COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00016 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00003 00002	ENERGY AND IDEOLOGY
C00017 00003		For reasons I cannot fathom, the world has recently become
C00021 00004	Notes of Feb 26
C00025 00005
C00028 00006		Unfortunately, public policy issues play another role in
C00029 00007	OUTLINE
C00030 00008	.<<teller>>
C00033 00009	.<<engineering and ideology>>
C00036 00010	.<<ideology and political power>>
C00038 00011	.<<myths about energy>>
C00042 00012	.<<compromise>>
C00044 00013	.<<the technological situation>>
C00049 00014	.<<what can be expected>>
C00053 00015	.<<advice>>
C00057 00016	.<<pitch for protech>>
C00059 ENDMK
C⊗;
ENERGY AND IDEOLOGY

It is a truism that attitudes towards the energy problem are connected
with values.  I want to distinguish between this and its connection
with ideology.


Engineers are a subservient lot, because they have lots of bosses.
You have to do what they tell you, because they were elected,
but you don't have to repeat their slogans - unless you believe them.

quotes from Train, et. al.

corruption of engineering
The individual or company that makes proposals to develop something he
doesn't believe will really work has been corrupted.  The solar surrey
as an example.  (Confess not having full facts.  If it doesn't apply to
that then it applies to something else.
People work on some form of energy because proposals have been solicited,
but then they parrot the slogans.

Code of ethics: I fear asking for too much but anyway - A company should
refuse to bid on tree climbers when asked to do so as part of a project
for reaching the moon.  Well if you must bid on the tree climbers then
don't parrot the puffery that says that tree climbers are the best way
to reach the moon.

Bluntly I fear that much of the solar work described here is a consequence
of this kind of corruption, but you know better than I do.  Certainly, the
$500 per peak kilowatt goal is based on wishful thinking about how much
other sources of energy will cost.

his values are that you are a bad guy

the object of this talk is understanding not arousal

issues and political power

Why does anti-technology dominate the politics of one of the most
productive centers of technology in the world?
Engineers should be cultured, but what if the not-so-subliminal message
of the professors of culture is that engineers are inferior people?

You can't beat something with nothing.  We need a positive esthetic
of technology.

It's good to save labor.

Underground nuclear explosions cannot be of any use.  See if Panofsky says
something over strong.

	I have been asked to speak in place of Edward Teller.  I can't
do that.

	I remember when all I knew of Edward Teller was the Dr. Strangelove
caricature of the media.

guilt and the phony we

specific nuclear safety issues, the global environmental impact statement,
conflicts of interest within the gov't, use Beckman as a source, maybe
advertise Beckman.

the "public policy community"

McCloskey got elected as an eco-vandal, but no thanks to us, he hasn't
turned out badly.  Calvo is a disgrace to the Santa Clara valley.
His opponent Greg Morris was better, but eco-vandalism was not an issue.

The suit against agricultural research is an example of vandalism resembling
what happens when a bunch of 10 year old boys wreck a school.

great physicists have been anti-technologists,

the loss of momentum, nuclear airplane, Orion, the space program, the grocery
code

How bad could it get?

When I told my daughter that I was substituting for Professor Teller, she
asked, "What role are you going to play - nephew of the hydrogen bomb"?
Well, I can't do that, I don't even have a clearance.

There aren't two cultures - barely one and a half.

Appreciation of technology per se.  Actually there is a lot of it.  Some
people buy calculators almost as works of art.

memes of anti-technology

our own gripe against the English professors

Technology has become more politicized recently.  Thus, Carter has
created a DoE by appointing people of different persuasions in proportions
that best reflect his pre-election commitments, maximize the probability
of assent to his policies (by co-opting representatives of different
groups), and maximize the probability of re-election.  The appointees
are obliged to agree on policies, and though this is not logically
required, tend to arrive at a consensus statement about the facts of
the energy situation that supports the compromise policies.  This
consensus view contains assertions about physics, medicine, economics,
geology and engineering.  For all of its political legitimacy, there
is no reason to suppose it true or even consistent.  Indeed there is
every reason to suppose that it is inconsistent.
The desire for compromise is commendable, and what has happened
resembles what would have happened had the Indiana legislature compromised
its difference in 1840 according to who had an in with the President
and unanimously agreed that pi = 3.05.

