. Nigeria might o v e r t a k e both C h i n a and I n d i a in a n n u a l population growth. Kenya and Rwanda have the highest fertility rates. Sierra Leone has the lowest life expectation at birth and the highest infant mortality rate.
ENERGY POLICY August 1988
News of dw Wor/d Bank Table 1. Nature of World Bank and IDA lending, fiscal years 1981-87 (in US$ millions).
1981 Private sector orientation Small- and medium-scale enterprises (through development finance institutions) Agriculture and rural development a
1983
1985
1987
Total 1981-87
% of total lending 1981-87
1 342 2 311
1 769 2 570
1 126 1 762
2 719 2 014
11 680 14 622
11.26 14.10
3 652
4 339
2 888
4 733
26 302
25.37
977 1 323 329 1 036 1 450
1 590 1 768 57 1 365 1 107
2 035 2 250 122 1 165 1 277
1 669 3 017 682 2 439 741
11 976 15 926 1 803 9 684 8 207
11.55 15.36 1.74 9.34 7.92
5 115
5 888
6 849
8 548
47 596
45.90
Policy-based lending d
1 120
1 848
1 045
2 991
13 760
13.27
Other lending Social sectors e Heavy industry, coal, oil, and gas Technical assistance
748 1 526 131
666 1 683 53
1 119 2 374 110
494 804 104
5 775 9 509 743
5.57 9.17 0.72
2 405
2 402
3 602
1 402
16 026
15.46
12 292
14 477
14 384
17 674
103 684
100.00
Subtotal Infrastructure and services Transport b Power Telecommunications Water, sewerage, and urbanization Agriculture ~ Subtotal
Subtotal Total
Source: World Sank data. aFor example, credit and area development, agroindustry, fisheries, forestry, livestock, and perennial crops. blncluding roads, railways, ports, and airports. CFor example, research, extension, and irriga-
tion.
Promoting the private sector
experience of the 1930s; a fear of the power of multinationals and their identification with the colonial past; and the faith of some influential economists in central planning. For many reasons recently there has been a re-examination of the role of the state and a growing awareness of the need to reassess priorities, the emphasis shifting toward tapping private resources and skills, where ever possible. Together with its affiliate for financing the private sector, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank is now an important source of foreign finance for the private sector in the developing world, having provided about US$28 billion in the last five years. One of the important ways in which the Bank helps countries to strengthen the private sector's contribution is in its lending to public sector agencies, such as electric power. Table 1, which is self-explanatory, is of interest in these matters. Energy intensive sectors such as transport and electricity supply account for 11.55% and 15.36%, respectively of total Bank lending in the
The quarterly publication of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Finance and Development of March 1988 says that, 'in co-operation with member governments, the World Bank is helping strengthen the role of the private sector'. This is not the first time that the Bank has drawn attention to this, a somewhat new policy. Since the early 1980s, the Bank believes, development strategy has been changing. Evidently, during the 1960s and the 1970s, public policy of much of the developing world was characterized by a confidence in the capacity of government to act as the main spur to development, and also to correct market failures. Various factors combined to convince many countries, and their governments, that only they had the resources and the purpose to promote development: the under-developed state of indigenous private sectors and capital markets in many countries; also, mistrust of the 'private', stemming partly from the
ENERGY
POLICY
August
1988
period 1981 to 1987. Other energy sectors such as heavy industry, coal, oil and gas accounted for about 9.17'7, in the same period. Private sector orientated lending accounted for over one quarter of total lending in that period. Evidently the Bank intends to increase its support of a more efficient and competitive private sector, both by strengthening ongoing lending and economic work, and also by developing new approaches. Country related teams within the Bank will develop strategies appropriate to each country's circumstances, and also coordinate the various actions within the Bank. In World Bank News of 17 March 1988 opportunities for private sector investment in Africa were reported from a senior manager in the World Bank, Mr Ismail Serageldin, director for Occidental and Central Africa, speaking at the Centre Francais du Commerce Exterieur in Paris, France:
dFor example, structural adjustment and sector policy adjustment. ~Education, training, nutrition.
population, health,
and
Far-reaching privatisation programmes in countries such as Togo and Guinea provide opportunities for promoting growth. In Guinea, 38 of the 45 domimmt public enterprises have been slated to be priwltised or liquidated. Fourteen have been privatised to date. In Cote d'lvoire, the government has sold off its share in more companies than has been the case in any other African country. Twenty-cight companies have been priwttised, with another half dozen in the proccss of being turned over to priw~te management/ownership.
