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\ctrline {\bf EXTREME CONSERVATION}

\yyskip

One of my qualifications for discussing conservation measures in case of a
cutoff is that I, in contrast to the previous speaker, am not an enthusiast
for conservation.  Quite the contrary; I believe we can and should produce
all the energy anyone will want to buy.  In fact, the quasi-religious emphasis
that has been given to conservation since 1973 has had a large cost in reduced 
attention to innovation and productivity.  However, the oil cutoff crisis we are
discussing would require some severe and unpleasant measures of conservation.
They should be regarded as temporary, and their design should support a production
mobilization aimed at making them temporary.

The necessary severity depends on the magnitude and duration of the cutoff
and on demands for energy apart from normal American civilian demands.  We shall
not take into account possible damage to our internal energy production by 
hostile action.  On this basis, the maximum shortage we need to consider
amounts to a complete cutoff of imports together with a need to export half our 
internal production of oil in order to keep our allies alive.  The shortage
would be assumed to last until we and our allies can produce our way out of
the crisis.  We shall also consider a cutoff of imports without a need to export
and a cutoff of half our imports.

A full plan for dealing with such shortages would establish a correspondence 
between amounts of shortage and specific measures of conservation.  Determining
this correspondence would be a substantial many-person research project, so I
will have to treat successively more severe conservation measures qualitatively.

Most participants in this conference will agree that our energy problems today have 
a mainly political origin.  If we had had the political will, we could have 
carried out Project Independence.  We might still be importing oil, but it would be 
because importing was cheaper than producing all our own energy requirements, and
the price of oil would be affected by our ability to meet our needs if necessary.
If we had the political will now, we could still achieve substantial independence 
in a relatively short time.  Most likely an oil cutoff would change the political
situation enough so that actions could be taken that are politically impossible
today.  We cannot be entirely sure of this, and there would still remain some
political obstacles to solving our problems.

Therefore, this paper will treat political as well as technical aspects of
managing a crisis.

\yyskip

\noindent {\bf THE TECHNOLOGICAL NATURE OF A CRISIS}

Should we lose our imports of oil and have to export half our own, this would
reduce us to 64.4 percent of our present energy use.  Our per capita energy use
would then correspond to that of the year 1950.  Not having to export would bring
us only back to 1965, and if we need only halve our imports, we are at 1968.  Of 
course, the disruption of our economy would be much worse than these figures 
indicate, because the different sources of energy are not completely substitutable.

In all but oil the U.S. is either self-sufficient or almost all the imports are
from Canada and Mexico.  Oil has substitutes except for transportation, and if
we could fully replace it in non-transportation uses, we would be nearly 
self-sufficient (not counting any possible need to supply allies.)

Oil is used for three main purposes: transportation (52 percent), industrial
(20 percent), heating homes and businesses (19 percent) and generating electricity
(10 percent).  While replacing oil as transportation fuel is a long term 
proposition, it is economically replaceable by nuclear energy and coal for
generating electricity as fast as plants can be built or converted, and
somewhat less economically replaceable by electricity for heating (with or
without heat pumps).

California generates about 60 percent of its electricity by burning oil,
while Illinois gets only about 6 percent from oil.  This means that the emergency 
programs in different parts of the country will differ.  Presumably in Illinois
it will be desirable in an emergency to replace some oil by heating by electric
heating and economize on some other applications of electricity, while in
California that wouldn't be appropriate.

\yyskip

\noindent {\bf DEALING WITH SHORTAGES}

Enthusiasts for conservation often emphasize long term measures, because they
regard reduced use of energy as a good in itself and wish to promote "a 
more healthy life style."  Many of these measures are irrelevant to an actue crisis.
For example, making more fuel-efficient cars can have an effect over the 10 year 
life-cycle of American cars, but the best short term measure may be to 
manufacture no cars at all for the duration of the crisis in order to divert
manpower, energy and other resources into energy production facilities.

In the following list of conservation measures, we shall try to estimate
how quickly each can be put into effect.

