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STUDY ANALYZES GLOBAL ENERGY FUTURE Physically, the global energy problem could be solved. Even with the tech­nologies at hand or potentially at hand, it would be possible to provide enough energy for a world of 8 billion people in the year 2030, using the world's resources as perceived today.

That is the optimism expressed in a massive report of a seven-year study of the world energy future conducted by the Austrian-based International Institute for Applied Systems Anal­ysis (II AS A). But a good deal less optimism that the problem will be solved was expressed in Washington, D.C., last week by institute deputy director Wolf Hàfele at a press brief­ing hosted by the National Academy of Sciences. The briefing was held coincident with publication of the

study, "Energy in a Finite World," in two volumes subtitled "Paths to a Sustainable Future" and "A Global Systems Analysis."

Hàfele, who headed the study group, echoed the report's belief that world energy requirements in 2030 can be met. But he isn't optimistic that they will be. Although the re­sources and technology are available to sustain the anticipated increase in population, the political, economic, and other institutional hurdles may be too high to overcome.

The report concentrates on the technical aspects of the energy prob­lem and makes no assessment of present or future politics. It finds that to meet the growing worldwide de­mand for energy, full use of all avail­able energy resources will be required.

NASA: International but not governmental

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (NASA) had its be­ginnings in 1967 when an American and a Soviet met in Moscow and agreed that the two nations would work together to establish an international scientific in­stitution. The two were McGeorge Bundy, former national security adviser to President Lyndon Johnson, and Aca­demician Jermen Gvishiani, deputy chairman of the State Committee for Science & Technology of the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers.

During the next five years, charac­terized by spurts of negotiations and long periods of seeming inactivity, 10 more nations joined the discussions, and a charter gradually took shape. Drafted in English, the working language of NASA, the charter was designed to accommo­date many points of view.

A key provision of the charter makes NASA international without being gov­ernmental. Its members are not nations but scientific institutions from each participating nation—for the U.S., the National Academy of Sciences.

In naming the institute, the founders used "systems analysis" to convey the impression that research at the institute would apply modern analytical tools and a wide range of scientific and techno­logical knowledge in addressing major problems of global concern. "Applied" stresses a concern with practical, real-life issues.

The founders accepted an offer by the Austrian government to locate the in­stitute at Schloss Laxenburg, former Hapsburg hunting palace near Vienna. In the summer of 1973, the first scien­tists took up their assignments.

As currently organized, NASA activi­ties are grouped into four broad research areas and two research programs. The four areas deal with resources and en­vironment, human settlement and ser­vices, management and technology, and system and decision sciences. The two programs deal with problems of global character: an energy systems program and a food and agriculture program.

The institute's governing body is the NASA Council, comprising one repre­sentative from each national member organization. The council approves the principal research directions and budget, sets financial and management policies, deals with questions of membership, and appoints the director and deputy directors. The chairman of the council since its inception has been Soviet Academician Gvishiani.

The director of IIASA—since No­vember 1975 Roger Levien of Rand Corp. in the U.S.—is responsible for the formulation, management, and admin­istration of all the institute's activities. The first director was Howard Raiffa of Harvard University, who was a major participant in the early negotiations that led to establishment of the institute.

Dirtier and more expensive fossil re­sources and vast quantities of syn-fuels will have to be developed, as well as both large-scale solar plants and nuclear breeder reactors. Small-scale solar and renewable resources will play a growing role, but they can sat­isfy only a modest fraction of the total demand during the next 50 years.

IIASA points out that its study is the first truly global and long-term examination of the energy future, and it is the first in which scientists from East and West have collaborated. Indeed, 140 researchers from 20 countries were involved in the study and spent an average residence time at IIASA of two years. Also, IIASA notes that by using a consistent model of worldwide energy supply and de­mand, the study avoids the common tendency of separate national studies to assume that sufficient imports will always be available, without com­paring the demands of all countries against the likely supplies. By looking 50 years ahead, it accounts for the time it takes the energy system to undergo fundamental changes.

The report is global in scope, but doesn't concentrate on particular countries. Rather, for analysis it di­vides the world into seven regions chosen on the basis of national energy resources and economic structure and not necessarily on the basis of geo­graphic proximity. One region, for example, includes Western Europe, Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zea­land, and South Africa, which have developed market economies but are poorer in resources than the other developed regions.

Using terms such as yardsticks and benchmarks, Hàfele points out that the study provides for the first time a common language for a worldwide dialogue as countries develop their national energy policies. Noting the problems involved in such a dialogue, he says that at least "there are now 140 people in the world who under­stand each other."

The study considered the years between 1980 and 2030 as the period most likely to witness the transition from consumption of depletable to nondepletable resources. The chief driving force for the transition is a projected doubling of the world pop­ulation from 4 billion to 8 billion people. After 2030 it is anticipated

6 C&EN March 16, 1981

Hàfele: no escape from hardships

that the population will level off slightly above 8 billion.