Slower world economic growth from 1988 Mr Jean Bareth, Director of the World Bank's international economics department, forecasts that 'global production will continue to grow slowly t h r o u g h o u t 1988, e x t e n d i n g the m e d i u m - t e r m recession that has broadly characterized the World economy since 1985, and reigniting the engines of adequate growth now seems beyond reach for 1988'. Evidently, 'unresolved, major global economic problems' will be the main reason for the slower growth unemployment in Europe is still high; incomes in the developing countries are lower than they have been in decades; consumption and investment
425
News of the World Bank/Bookwatch levels are down; little progress has been made towards a solution to the global debt crisis; and trade/budget deficits in the USA are causing disorders in the foreign exchange markets. Mr Bareth notes that 'in the industrial countries, gross national product will probably increase about 2.4 per cent in 1988, compared with 2.7 per cent in 1987, marking the fourth successive year o f economic decelaration. This slow down is likely to continue in 1989 unless a remarkable degree of success is achieved in fine tuning policies for external adjustment and the stabilization of the financial markets'. Other major points noted by Mr Bareth are: •
•
•
•
•
The global economy is on an increasingly narrow and hazardous road, as the capacity of the world's largest economy to continue to borrow externally is increasingly doubtful. Growth in developing countries will continue slowly, in the shortterm running about 4.5%, average between 1987 and 1988, about the same as in 1986. Very strong growth is being achieved in a few developing countries with: relatively low debts; diversified bases of production; large internal markets; a capacity to penetrate export markets; and a stable institutional framework. Many primary commodityproducing countries are now unable to grow at rates that even begin to afford a restoration of past per capita consumption and investment levels; and for some of these, an overhang of external debt is a central impediment to renewal growth. Given the probability of even slower growth in the world economy beyond 1988, and extreme uncertainties about the cost and availability of external finance, these debt-constrained economies are bound to encounter difficulties.
7".W. Berrie Energy Consultant Brighton, UK
426
Bookwatch Bludgeonings of chance Energy policy cannot properly be contemplated or made without rcgard to risk at one end of the see-saw and safety at the other. That is almost a truism, and may be just another way of saying how involved our subject is, both internally and in its entanglement with other subjects. For most kinds of risk and safety are entailed: among those that spring to mind are national and international, macroeconomic and commercial, technical and industrial, social and personal, ecological and salubrial; and no significance need attach to the order in which they spring. I have used the words risk and safety but there are several cognate terms that would be equally good or bad as indicators. Doubt and certainty, for instance, or hazard and security, or contingency and reliability. The best choice of nomenclature depends on what is at issue. When Jack M. Hollander and his fellow editors of the twelfth Annual Review o f Energy declare that great quantities of information have mainly gone to show the boundaries of knowledge and understanding, they confessedly bury the confidence of 15 years ago in 'our ability to project an energy future free of surprises' and substitute a hope 'that our recent experience with uncertainty will have led us to incorporate uncertainty more realistically into our forecasts and our planning'. Putting it another way in the same book, Peter Schwartz says (with oil companies particularly in mind) that 'We have to go back and re-engineer major projects to include volatility'. He sees the problem as how 'to manage a business in which we have huge lead times and enormous capital investments in a world in which we won't be able to know whether those investments are going to make sense ten years from now'. The solution that Schwartz sees is dynamic: 'we have to be very, very inventive; very, very quickly. We have to become more
effective traders'. He understands that his readers might be pessimistic about this but he professes himself quite optimistic. His company, Shell, is evidently worth watching. When Hollander et al speak of the 'realistic incorporation' of uncertainty in forecasts and planning they must have quantitative methods in mind. Anyone who wishes to be scientific about risk is bound to seek a graduated scale of some sort, measuring between (at one end) the certainty of an adverse outcome and (at the other end) the certainty that there will be no such adverse outcome. In a venerable tradition, scientific students therefore define risk to make it quantitatively assessable and they then differentiate the thus narrowed term from its synonyms or near-synonyms in ordinary usage. Some of them go further and forget or treat with disdain the broader meaning of the word in ordinary usage. Physicists and engineers have long been rigorous in their use of such terms as force, power and energy. There are accurate instruments for measuring the quite different quantities defined under those names. Yet, in popular parlance, the words continue to be employed almost interchangeably. It takes will, and goodwill toward the public, for a scientist or engineer to 'lapse' into the everyday and undifferentiated usage so that he can explain a technical matter without deterrent preambulatory definitions. An author possessing both the will and the goodwill is Professor John Fremlin, who steels himself to write of power, work and energy indiscriminately, and even to pen such a phrase as 'a million kilowatts of mechanical work' when he knows that, for the cognoscenti, kilowatts are units of power, not work, a distinction as profound for them as that between velocity and distance. The book in which Fremlin exercises his expository skill with this art that conceals art is a paperback post-
ENERGY POLICY August 1988
Thailand expands electricity transmission
In 1987 this column reported that the Bank was to take important measures to preserve the environment in the projects which it helps to finance. A good number of such projects which can seriously affect the environment occur in the energy sector. The Bank's Senior Vice President for Policy, Planning and Research, David Hopper, now calls for much greater cooperation among all official and nongovernmental organizations involved in development. World Bank News of 3 March 1988 outlines the key actions concerning the energy sector which are now being taken by the Bank in these matters.