\yyskip

\noindent {\bf HOME HEATING}

The possible reactions to a severe shortage of heating oil are the following
in approximate order of severity:

\display 25pt: 1.: Reduction of thermostat settings.  This can be done
immmediately at the onset of a crisis if people are willing, but simply
jawboning harder will have a limited effect.  Fuel rationing accompanied by
estimates of the thermostat setting needed to live within the ration will do
more.  Each local area should keep published in the newspapers, the estimated
fraction of the oil consumption for the current heating season in the
circulation areas covered by the newspaper than should have been consumed to
date, so that a householder can tell whether he has overconsumed up to a given
point and will have to conserve harder.  Relating oil consumption to the
mildness or severity of the winter can then be done locally.

\display 25pt: { }: Improvement of insulation is being encouraged today.
Its effective use beyond what is being done at present seems to be
intrinsically a long term proposition depending on new housing or substantial
remodeling.  Moreover, present insulation programs are creating severe
problems of indoor air pollution which can be fixed only by introducing
countercurrent heat exchangers on ventilating systems.  These aren't
available in the U.S. at present, but presumably they will be available soon.

\display 25pt: 2.: Cutting off some rooms in homes.  Many people will 
require help in adjusting their heating systems to do this and will take
some time to convince themselves that this is better than running out of 
fuel ration.  Many people who do run out of their ration will be coercible into 
cutting off rooms in order to get a supplemental ration.  Therefore, it will
take most of a heating season for this measure to take effect.

\display 25pt: 3.: Increased use of fireplaces and stoves.  Firewood is probably 
quite limited in supply.  There will probably be a severe problem of theft by 
illegal cutting.  The use of coal in fireplaces and stoves has the supply advantage
that the amount that can be used is limited by the size of the fireplaces and
stoves and the time the household is willing to put in keeping them going.
The effectiveness of fireplaces can be enhanced by suitable stove-like inserts.
Such use of coal would restore to some extent living conditions that existed
before the widespread adoption of central heating.  Coal distribution could be
established within days.  The companies now distributing oil would only have
to hire other trucks and more people.  We can also expect many house fires
especially at first before knowledge of the necessary precautions is widespread. 
Perhaps many older apartment buildings can be reconverted to coal, but this will 
require more manpower for stoking and carrying out ash.  If the cutoff causes 
substantial unemployment, the manpower will be available.

\display 25pt: { }: The resulting pollution, like that endured before
widespread conversion to oil
stoves (1920s and 1930s), will have a certain ironic appropriateness, since it will 
be caused in a substantial degree by the success of the environmentalists in
hampering new energy sources.  Unfortunately, we will all suffer for their success.

\display 25pt: 4.: Increased use of small electric heaters.  Many of these are
already in the hands of consumers, and they are a convenient way of supplementing
low thermostat settings to achieve local comfort.  Most likely, they save oil
compared to a higher thermostat setting when used in moderation even when the
electricity is generated by burning oil, since they heat people sitting near them
rather than a whole room.

\display 25pt: { }: Spot oil shortages or price or rationing may force some people 
to do without central heating.  They will have to rely on coal or wood stoves
or electric heaters.  Small electric heaters are very prevalent in English homes
with bad or no central heating and they can be manufactured and sold in a hurry.
When businesses turn down the thermostats, they are the immmediate reaction
of the secretaries.

\display 25pt: 5.: Increased use of electricity for central heating.  In parts
of the country generating electricity from nuclear and coal plants and with
poor interconnections between utilities, present users of electric central
heating may suffer very little in the short run.  In the medium run, they will
have to share their electricity with the increased use of small heaters, and as
more nuclear and coal capacity is introduced, more people should be encouraged to 
convert to resistance heating and heat pumps as a long term solution.  It would
seem that installation of electric heating would be limited more by electric
supply than by ability to perform the installations.  Where electricity is
generated from oil, the problem is greater, and electricity rationing may force
users of central electric heating to convert to small local heaters.  However,
resistance heating systems are modifiable within days to heat only part of a
house.  Since electric heating is probably the long term solution anyway, we
can visualize the crisis ending gradually by increased rations, the eventual end 
of rationing and declining real prices for electricity.

