We try in this book to provide a detailed but readable, technical but
accessible monograph on energy in the United States. We treat energy as
a multidisciplinary challenge and apply the standard tools of
economists, physicists, engineers, policy analysts, and, some might
claim, fortune tellers. We hope that it will be used in classrooms of
various types, and read by the general reader as well. That increased
energy efficiency should be the first priority of energy policymakers is
a conclusion, not an assumption, of our analysis. Many analysts have
arrived at this conclusion while working separately on energy supply
problems. The magnitude and scope of supply problems, primarily problems
of high prices and environmental costs, lead one inexorably back to
reducing demand growth as the first, most important step in any
plausible energy future. We examine, in some depth, why much of the past
literature on energy still points, fallaciously in our opinion, to high
energy c- v Preface vi sumption futures. This is in Part I (called "A
Short History of the Future"). We devote one-third of the book (Part II)
to energy resources, their internal and external costs, and the
quantities of energy to be derived from these resources. This analysis
provides a context within which the economic and social value of energy
conservation options can be assessed.