As near as I can see, you have already agreed that pi is 3.05, and Mr.
Arntz is trying to see if you will go for 3.02.

Our 1974 statement and the tendency to compromise it.

It's partly because the spokesmen for energy are mainly the spokesmen
for energy industries and must kowtow to their regulators.  Since
no industry will suffer retaliation if I offend the Mr. Arntz or
the state Public Utility Commission, I can speak my mind.  I don't
even do research in energy, so this makes me a citizen advocate.

That's what we professors have academic freedom for.  Remember to
bring the letter to Lyman and mine to the NYT.

The extent of this politicization of the facts of the energy
situation is recent, and it raises new problems for engineers and
scientists.  In so far as the consensus is erroneous, one should try
to avoid believing it or repeating it.  When the political situation
changes, and the need for the government to have a compromise view
of the facts of energy problem evaporates, it will be necessary to
arrive at more honest ways of reaching a scientific consensus.

quote William C. Arntz, Regional Representative to the Secretary,
Department of Energy

Of course, saving money on energy, without reducing function is good,
but even a program cost-effective in implementation by itself, may
be harmful, if devising it required management effort that might more
effectively gone into making better products, or if its implementation
bureaucratizes the organization and impedes its ability to respond
to changing conditions, or to implement innovations.

As the Duke of Wellington said, %2"If you can believe that, you can
believe anything"%1.

The initial reaction of Congress and President Nixon to the oil
embargo in 1973 was substantially correct.  To vote 369-14 to remove
the obstacles to the Alaska pipeline and to ask for a Project
Independence to make the country independent by 1980.  However,
it took less than 3 months for the tide of ideology to submerge
this reaction, first in the bureaucracy, then in Congress and finally
in Nixon himself.  How could this happen?
If we had implemented the Project Independence, we'd be almost there
by now - at considerable cost, but we might also have broken the
cartel.

You have heard from a collection of regional administrators, acting
deputy assistant administrators, commissioners, assistants to the
governor.

Let me point out that we could have taken the view in 1973 that
the technology for extracting oil, using it, and marketing it
were our creation, that America had used up its own oil in
developing these good things, and that the countries of the Middle
East had contributed exactly nothing to these things - most of them
not even labor.  We could further have taken the view that the
American people had a substantial right to the fruits of these
contracts that had been entered in good faith and had a right
to enforce them.  This view was not taken and could not be taken,
because of the dominant view in the world and in the U.S. that
these successes were a matter for guilt and not for pride.  Why
this view dominated, although probably not held by a majority
of Americans, we won't take time to discuss, but the fact that
it determined our reaction to the boycott and the price gouge
is a fact of ideology.

Much of the intellectual public has come to believe that solar energy
is intrinsically cheap and non-polluting and abundant and only
hasn't taken over because of the opposition of the %2special
interests%1.  To an important extent, this is the same public
that came to oppose the Government on the Vietnam issue.  (Will
they cause an "energy Cambodia").  Whether solar energy can
be developed into a source of energy as cheap and non-polluting
as nuclear energy is a technical question that the future will
answer.  In my opinion no-one has given a plausible technological
route to this goal.  I don't count as plausible extrapolating
a learning curve for solar and an inverse learning curve for
nuclear.

While it may be that solar energy will prove economical, it is certain
that the widesperead belief that it can it not the result of technical
reasoning.  Notice that the Department of Energy gave its medal
to Denis Hayes, a propagandist for solar energy, rather than
to (say) an engineer working to develop solar energy.