\display 25pt: 6.: Temporary abandonment of housing that their users cannot
afford to heat.  One use we Americans have made of our prosperity is to increase
the number of households.  Children move out of their parents' home younger.
Old people maintain their independence longer.  Couples with differences separate
more readily.

\display 25pt: { }: A shortage of heat would temporarily reverse this development.
In nineteenth century literature, we often read that old people could not maintain
their homes without someone to cut firewood for them.  This process can be repeated.
In many countries today, it is rare for young people to acquire apartments or
houses until marriage and difficult right after marriage.  Some other
countries have more sharply age-related salary structures than we do, so that young
workers can only afford to live in dormitories.  Moving towards such a structure, 
for example, by heating subsidies restricted to families, might cause a large 
saving.  Judging from observation in Britain, most families will prefer shivering
to crowding and will make do with closing rooms and crowding around the fireplaces
rather than share apartments.

\display 25pt: 7.: Evacuating some people to a warmer climate.  It seems to me
that this wouldn't be called for in any likely emergency, but one could
imagine evacuating children and other dependents to areas with a warm climate
or not dependent on oil for heating, while essential workers would live in
dormitories near their work.

\display 25pt: { }: Some acceleration of the exisitng tendency for retired people
to move to warmer climates would be expected.  Indeed an oil cutoff would
accelerate migration to parts of the country with mild climates.  Probably
there are other phenomena like this - a possible spontaneous adaptation to changed
circumstances that will reduce the need for government action. 

\eject

\display 25pt: { }: The unpleasantness, inconvenience and pollution resulting from
all the above measures, which will be found preferable to freezing, will generate 
and maintain support for crash programs for energy production.

\yyskip

\noindent {\bf INDUSTRIAL USE}

After transportation, the largest consumer of oil is industry.  A severe oil
cutoff will require the temporary cessation of some industrial activities.  From
the point of view of the products of industry this may not be so serious,
because we can do without the products of many industries for a long time, because
we are already so well supplied. For example, no civilian passenger cars were
produced during World War II, and our 150 million registered vehicles would last a 
long time without much hardship.  We could also make our TV and stereos and
major household appliances last a long time.

Since industry cannot afford to pay workers if they can't
manufacture, the specter is unemployment.  This may indeed be the problem,
but it should be mitigated by industrial and construction mobilization for
the production of energy facilities - perhaps using somewhat less energy
intensive means of producing these facilities than if there weren't a crisis, e.g.,
the workers may have to live in barracks rather than commute from their homes.  
Expanded use of coal will also create jobs - unpleasant ones.

A severe energy cutoff will force a reduction in standard of
living but many people are legally protected against reductions in standard
of living by cost of living clauses in labor contracts and in laws governing
transfer payments.  The best way to deal with this is by passing a law
reducing the standard of living - namely a law that says that all payments
regulated by escalator clauses will go up only half as fast as the rate of
inflation until the required reduction is realized.

\yyskip

\noindent {\bf TRANSPORTATION}

Transportation offers the greatest problems from an oil cutoff, since most of our
petroleum is used in transportation.  The following measures must be considered:

\display 50pt: 1.: Restrictions on pleasure driving enforced by gasoline rationing 
and/or high prices.  In so far as the driving is recreational, obviously high
prices are the better solution.

\display 50pt: 2.: Enforced car pooling by giving rations to pools.  There is a
tendency to regard carpooling as a virtue in itself, but we should not lose sight
of its costs to the individual in enforcing a rigid schedule without side trips
to run errands.

\display 50pt: 3.: Increased buses and other public transportation.

\display 50pt: 4.: Forcing people to move closer to their work by restrictions on 
transportation.

\display 50pt: 5.: Provision of dormitories near work or connected to it by buses
for young or other low status workers.

\display 50pt: 6.: Encouraging hitchhiking, perhaps by issuing people who rate it
"certificates of respectability."

\display 50pt: 7.: Commuters would pay a premium for existing small cars.

\display 50pt: 8.: Many businesses would switch to a four-day work week.

