Center for Reactor Information

Our Unique Electric Society

Fredric C. Olds, President
Energy Communications
Prospect Heights, IL 60070
Prepared February 1997

If a nation is to both grow and improve its quality of life, it must produce ample amounts of electrical energy; the United States leads the world, largely because of its electric society; we are obligated to help others gain the benefits of the electric way of life.

Abstract

Electricity is an absolute necessity today if a nation is to both grow and improve its quality of life.

We are a unique society. In the 1770s, the country was very much an undeveloped nation -- well below the standards of European nations. Progress has been impressive.

In fewer than 150 years, the U.S. caught up with and surpassed the other industrial nations of the world.

By the 1950s and 1960s, with just 5% of the population of the world, we were producing and using 1/3 of the energy used in a world of 4 billion people; we produced 25 to 30% of the world's goods and services.

Nearly half the energy we consume today is used to generate electricity. It takes a good deal of energy to sustain a high standard of living. In 1995, the average energy use per person in the U.S. was 345 million Btu, equivalent to the energy in 15.5 tons of coal. That is 25 times the average use of half the world's people, and a measure of very different standards of living.

Quality of life in a nation without ample electricity will remain low and improve but slowly.

Electricity is the key to whatever we achieve in the future for ourselves and others. We are obligated to help others gain the benefits of the electric way of life.

Electricity is an absolute necessity today if a nation is to both grow and improve its quality of life. This has become so during just the past 50 years. Reflect -- there were no public supplies of electricity at all until the 1880s. Today, we and people in a few other places in the world thrive with ample supplies of electricity, while more than half of the world's 6 billion people have not developed adequate supplies, and legions live in conditions below our poverty line.

The American people have come to regard an ample supply of electricity almost as a right. This is because of the way our society has grown.

We are a unique society. No other nation developed as we did. None. Our forefathers started from scratch in a wilderness and built their future step by step with market forces, private sector activities, technological innovation.

I want to review a bit of the history of how we got where we are.

When the Pilgrims arrived in 1620 -- less than 400 years ago -- this country was truly a wilderness of forests and plains, rivers, deserts, and mountains. There were no cities, no manufacturing, no electric lights, no telephones, no roads. But, the country was rich in natural resources which the growing population used industriously.

From the first landing in 1620, it took these pioneers only 155 years to reach a point where they felt strong enough to declare themselves a nation, and they did so with a revolutionary proclamation -- The Declaration of Independence.

At that time, in the 1770s, this still was very much an undeveloped nation -- well below the standards of European nations. But between necessity and entrepreneurship, progress in this new country had been impressive.

In fewer than another 150 years, the U.S. caught up with and surpassed the other industrial nations of the world. By the 1950s and 1960s, we, with just 5% of the population of the world, were producing and using 1/3 of the energy being produced and used in a world of 4 billion people.

At that time, we owned 70 to 80% of the significant technology in the world. We developed it, we owned it. We were the largest food exporter. We produced 25 to 30% of the world's goods and services.

We were able to do this because people were free to find and develop and use the resources here in this country -- and because they were ingenious, persistent, and industrious. And because they produced ample amounts of electricity.

In fact, nearly half of the energy we consume today is used to generate electricity. We use all energy sources for this purpose -- oil, coal, gas, uranium, waterpower, geothermal, wastes, and some renewables such as solar heat and wind.

It takes a good deal of energy to sustain a high standard of living. In 1995, the average energy use per person in the U.S. was 345 million Btu, equivalent to the energy in 15.5 tons of coal. That is 25 times the average use of half the world's people, and a measure of the very different standards of living.

I think I shall insert an example here -- the development of the world's oil industry. Following the discovery of oil in the U.S., our domestic oil industry rather soon outpaced the rest of the world in oil technology.

Although Mid-East oil reserves are enormous -- many times larger than ours -- it was largely because of the application of U.S. technology that today's production rates from the Mid-East fields became possible when they did.

We have been able to lead the world in this technology, and in so many other fields, largely because we developed as an electric society, not one of just raw energy, or human and animal energy. Reflect -- the electricity generated by a typical large power plant is equivalent to the energy produced by 25 million laborers.

Quality of life in a nation producing goods with millions of low paid hand workers will remain low and improve but slowly.

Electricity has become the magic ingredient in our way of life here in the U.S., and is the key to whatever we achieve in the future for ourselves and others. I make this point because, as I see it, we are obligated to help others gain the benefits of the electric way of life.

References:

• Encyclopedia Britannica, 1959 edition, various.
• Department of Energy, Annual Energy Review, 1995.
• World Bank Atlas, 1995
• World Bank, World Development Report, 1993 and 1996
• Population Institute, POPLINE, various.
• American Nuclear Society, Nuclear News, Nov. 1990, p. 93.

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