Who is the enemy is more important than what the fight is about.
	For reasons I cannot fathom, the world has recently become
less rational, and more decisions are being made by irrational
ideology.  However, rational a company or an engineer may try to
be, they and he live in a world beset by swirling ideological
winds.  Survival with profit, or even preserving one's personal
honor and self respect, may require some understanding of how
ideologies form, develop,
gain intellectual recruits, media bandwagons, and bureaucratic momentum
- and then eventually decay.

	The goal I have set myself in this talk is understanding not
arousal.  I don't want to get you angry at anybody, I only want to
contribute to your understanding of how things got this way and where
they may be going.  Contributing to your understanding requires a
certain amount of understanding on my part, and I don't claim to
great understanding, but at least I am trying.

	The energy "crisis" is an excellent example of the collision
of the "forces for change" and the facts of engineering.  So far the
score is forces - ten, facts - nothing.
This conference is an excellent example of the stage at which an
ideology has developed bureaucratic momentum.

	I should explain that I am not a professional in energy
or a social scientist but a computer scientist.  The only relation
between my profession and the topic of this lecture may be that as
a computer scientist, I can recognize a bug when I see it, and the
energy program is crawling with them.

	1. At any time there is an almost infinite sea of
relatively simple ideas that can serve as ideologies.  Almost
all of the dogmas of the present energy ideology are at least
100 years old.  For example, the economist Jevons in 1879 predicted
the iminent exhaustion of England's coal, and advised England to
think small.  (There is no law of nature that says there couldn't be
a technologically unevadable permanent shortage of energy,
but in fact there isn't).

	2. The main scientific question is why does an ideology grow?

Notes of Feb 26

1. one should compromise on action with those who hold the power
but not in belief.

2. I'll bet that the next century will use more energy per capita
not less on account of applications requiring energy that have
not yet been invented.  We don't need a plan for how much energy
there should be but rather a servomechanism that will react to
short range predictions of demand.  The shorter these predictions
can be, the better off we are.

3. Fission with breeder still looks like the probable winner for
everything but vehicles and maybe for that too via nuclear assisted
coal hydrogenation or (if the CO2 problem requires action on a short
time scale) hydrogen itself.

3. A collection of myths about energy have developed since 1973.
	a. the benign myth
	b. the permanent shortage myth
	c. the virtue of doing without
	d. the myth that by small economies we can avoid
having to develop major new sources of energy
	e. myths of wishful thinking about exotic technologies
	f. myths of the corporate villain

4. How can it happen that engineers can be induced to recite myths
about their own subject.

	a. In social and policy matters, there is not yet the
information for closed models, so that all contain arguments
that rely on statements of the form "X is true other things
being equal".  See if this can be said concisely and clearly.

	b. Money talks, and people like to believe in what there
is money to work on.  I have watched the gradual corruption of the
Stanford energy community.  (There was never any explicit debate
in the engineering community).  The scientists were, on the whole,
at least as corrupt.

	c. Alas, there are not two cultures - at most one and a
half.

Mar 8

When there is a will to fail, obstacles can always be found.

South Africa with far worse energy problems than the U.S. is solving
them.

It is important to remember that we can do very much better.

It is not too much to say that Mr. X's speech this morning is
that of a bureaucrat drunk with power.
	Unfortunately, public policy issues play another role in
any political society.  An issue is a claim on power.
Getting one's way on an issue often requires some political power,
but conversely, being the representative of one side of an issue
constitutes a claim on political power.  The effectiveness in
of using an issue to get or hold power depends on how the issue
is put.  In some cases this leads to compromise, and in other
cases, it prevents compromise.