\display 50pt: 9.: Stores might arrange fuel-efficient delivery routes - at the cost
to the consumer of slow delivery.

\display 50pt:10.: There would be further increased use of motorcycles and mopeds.

If we could use all petroleum for transportation, our domestic
resources would almost suffice provided export of oil were not required, so
conserving oil in its other applciations is very important.

\yyskip

\noindent {\bf RESEARCH METHODOLOGY}

There are two ways of determining the effects of a severe energy crunch and how it
might be affected by policies.  One is to work it out "mathematically" using 
statistics of population, energy sources, etc.  The other is to look at our less
affluent past and the present of less affluent countries.  Most likely we will
find substantial variations among countries at the same level of
availability of domestic energy, but predictions far outside the envelope of
other countries should be discounted.

\yyskip

\noindent {\bf SUBSTITUTING COMMUNICATION AND COMPUTATION FOR TRAVEL AND COMMUTING}

Many thinkers have proposed that much of the travel and commuting people do is
unnecessary and can be replaced by electronic communication and that computers 
make this much easier.  We shall consider what could be done in this direction
as an emergency measure following an oil cutoff.

\display 25pt: 1.: Many face-to-face meetings can be replaced by conference
telephone calls.  People don't like conference calls very much, but the few times
I have tried to use them, they have done the job, and no one felt afterwards
the need for a face-to-face meeting.  There is sufficient telephone capacity so that
a policy of permitting only essential travel as in World War II would work well.
Organizations would have to decide which meetings would be replaced by conference
calls.  Most likely the formal agenda of this conference could be handled by a 
large conference call, but it doubtful that people could get acquainted that way,
and for many of us, getting acquainted is a major value of the meeting.  Therefore,
regular meetings are a better candidate for such replacement.

\display 25pt: 2.: A more elaborate version of the conference call called
teleconferencing in which the participants have video terminals as well as 
telephones has been the subject of successful experiments.  In some cases
the ability to communicate with the chairman without interrupting the current
speaker makes the teleconference even more effective than a face-to-face
meeting.  Teleconference facilities are today rather ill-defined, but I would
suppose that the experts in it could make proposals for a standard system
that could be implemented by the telephone companies in less than a year.
	
\display 25pt: 3.: Much office work could be done at home with suitable home
terminals connected to office computers.  The terminals are available and their
rate of manufacture could easily be increased.  However, relatively few offices do 
their main work through computer terminals, and the system design and programming 
required to convert many offices of many different businesses would take
several years after a commitment to convert at present development pace.  With
the urgency of an emergency, it might be done faster, but learning about new
ways of doing office work would compete with other urgent tasks.

\display 25pt: { }:Offices whose main work involves the production of documents 
might be the most straightforward candidate for conversion.  A system adequate for 
a law office of 10 to 40 lawyers might be based on a Digital Equipment Corporation
VAX computer and would cost from $\$250,000$ to $\$300,000$.  Extensive use of the
telephone would also be required.  A suitable system for law offices could be
adapted from present time-sharing systems about as fast as educational material
could be written.  The system would also do for many government offices as well.
Once the system was in place, there might only be one or two days a week when
people would come in to the office.

\display 25pt: 4.: Another function that could be carried out at home is that 
of telephone information operator or reservation clerk or order taker using
a computer system.  Such a system, employing people who would work at home, would be 
economical today, since it could obviate a need to expand rented office space in 
many cases.  Such systems could be implemented in a month in many cities where there 
is enough spare telephone capacity.  The main problem would be adapting the 
supervisory and training systems.\par

While a crisis would speed the development of such systems, they will occur anyway,
and if they are instituted during a crisis, many of them would be retained after
the crisis was over.

\eject 

\noindent {\bf THE POLITICAL SETTING OF THE CRISIS}

We make the following suppositions regarding the setting of the crisis:

\display 25pt: 1.: The crisis is caused by "enemies" who cut off our imports.

\display 25pt: 2.: We undertake to share our own supplies of oil with allies
who have no domestic production.

\display 25pt: 3.: No substantial part of the American population regards
the crisis as our own fault nor supports our enemies.