Work Bank News of 3 March 1988 announced that Thailand will meet the growing electricity demand, especially in the industrial sector, by expanding its electricity transmission system. The Bank is to contribute towards the project with a loan of US$111) million. During the next seven years, electricity demand is postulated to grow at the rate of about 7%~year, with shortages developing by 1990. The total project will cost US$231 million and is for helping to stave off these shortages by building new power lines, expanding existing lines and upgrading centres of transmission. The Electricity Generating Authority of Thaihmd is providing US$87.3 million towards the project and US$11.3 million is being provided by commercial banks.
•
•
•
•
•
•
424
The Bank now has almost 60 professionals working directly on environmental problems. There are a further 30 scientists and p r o j e c t officers w o r k i n g on directly related activities, as well as many specialized consultants. The full portfolio of the Bank's projects is now under review to d e t e r m i n e additional changes necessary to insure improved environmental results. The environmental staff is involved in all new project preparation. Environmental assessments have been launched in five seriously affected nations, the first of 30 countries that will be evaluated over the next five years. The Bank is now an active participant in efforts to implement a global forestry action plan. The Bank's project supervision missions oversee the handling of compensation provided to persons being resettled as a result of development projects, eg claims for hydroelectric schemes. The Bank's policy states that, unless suitable resettlement arrangements are made, it will not finance the project in question.
Energy reforms in Argentina receive co-financing The E x p o r t - h n p o r t Bank (EXIM Bank) of Japan is to provide an 'untied' co-financing loan of Yen 67.7 billion (US$373 million) to support reforms in Argentina's energy sector, says World Bank News of 3 March 1988. The other participant of the cofinancing scheme are the World Bank; US$200 million (July 1981) plus a supplementary loan of US$116 million (May 1986) for a refinery project; and US$180 million in 1985 for a gas utilization plus technical assistance project. The loans from EXIM Bank and the World Bank supports the government of Argentina to first, help improve the overall efficiency of two major oil refineries in the country; second, promote increased gas usage; and third, strengthen the planning and financial management of Argentina's largest state enterprise, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales (YPF). This is the third collaboration between the World
Bank and the EXIM Bank in Latin America, under the new 'united' facility of EXIM Bank, whereby procurement of goods and services under the EX1M Bank loan is open to all member countries of the World Bank. The other two collaborations under the 'united' arrangement were in Colombia and Mexico. The World Bank will supervise procurement.
World population and energy What the world's population is likely to be next century is of vital importance to those trying to predict energy requirements, World Bank News of 3 March 1988 announced the publication of an important book in this respect, World Population Projections: 1987-1988 Edition. The world's population topped 5 billion in mid1987 and is growing presently at about 7 million/year. If this continues then the global total will be 6 billion in only another 10 years or so. Higher growth rates in population are met with in sub-Saharan Africa, at about 3.2%/ year; 414 million in 1988, expected to double in the next 20 years. Of the developing regions of the World, Asia has the lowest fertility rate, and is likely to double its population in another 15(1 years. Latin America and the Caribbean are likely to double their populations by 2039, and developing nations in Europe, Middle East and North Africa likely to double by 2023. The book warns that, although the world's population growth rate, currently at 1.7%, is gradually falling towards 1% by (say) 2025, the actual number of people needing the finite resources from this planet is increasing (important with respect to all resources, including energy resources). Some important indications are: • •
• •
India will catch up with China in population size by about 2145. Nigeria might o v e r t a k e both C h i n a and I n d i a in a n n u a l population growth. Kenya and Rwanda have the highest fertility rates. Sierra Leone has the lowest life expectation at birth and the highest infant mortality rate.
ENERGY POLICY August 1988
News of dw Wor/d Bank Table 1. Nature of World Bank and IDA lending, fiscal years 1981-87 (in US$ millions).