	I see this most clearly in the case of the "environmental
movement".
OUTLINE

1. praise of Teller

2. apology for different topic

3. our policy is not determined by the technological and economic situation

4. sketch of a rational technological and economic policy

5. evidence of ideological influence

5. myths about energy

6. how ideology and rationality interact

7. how it affects government behavior and corporate behavior

7. what can be expected in the future

8. advice to engineers

9. pitch for Pro-tech
.<<teller>>
	I feel honored that Professor Teller suggested that I speak in
his place, but as I explained to Mr. xxx, I'm a computer scientist, and
I can't speak about nuclear safety
to an engineering audience.  Presumably, my being asked is a consequence
of my part in the Stanford
campaign against Proposition 15 in 1976.  In doing so, I was an anomaly.
While most of the participants in the anti-nuclear campaign had little
acquaintance with the technological facts, the pro-nuclear campaign
involved mainly people directly involved in the technology.  If
every technology is defended agains attack only by the people directly
involved with it, we will be divided and conquered.  Therefore, I brag
about rather than apologise for my having only a layman's knowledge
of nuclear technology.

	I first met Professor Teller in connection with the Proposition
15 campaign, and I must confess that I had to overcome the mental
image of him produced by the Dr. Strangelove movie and other propaganda
with him as scapegoat.  When my daughter heard that I would speak in his
place, she asked what role would I play - nephew of the hydrogen bomb.

	Fortunately, this image is instantly dispelled when you listen to
the serious, detailed and precise way in which he discusses whatever issue
he is lecturing about.  It is indeed your misfortune and probably mine too
that he is not speaking today.

.<<engineering and ideology>>

I am going to talk about the role of ideology and politics in
decision making on engineering matters, and I will speak specifically
about its effect on energy decisions.  Since I will account for
some views (with which I happen to disagree) as arising from non-rational
causes, I am in danger of making %2ad hominem%1 arguments in favor
of my own views.  I don't want to do this, so let me stipulate that
no account of anti-nuclear views can serve as an argument that
nuclear reactors are safe or economical.  You will have to look
elsewhere for these arguments, but mostly I will be trying to
explain matters of ideology to people who have formed their own
views on the technical issues.

The influence of ideology and politics on questions that should
be decided scientifically is deplorable, but the intent of this
talk is to understand it rather than merely deplore it.

When one doesn't take ideology and politics into account, one
arrives at some strange theories of public attitudes.  For example,
Chauncey Starr has studied people's attitude towards different
risks, e.g. the risk of nuclear accident vs. the risk
of automobile accidents.  Noting the difference in public attitudes
toward these risks, he conjectures that perhaps the difference
comes from the fact that one risk is seen as voluntary and the other
is seen as imposed by others.  I would agree that there is an effect
of that kind, but I would argue that the main difference is that
a political movement has formed around the anti-nuclear issue and
that this movement has strong media support.

Someone might grant this and still argue that the movement and its
media support is caused entirely by the issue itself - by the state
of nuclear safety and the available information about it.

Ownership of one side of a public issue carries with it
a claim on political power.
.<<ideology and political power>>

	Understanding the interaction of ideology and energy decisions
involves at least the following considerations:

.item←0
#. Being the upholder of one side of a controversy constitutes a claim
on political power.  Thus the lawyers for the National Resources
Defense Council received high government positions in connection with
the Carter victory in 1976.

#. The form that issues take influences the prominence achieved by
their representatives.  In particular, uncompromising positions
are better for the outs, and compromises for the ins.

	By an ideology, we mean a complex of beliefs that has in some
sense a life of its own, independent of the fluctuations in the
evidence.  If the appearance of evidence against the belief causes
mainly increased efforts to find evidence in its favor or even to
suppress opposing beliefs, then one of the conditions for an ideology
is met.
.<<myths about energy>>

	Threads of the energy ideology
.item←0

	#. anti-corporate, anti-American, anti-Earthman
Guilt that readily transforms into hatred.  Primitive
romanticism.  Jealousy of experts justifying adolescent failure to
apply oneself.  Technological romanticism.  Social romanticism.
One of the most stable attitudes is hatred, especially when actual
physical conflict is infeasible.

Association of nuclear energy with the bomb.  Is this a basic component
of the ideology or just a tactic.  Anti-nuclear and pro-coal is the
touchstone of this.  It exists but is rare and usually rather weak.
It comes from compromisers wishing to give ground to the ecolobby but
still preserve our society.