\display 25pt: 4.: Wishful thinking that the crisis will soon be over is
prevalent, but the President finds it prudent to act as if the cutoff
were permanent.

\display 25pt: 5.: The belief that we cannot produce our way out of the crisis 
will require determined efforts by our political leadership to overcome.  Since
1973, this belief has played an ideological role in support of the idea of basing 
our main energy policy on doing with less energy.

\display 25pt: 6.: An industrial mobilization will be undertaken to build energy
facilities.  This mobilization will require many people to change their jobs
and will require giving essential activities priority.  Some industries may
suspend production of their conventional products as the automobile industry
suspended production of passenger cars during World War II.  Colleges and
universities also constitute a vast reservoir of manpower.

\display 25pt: 7.: Sacrifices will necessarily be uneven.  No plan can be devised
that everyone will regard as fair, and there won't be time to work out a plan that
the spokesman (elected or self-proclaimed) for all groups in society will regard as
fair.  The most that can be expected is that the top political leaders can be
regarded as trying to be fair.  Most people will grumble that some other group
has done better but will accept the result as "the breaks."

\yyskip

\noindent {\bf IDEOLOGY AND THE CRISIS}

There are two attitudes that would be taken towards the conservation measures
that might be necessitated by an oil cutoff.  One is that they are
"punishment for our greediness" and that we need "tough" laws and "strict"
reegulations so that we will be "frugal" in the future.  The other is that the
crisis is temporary and is to be overcome by a crash program to produce all
the energy we need or even want.

The issue between these two attitudes has a technological component and an
ideological component.  Perhaps we may also distinguish a component involving
individual values.  The technological issue is whether there are technologies,
economic resources, and management skills that can put new energy production
facilities in place in a given time.  The rest of this conference is dedicated
to this issue, and I think it is clear that we can produce our way out of any 
plausible crisis.

The issue of individual values is whether an individual prefers to pay the
increased cost of our present consumption of energy or prefers to live more
frugally.  Obviously the answer will depend on the individual, but I think
it can be shown that in the present as in the past and in America as in
other countries, people mainly migrate in the direction of the higher
per capita GNP.  Given a choice, people will pay the cost of a high energy
life style.

A first look at how Americans have used the increase since World War II in our
ability to buy energy indicates that we have used it reasonably well given the
level of technology then available.  Increased mobility has made the choices of 
where to live and where to work more independent and has permitted more
freedom in recreation.  Larger and more housing has relieved crowding, made it
possible for the young to have their own apartments at an earlier age, has made it 
possible for old people to retain their independence longer, and has made it
possible for couples who can't get along to separate.  From 1950 to 1976, the
U.S. population multiplied by 1.43, but housing units by 1.73.

The ideological issue of what to do about an oil cutoff is whether crash
production programs, not crippled by regulatory constraints, should be taken,
and whether the conservation measures should be regarded as temporary
or permanent.  One might suppose that the outcome of the ideological issue should be
the resultant of the choices based on individual values, but it hasn't worked out
that way.  Unfortunately, many people have strong convictions about how other
people should live.

Whether the reductions in consumption caused by an oil cutoff are regarded as 
permanent or temporary affects the available choices in dealing with the
shortages.  To the extent that they are regarded as permanent, long term
measures like reversing the moves to the suburbs are appropriate.  Also it
becomes important to avoid mechanisms other than price for enforcing frugality,
because they will lead to permanent distortions of the economy.  Moreover,
issues of equity will be divisive, since people will believe that their long
term interests are at stake.

If the restrictions are regarded as temporary, non-economic measures such as
rationing will be better accepted and will last longer before distorting
economic decisions.


An oil cutoff will require an industrial mobilization like that at the
beginning of World War II.  However, getting agreement on crash programs
won't be so easy as it was then.  No one opposed President Roosevelt's
call for producing 50,000 airplanes and the plans for a synthetic rubber
industry.  The atomic bomb project was kept secret with the consent of the
few Congressmen who were told about it.  However, it is likely that there will
be determined opposition to what has to be done to survive an oil cutoff
because such opposition follows from ideologies already strongly entrenched.