A 50-year period also was selected because it represents a "natural" cycle of technical inertia. Such a pe­riod corresponds, for example, to roughly two generations of plants of the kind found in refineries or elec­tricity generating stations. That is long enough to encompass significant change but short enough to be ame­nable to realistic analyses.

The projected population growth, Hàfele observes, probably means that there will be more nations and, con­sequently, more international prob­lems. These will be the source of in­creased "societal constraints" with susceptibility for manipulation by partisan groups. Of the seven regions defined in the study, North America appears to be the most stable throughout the next 50 years and is self-sufficient in energy.

One strategy of the study, Hàfele explains, was to analyze the energy situation on several "strata" at the same time. At one level, the study examined the limits of the various energy resources, assuming no eco­nomic, institutional, or political con­straints on production. At another level, it developed two benchmark scenarios—one for high energy de­mand and one for low. Many other scenarios have been developed by others and Hàfele observes that these are invariably "gloom-and-doom" scenarios because they seldom look beyond the depletion of present re­sources.

Hàfele 's group, while concentrating on the next 50 years, also recognized that there will be another transition period after 2030 characterized by the use of nondepletable energy sources.

To reach this state, however, will re­quire a great investment in develop­ment and technology during the next 50 years.

During the transition of the next 50 years, politics will determine "the price we pay in pain," Hàfele says. However, sooner or later "politics will have to follow the technical realities." The scenarios developed by Hafele's group don't pretend to be the only solutions possible but the claim is made that they are comprehensive enough to allow for "no escape from the hardships foreseen."

The 50-year study period also cor­responds to roughly half the "natu­ral" period for the substitution of one energy form by another. A market penetration model was used in 300 test cases and proved remarkably consistent. The basic idea is that, after capturing a minimum critical portion of a market, usually about 3%, success of a new competitor then is determined by "market forces." The only way that success might be af­fected externally is by the introduc­tion of a new competitor.

Applying these, and other, ideas on a global basis in the future suggests that nuclear power will continue a steady growth. If solar power is to become a competitor, it will have to capture at least 1% of the world mar­ket by the end of the century and 7% by 2030. Energy sources such as magnetohydrodynamics and fusion, although recognized, were not con­sidered capable of making significant energy contributions before 2030.

Both scenarios developed by IIASA foresee about the same assortment of energy sources and suggest that none can be eliminated safely if demands are to be met. The entire period of the study still will be dominated by fossil fuels, and coal will be in greatest po­tential supply.

Both scenarios and the several modifications have a common feature beyond growing populations and in­creasing energy demand: There is no doubt that increasing reliance will have to be placed on lower-grade re­sources. The use of "dirty" resources means more waste to handle and dispose of and correspondingly in­creased prices.

Hàfele believes it is necessary to get started on the energy problem at once and likens the problem to that of making an endowment or investment with available resources. The tech­nology now exists to permit endow­ment of the future such that the in­creased population can live from the "interest" rather than by dipping into the "capital" of the energy supply.D

EPA redefines air pollution source The Reagan Administration has taken its first mincing steps towards a more lenient interpretation of clean air rules: Last week the Environ­mental Protection Agency redefined a pollution source.

By defining a source as an entire industrial complex, not individual processes emitting substantial pol­lution within that complex, Vice President George Bush, chairman of the President's Task Force on Regu­latory Relief, said the regulatory burden on industry would be relieved without hampering protection of public health.

This proposed rule change by EPA would extend the so-called "bubble concept" to areas of the country cur­rently not meeting ambient air qual­ity standards. In these nonattainment areas, industrial complexes such as steel mills, petroleum refineries, and automobile assembly plants could emit more pollution from one process as long as a compensating reduction in pollution occurred at another pro­cess within the complex, and total emissions from the facility did not increase.

Under the new policy, industry could make major modifications or modernize existing facilities in non-attainment areas without, in most cases, a regulatory review, a precon-struction permit, a more than one-to-one reduction in emitted air pol­lution, and more stringent control technology requirements. The ambi­ent air would not become dirtier, but it also wouldn't become cleaner. And this point sticks in the craw of some environmentalists.

The Administration claims, how­ever, that this simple redefinition will lower the barriers to new investments in plant and equipment, especially in the steel industry where moderniza­tion is badly needed. Vice President Bush and EPA cite California refin­eries and auto plants as prime bene­ficiaries of this change. Substantial modifications to existing refineries now possible under this new rule would allow California to become energy self-sufficient, and also would allow two General Motors plants to retool to build smaller, more com­petitive cars, they boast.

The flaw in their argument is that California since 1977 has incorpo­rated the proposed definition of a source in its "new source review rule." Bill Sessa, communications director of the California Air Resources

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