(Notice that leftist anti-nuclear fanatics rarely criticize communist
bombs or power reactors.  This isn't a just a desire to weaken us relative
to the communist countries).

	These influences have led to the prevalence of a number of myths
about energy such as
.item←0

	#. Small cars and lowered thermostats can save us.
Conservation is fine for getting past a crisis, and gas rationing
worked well during World War II.  However, without new energy
technology, conservation only postpones drastically lowered standards
of living.  With new technology, once its cost is determined, we may
or may not be able to afford all the energy we want.

	#. Shortage of energy is a law of nature.
There is no fundamental long range shortage of energy - at least for
a few million years.  In fact, if we use rocks that have no more
nuclear energy per pound than pure coal, it looks more like hundreds
of millions of years.

	#. It is virtuous to do without.  Austerity is a taste that more
preach than practice.  Personally, I don't enjoy it, and neither does
hardly anyone else.

	#. There are benign technologies.  There is a separate myth for
each kind - solar, windmills, biomass.

	#. There is something special about energy.  Energy is a commodity
that amounts to about five percent of our GNP.  In the past it was routinely
available at stable prices, and occupied little personal or management
attention except from specialists.  If we stop fooling around, this
situation can be restored.
.<<compromise>>

	It bothers me a bit that this speech is likely to be considered
disruptive and expressing ignorance of and disdain for the sincere
efforts that have been put into reaching compromise positions on
energy issues.  I have been advised that I would be more effective if
I toned down my presentation.  My trouble is that while I have no difficulty 
in accepting compromise in deciding what action to take there have
also been compromises in deciding what the facts are.

	It is said that sometime in the nineteenth century, the view
was advanced in the Indiana legislature that it would simplify life
if the legislature were to declare that %Ap%1_=_3.
What I have read recently about the energy debate reminds me of a situation
in which the legislators have compromised on 3.05, and I have been told
that if I am tactful, I could get %Ap%1 up to 3.07.
In view of the efforts and good will that have been invested by many
people it seems churlish to insist that it is at least 3.14159 and that
even this is a mere approximation.
Well anyway, I could try to argue for the true value of %Ap%1 without
raising my voice too much, and I will try to do that.

	
.<<the technological situation>>

	I think that the actual technological situation is substantially what 
engineering circles believed it to be in 1973 - before the oil crisis.

.item←0
#. Oil and natural gas will probably become seriously short before the end
of the century and must be replaced by other fuels.

#. Nuclear energy for electricity is intrinsically cheaper than oil - even
at the prices of 1973.

#. The breeder reactor is feasible and needed for a long term solution
of the nuclear fuel problem.  With it, supplies are adequate for at least
hundreds of thousands of years.  Looking even that far ahead is a mere
amusement, because even 100 years from now, our descendants will be
as much more technologically capable than ourselves, as we are compared
to the people of 100 years ago.

#. There is no replacement in sight for natural gas at the cheap prices
of 1973.  Electricity is a feasible but somewhat expensive replacement
for heating.  

#. The fraction of total energy used as electricity will continue to
increase.

#. A long term solution of the problem of powering cars will require
technological change but needn't compromise performance.

#. Oil from coal or from oil shale will probably postpone the problem
farther than we can reasonably plan, but nuclear produced hydrogen
and nuclear assisted coal conversion are also feasible.

#. There is nothing intrinsically impossible about central station
solar energy.  However, the Government has set itself too easy a goal
in asking for solar cells at $500 per peak kilowatt.  Achieving that
cost will not make solar energy anywhere near competitive with nuclear
or coal.

#. It is abnormal for energy to be a major concern of company top management
or government except in the most energy-intensive industries.  It represents
usually less than ten percent of the costs of production, and its costs
and availability change slowly.  We should strive to restore the situation
in which electricity is just something that comes out of the wall and for
which one must pay the monthly bill.  The management attention thus saved
can be spent thinking about productivity and innovation.