Perhaps it will seem unnecessarily contentious and provocative to discuss
ideology in a paper concerned with a national crisis.  Rather than stir up 
contention, maybe it would be better to stick to a discussion of what 
should be done and omit remarks that may be offensive to people
whose support may be obtainable.

The purpose of this discussion of ideology is not to support the measures
I advocate by attacking the motives of potential opponents.  Ideology is
a social phenomenon that can be studied scientifically like any other, and
it is relevant to do it here, because ideology is the main obstacle to
solving our present energy problems and is likely to be the main obstacle to
solving the problems posed by an oil cutoff.

To a substantial body of opinion, the impossibility and indeed the 
undesirability of American energy independence, the pejorative word for which
is "autarchy", is an article of faith.  An early but typical expression of
this point of view is Russell Train's {\sl "We can and should seize upon the
energy crisis as a good excuse and great opportunity for making some very
fundamental changes that we should be making anyhow for other reasons,"} 
Science l84, p. 1050, 7 June 1974.

Some scientists and engineers try to take values and ideology into account
in technological planning but do it in a way that seems to me mistaken.  They
treat protests against technology as a side-effect determined by the technology
itself - just as $SO↓2$ is a side-effect of burning coal in certain ways.

I think it is also a mistake to regard the anti-technology movement as an
interest group whose members personally benefit from holding back
technology.  Since the movement is quick to accuse others of acting solely
in their own self-interest, it is pleasant to turn the tables sometimes
and accuse Sierra Club members of trying to hold down the masses, but this isn't 
really their main motivation.  They have a genuine, though mainly mistaken,
concept of the public interest.

Scientific study of protests against technology is certainly necessary, but
the above approaches seem to miss the fact that ideological movements are
dynamic entities with histories.  We can use the engineering analogy of
hysteresis; protest isn't merely determined by what technology is attempted
but also by the history of the protest movement.  Relevant factors include

\display 25pt: 1.: The alliance of anti-technology with the radical left
formed during the Vietnam War.

\display 25pt: 2.: The role of the movement as a vehicle for political 
advancement and as a claim on political power.

\display 25pt: 3.: Its institutionalization in the academic, media and government
worlds.

\display 25pt: 4.: Its ways of recruiting new adherents through the prevalence of 
anti-technological attitudes among school teachers.

\display 25pt: 5.: Connection with technological romanticism of solar and
"appropriate" technology and the Brownian space movement.

\display 25pt: 6.: Social romanticism concerning small communities and other
temptations to redesign society.

\display 25pt: 7.: Obsequiousness in the academic and industral communities 
to the intellectual fads of government officials.

Of course, this isn't a complete list of comparable items.

Viewing anti-technology as a movement rather than simply as a reaction of the
public to the effects of technology gives different expectations about the 
effect of a concession to its views.  On the simple reaction model, we should
expect that a concession will cause a lessening of protests.  On the movement
model, the situation is much more complicated.  Some leaders, fearing a decline
in their organization, may intensify the level of protest, while others are in
a position to compromise.

Another effect is that many public figures cannot react to proposals as
individuals but must react as spokesmen for groups with positions and
alliances with other groups.  Since frequently the most extreme positions attract
the best activists, the "moderates" usually won't disagree with them.

\yyskip

\noindent {\bf RATIONING AND OTHER FORMS OF ALLOCATION}

Allocations based on a percentage of pre-existing use and preserving pre-existing
channels of supply can work for a short time.  Their virtue may be that they can
postpone the burst of inflation, hoarding and unstable prices that an immediate 
scarcity handled only by pricing may bring.  There will inevitably be anomalies
because of recent changes in situation.  The suffering they cause can be borne,
or it can be alleviated by ad hoc decisions of the allocation authorities.

The following longer term problems make it necessary to replace allocations
by a price mechanism after a relatively small number of months.