1981 Private sector orientation Small- and medium-scale enterprises (through development finance institutions) Agriculture and rural development a
1983
1985
1987
Total 1981-87
% of total lending 1981-87
1 342 2 311
1 769 2 570
1 126 1 762
2 719 2 014
11 680 14 622
11.26 14.10
3 652
4 339
2 888
4 733
26 302
25.37
977 1 323 329 1 036 1 450
1 590 1 768 57 1 365 1 107
2 035 2 250 122 1 165 1 277
1 669 3 017 682 2 439 741
11 976 15 926 1 803 9 684 8 207
11.55 15.36 1.74 9.34 7.92
5 115
5 888
6 849
8 548
47 596
45.90
Policy-based lending d
1 120
1 848
1 045
2 991
13 760
13.27
Other lending Social sectors e Heavy industry, coal, oil, and gas Technical assistance
748 1 526 131
666 1 683 53
1 119 2 374 110
494 804 104
5 775 9 509 743
5.57 9.17 0.72
2 405
2 402
3 602
1 402
16 026
15.46
12 292
14 477
14 384
17 674
103 684
100.00
Subtotal Infrastructure and services Transport b Power Telecommunications Water, sewerage, and urbanization Agriculture ~ Subtotal
Subtotal Total
Source: World Sank data. aFor example, credit and area development, agroindustry, fisheries, forestry, livestock, and perennial crops. blncluding roads, railways, ports, and airports. CFor example, research, extension, and irriga-
tion.
Promoting the private sector
experience of the 1930s; a fear of the power of multinationals and their identification with the colonial past; and the faith of some influential economists in central planning. For many reasons recently there has been a re-examination of the role of the state and a growing awareness of the need to reassess priorities, the emphasis shifting toward tapping private resources and skills, where ever possible. Together with its affiliate for financing the private sector, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank is now an important source of foreign finance for the private sector in the developing world, having provided about US$28 billion in the last five years. One of the important ways in which the Bank helps countries to strengthen the private sector's contribution is in its lending to public sector agencies, such as electric power. Table 1, which is self-explanatory, is of interest in these matters. Energy intensive sectors such as transport and electricity supply account for 11.55% and 15.36%, respectively of total Bank lending in the
The quarterly publication of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Finance and Development of March 1988 says that, 'in co-operation with member governments, the World Bank is helping strengthen the role of the private sector'. This is not the first time that the Bank has drawn attention to this, a somewhat new policy. Since the early 1980s, the Bank believes, development strategy has been changing. Evidently, during the 1960s and the 1970s, public policy of much of the developing world was characterized by a confidence in the capacity of government to act as the main spur to development, and also to correct market failures. Various factors combined to convince many countries, and their governments, that only they had the resources and the purpose to promote development: the under-developed state of indigenous private sectors and capital markets in many countries; also, mistrust of the 'private', stemming partly from the
ENERGY
POLICY
August
1988
period 1981 to 1987. Other energy sectors such as heavy industry, coal, oil and gas accounted for about 9.17'7, in the same period. Private sector orientated lending accounted for over one quarter of total lending in that period. Evidently the Bank intends to increase its support of a more efficient and competitive private sector, both by strengthening ongoing lending and economic work, and also by developing new approaches. Country related teams within the Bank will develop strategies appropriate to each country's circumstances, and also coordinate the various actions within the Bank. In World Bank News of 17 March 1988 opportunities for private sector investment in Africa were reported from a senior manager in the World Bank, Mr Ismail Serageldin, director for Occidental and Central Africa, speaking at the Centre Francais du Commerce Exterieur in Paris, France:
dFor example, structural adjustment and sector policy adjustment. ~Education, training, nutrition.
population, health,
and
Far-reaching privatisation programmes in countries such as Togo and Guinea provide opportunities for promoting growth. In Guinea, 38 of the 45 domimmt public enterprises have been slated to be priwltised or liquidated. Fourteen have been privatised to date. In Cote d'lvoire, the government has sold off its share in more companies than has been the case in any other African country. Twenty-cight companies have been priwttised, with another half dozen in the proccss of being turned over to priw~te management/ownership.