	Here are some other contentions about the technological situation:

.item←0
#. With normal practices, it should take three or four years to design and
build a standard design power reactor after learning has taken place.
Under emergency conditions, e.g. with the priorities of World War II, they
can probably be built in six months.  (The Hanford works, which handles about the
same power as a modern plant had been designed and built and had produced
and separated enough material for a bomb within two years after the first
chain reaction).
.<<what can be expected>>
	There is some sign of a turnaround in attitudes towards
energy production.  Congressmen as liberal as Senator Gary Hart
of Colorado criticized the NRC decision to close down the nuclear
plants because of the error in the computer program that determined
the earthquake resistance of the piping.  However, nothing
definite may come of this, and more fiddling with oil prices
won't solve the energy problem.

	Most likely there will be a severe energy crisis, caused by
government inaction and government prevention of action by others, but
triggered by some external event, most likely political in some source of
oil.  Perhaps that is what is happening now.  Sooner or later a crisis
will cause a political about-face, and most of the Congressmen who now
posture environmentally will start posturing "energetically".

	Then there will be a crash program to do what should have
been done since 1973.  For one, it will be necessary to replace
all oil and gas burning plants by nuclear or coal.  It will suddenly
be discovered that it doesn't take 12 years to build a nuclear
power plant; it takes six months.  Recall that the Hanford plant
had produced enough plutonium for a bomb within two years of the
first chain reaction.

	In the course of this crash program, many corners will be
cut and there will be some adverse side effects.  However, I must
confess that I prefer the "can do" atmosphere of the crash program
to "look for the danger in everything" attitude of today.  Of course,
the adverse side effects could be reduced and the period of
suffering reduced if someone will make some advanced plans and
even acquire some long lead-time items.  Since it seems extremely
unlikely that the Government could bring itself to contemplate
a reversal its own policy, such contingency planning would have to
be done by someone else.  There might even be a profit to be
made by accumulating critical items.
.<<advice>>
	Having said what I think the facts are - both as regards the
technological situation and the ideological situation - I feel an
obligation (or maybe I want to take the opportunity) to offer some
advice to energy engineers.  I have no advice for the Government,
because I think the Government isn't interested at present in
advice from people with my views.

.item←0
#. The most important requirement is to preserve your intellectual
honesty and engineering objectivity.  The policy you have to help
implement is a compromise between differing points of view.  This
fact is concealed by the existence of a rationalization that this
is the best policy.  The rationalization is inevitably nonsense.
You may have to do what they say, but think for yourself, and don't
repeat the rationalized nosense.

#. Most likely the present policies will bring about a crisis that
will lead to their reversal.  The crisis may be quite serious, and
the key to its solution will probably be crash programs to develop sources
of energy, i.e. nuclear, oil shale and oil from coal.  Much time
can be saved if companies have contingency plans for crash programs
and even more if they can bring themselves to take a generous view
of their inventory requirements for long lead time items and of the
production capacity they require for long lead time items their
customers may need.
It would be even more patriotic to undertake company funded development
projects in areas like nuclear-aided hydrogenation of coal or breeder
reactors, which the Government is unlikely to fund in the present
climate of opinion.

#. The last crash programs were during World War II.  Reading what
was done then is both inspiring and informative.
For example, the Hanford plutonium production reactor, which handles
about the same power as a modern power plant, was
committed, planned, sited, designed, built, and produced enough
plutonium for a bomb within 30 months of the first chain reaction.
There were no nuclear engineers when the plant was started, but there
were at the end.
.<<pitch for protech>>
	Maybe something can be done now to reverse the anti-technology
trends.  In particular, can't something be done in the politics of
the San Francisco bay area.  This area, especially the Santa Clara
Valley, where I live, is one of the most important technological
areas in the world, and there is absolutely no reflection of this
fact in its politics.

	The political views expressed on the Stanford campus go
far in the anti-technological direction - much farther than the
opinion of the student body or the faculty which is bad enough.

	Now is perhaps the time for an ideological reversal to begin.
It would be worthwhile to start a pro-technology political education
organization, and I would like to hear from interested people.