\display 25pt: 1.: An increasing number of supplyees undergo changes in their
situation.  Some will need more and will appeal.  Judging these appeals will take
more and more expertise as they come to involve long term changes in the
activities of individuals and businesses.  An ideal allocator might have to know
as much about the business to which he is allocating as its owner in addition
to knowing the supply situation.  Such expertise will be in short supply and
better spent in production than in allocation.  Those whose activities change
to requiring less for a given level of scrifice will be inclined to keep quiet,
and ferreting them out will again consume administrative resources and lead to
all kinds of conflicts.  Permitting the sale of allocations after a while will
relieve the situation, but if continued, economic positions will develop based
mainly on the possession of allocations.  These economic positions will distort 
the economy.

\display 25pt: { }: A priority system in which prices are determined by a market
covering more than half the supplies but where essential users get 
priorities to buy at that price will work for a long time provided the number
of supplyees with priorities is kept small enough.

\display 25pt: 2.: Temporary individual rationing of gasoline and heating oil
may be required.  Thus during World War II anyone could get an A-sticker
permitting the purchase of xxx gallons per month.  Only A coupons could be used
to buy gas that was to be put into a car with an A sticker.  Commuters to 
essential jobs could get stickers and coupons worth more.  A Carter 
Administration plan called for an allowance of 42 gallons per month.

There is also a danger that in an attempt to achieve
concensus, plans will be adopted that are too elaborate to be administered,
cause long procedural delays, contain built-in vetoes for various groups, and give
people wrong incentives.  For example, there may be incentives to consume
lest a quota be lost and to heat unused space or drive unneeded vehicles.
An industry of fixers may develop.

While I have accepted rationing as a way of avoiding oscillations in supply
and price at the onset of a crisis, I must confess being impressed by
Alvin Alm's arguments that rationing is unlikely to work even in the short run.

\yyskip

\noindent {\bf POLITICAL ACTIONS IN SUPPORT OF MOBILIZATION}

The oil cutoff will cause many politicians and environmentalists to change
their positions and support energy production measures and support assurances
to the population that production will solve the problem.  However, there
will remain "men of principle" who will hold out against any relaxation of 
procedural and substantive constraints.  Those environmentalists whose
positions change will be reluctant to disagree publicly with their extremist
colleagues, because these will often have been the greatest contributors to
the cause.  Therefore, the President will have to attack the extremists
publicly, not just in one speech, but repeatedly.

One of the problems is that today, unlike in December 194l, there is a
substantial intellectual lobby whose slogan is {\sl "It can't be done."}
Its intellectual source is in the environmental movement which believes it
shouldn't be done.

Perhaps the greatest contribution this conference can make to our
preparedness for an oil cutoff is a clear statement that it can be done.
With an effort on the scale of the World War II crash programs, we can
restore our standard of living with our own unaided efforts and even
keep our allies afloat (given their best efforts too.)

Of course, the probability of a cutoff can be greatly reduced by a
crash program of energy production starting now.  The figures mentioned
at this conference of $\$270$ billion to $\$450$ billion to replace 9 million
barrels
per day of  oil imports by production from shale are less than the predicted
cost to our economy of a single year of cutoff.  Proposing to achieve this
level of production in thirty years rather than in five to ten seems to be to be a
consequence of intimidation by the vehemence of the anti-energy activists.
Anyone who seriously regards the energy crisis as the moral equivalent of war
should support solving it at a cost of two to five years' defense budget.

According to the press, there is no official contingency plan for dealing with
an oil cutoff.  Time and resources could be saved in an emergency by having
a good plan.  However, time and resources can be wasted in an emergency by
a commitment to a bad plan.  Perhaps my worry is unrealistic, but it may be
that a plan prepared now would be worse than no plan, because it would be a
compromise with the views of people who oppose increased energy production
now.

More research would permit a more quantitative discussion of the problems
of an oil cutoff.  However, I suspect that should anyone come across this 
paper some years after a cutoff, he will be less annoyed at the lack of numbers
than at the lack of imagination in determining the qualitative consequences
of the cutoff and the responses to it.

\yskip

\adx 0pt: John McCarthy\cr
Computer Science Department\cr
Stanford University\cr
Stanford, CA  94305\cr

\vfill \eject \end