Slower world economic growth from 1988 Mr Jean Bareth, Director of the World Bank's international economics department, forecasts that 'global production will continue to grow slowly t h r o u g h o u t 1988, e x t e n d i n g the m e d i u m - t e r m recession that has broadly characterized the World economy since 1985, and reigniting the engines of adequate growth now seems beyond reach for 1988'. Evidently, 'unresolved, major global economic problems' will be the main reason for the slower growth unemployment in Europe is still high; incomes in the developing countries are lower than they have been in decades; consumption and investment
425
News of the World Bank/Bookwatch levels are down; little progress has been made towards a solution to the global debt crisis; and trade/budget deficits in the USA are causing disorders in the foreign exchange markets. Mr Bareth notes that 'in the industrial countries, gross national product will probably increase about 2.4 per cent in 1988, compared with 2.7 per cent in 1987, marking the fourth successive year o f economic decelaration. This slow down is likely to continue in 1989 unless a remarkable degree of success is achieved in fine tuning policies for external adjustment and the stabilization of the financial markets'. Other major points noted by Mr Bareth are: •
•
•
•
•
The global economy is on an increasingly narrow and hazardous road, as the capacity of the world's largest economy to continue to borrow externally is increasingly doubtful. Growth in developing countries will continue slowly, in the shortterm running about 4.5%, average between 1987 and 1988, about the same as in 1986. Very strong growth is being achieved in a few developing countries with: relatively low debts; diversified bases of production; large internal markets; a capacity to penetrate export markets; and a stable institutional framework. Many primary commodityproducing countries are now unable to grow at rates that even begin to afford a restoration of past per capita consumption and investment levels; and for some of these, an overhang of external debt is a central impediment to renewal growth. Given the probability of even slower growth in the world economy beyond 1988, and extreme uncertainties about the cost and availability of external finance, these debt-constrained economies are bound to encounter difficulties.
7".W. Berrie Energy Consultant Brighton, UK
426
Bookwatch Bludgeonings of chance Energy policy cannot properly be contemplated or made without rcgard to risk at one end of the see-saw and safety at the other. That is almost a truism, and may be just another way of saying how involved our subject is, both internally and in its entanglement with other subjects. For most kinds of risk and safety are entailed: among those that spring to mind are national and international, macroeconomic and commercial, technical and industrial, social and personal, ecological and salubrial; and no significance need attach to the order in which they spring. I have used the words risk and safety but there are several cognate terms that would be equally good or bad as indicators. Doubt and certainty, for instance, or hazard and security, or contingency and reliability. The best choice of nomenclature depends on what is at issue. When Jack M. Hollander and his fellow editors of the twelfth Annual Review o f Energy declare that great quantities of information have mainly gone to show the boundaries of knowledge and understanding, they confessedly bury the confidence of 15 years ago in 'our ability to project an energy future free of surprises' and substitute a hope 'that our recent experience with uncertainty will have led us to incorporate uncertainty more realistically into our forecasts and our planning'. Putting it another way in the same book, Peter Schwartz says (with oil companies particularly in mind) that 'We have to go back and re-engineer major projects to include volatility'. He sees the problem as how 'to manage a business in which we have huge lead times and enormous capital investments in a world in which we won't be able to know whether those investments are going to make sense ten years from now'. The solution that Schwartz sees is dynamic: 'we have to be very, very inventive; very, very quickly. We have to become more
effective traders'. He understands that his readers might be pessimistic about this but he professes himself quite optimistic. His company, Shell, is evidently worth watching. When Hollander et al speak of the 'realistic incorporation' of uncertainty in forecasts and planning they must have quantitative methods in mind. Anyone who wishes to be scientific about risk is bound to seek a graduated scale of some sort, measuring between (at one end) the certainty of an adverse outcome and (at the other end) the certainty that there will be no such adverse outcome. In a venerable tradition, scientific students therefore define risk to make it quantitatively assessable and they then differentiate the thus narrowed term from its synonyms or near-synonyms in ordinary usage. Some of them go further and forget or treat with disdain the broader meaning of the word in ordinary usage. Physicists and engineers have long been rigorous in their use of such terms as force, power and energy. There are accurate instruments for measuring the quite different quantities defined under those names. Yet, in popular parlance, the words continue to be employed almost interchangeably. It takes will, and goodwill toward the public, for a scientist or engineer to 'lapse' into the everyday and undifferentiated usage so that he can explain a technical matter without deterrent preambulatory definitions. An author possessing both the will and the goodwill is Professor John Fremlin, who steels himself to write of power, work and energy indiscriminately, and even to pen such a phrase as 'a million kilowatts of mechanical work' when he knows that, for the cognoscenti, kilowatts are units of power, not work, a distinction as profound for them as that between velocity and distance. The book in which Fremlin exercises his expository skill with this art that conceals art is a paperback post-
ENERGY POLICY August 1988