00100	\\M0BDR25;\M1BDI25;\M2XMAS25;\F0
00200	
00300	
00400	\C\F2DRAFT
00500	
00600	\F0\CON THE DEMAND FOR ENERGY
00700	
00800	
00900	\J	The demand for energy is customarily modeled by fitting
01000	exponential growth curves to the data.  Deviations from these curves
01100	are explained by specific events - depressions and wars.  Typically
01200	the growth rates of energy use are higher than the population
01300	growth rates.  All this didn't matter much as long as there
01400	was no pressure to influence demand and as long as costs kept going
01500	down so that the proportion of the GNP devoted to energy supply
01600	remained stable.  (\F1That it has remained stable is a guess for this
01700	draft only.  It would be nice to find out, but it certainly won't
01800	be clear how to count household labor in supplying firewood if we
01900	have to go back to when firewood was an important ?omponent of the
02000	energy supply.  Judging from the reduction in the number of coal
02100	miners, one might conjecture that the share of energy supply in the
02200	GNP has actually declined.\F0)
02300	However, now that there seem to be difficulties in energy supply, it
02400	is necessary to forecast demand more accurately, or even, to put the
02500	matter less passively, to see how the demand can be influenced by
02600	public policy.
02700	
02800		Here are some propositions offered for discussn:
02900	
03000		1. Not much more can be learned by fitting curves to the
03100	consumption of energy as a whole or even to the aggregate consumption
03200	of forms of energy like electricity.  The different applications of
03300	energy have different properties.
03400	
03500		2. Some important components of energy demand may approach
03600	saturation in the near future.  Here are some examples:
03700	
03800			a. The number of registered automobiles grew from
03900	about 30,000,000 at the end of World War II to slightly more than
04000	100,000,000 today.  During this period the population grew from
04100	about 170,000,000 to 208,000,000 so that the main growth in the
04200	use of automobiles was not due to population increase.  (Some wag
04300	extrapolated an alleged decrease from 2.0 occupants of the average
04400	car on the highway in 1950 to 1.2 occupants today and preted that
04500	in 1983 the average car on the highway will have only .83 occupants).
04600	Seriously, it would seem that the \F1per capita\F0 number of cars
04700	will probably approach a limit with little growth after the next ten
04800	years.