increasing numbers of Americans disagree with those goals, 3) suggests that energy questions should not be answered on technical and economic grounds alone, but thrown open to full public participation and debate which includes ethical,· social and political questions, and 4) says·that on-site soft technologies are the best way to go and should _be installed immediately. For quite a while now we've wondered why, with with all the million·s going into energy studies and scenarios, no one has bitten the political bullet and asked·not only, "Well, how much more energy would we save if we did change ' our lifestyles?" but also, "Is it possible that holding our material standard of living steady could actually increase the overall quality of life for us all?" A good example occurred last year. In August 1976, Stanford Research Institute (SRI) 'prepared a 400-page draft report on "Solar Energy in America's Future" which _Stewart Brand (CQ, Fall '76, p. 68) considered "unusual, critical, • insightful," and which William Metz (Science, Dec. 17, 1976, v__ 194, p. 1260), in his article titled "The SRI Affair," cal.led "a recent solar study that reflected unfavorably on nuclear power_," that "made some novel c;omparisons between solar energy and nuclear -power and found that solar energy came out surprisingly favorabiy" and "also asked such previously ill-advised questioqs as what energy scenarios would lead to the best chance of survival by society." Yet when the final document appeared from ERDA in·· March 1977, it was a gutted, 100-pager, although still rather ~isque for an ERDA study (RAIN, May '77, p. 8). Major July 1976 (NTIS 256766/AS), which found energy conservation would have the effect of providing energy at less than 1/6 the cost of energy delivered from new nuclear and coal power plants; SCL Energy i990 Study, which foui;id invest- _ment in energy conservation to be .cheaper than SCL participation in new nuclear power pla.nts. SCL hired three east coast accounting firms, including Ernst & Ernst, to find ' errors in the report s0 its findings could be ignored. They could not, and SCL's chief economist resigned in'disgust over the whitewash try at a televised public hearing on SCL's position. ' • Report suppressed: Less Developed Countries''Nuclear Power Prospects, 1975-1990: Commercial, Economic & Security Implications (ERDA-52), not made available THREE VISIONS is then stated that new goals based on non-economic values threaten the governor's ability to achieve the old, no longer wanted goals: , The new values may not survive recession and resources shortages. But if they 'do, they' pose an additional new problem for democratic government in terms of its ability to mobilize • its citizens for the achievement' of social and political goals and to impose discipline and sacrifice upon its citizens i-n order to achieve those goals. The previous line of reasoning suggests that the public poses a threat by questioning the .dominance of economic rationality and supporting'social and political goals set forth by the group which currently runs the governments ·ofindustrialized countries. In its quest for simplification of institutions and pursuit of more human goals, this new public groundswell is threatening to undermine the existing status quo: ., Al Smith once remarked that 'the only cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.' Our analysis suggests that applying that cure at the present time could well be adding fuel to the flames. Instead, some of the problems of governance in the United States today stem from an excess of democracy, democracy is only one way of constituting authority, and it is not necessarily a universally applicable one. In many situations the claims of expertise, seniorit)', experience and spe<!ial talents. may override the claims of democracy as a way of constituting authority. December 1977 RAIN Page 19 sections, on such vital topics as "net energy" and "social implementation of solar energy," were left out, and the 30 pages on "Values" or "Gestalt A, B and C" were axed to 10 pages. Jim Benson, the contract manager at ERDA who attempted to get the report thr.ough ERDA and out intact, eventually prepared a 38-page booklet, Energy and Reality:'Three Perceptions, based on material removed from the final version. Excerpts from his paper follow. These kinds of perspectives need to be part of pubhc debate on energy and social policy. Evidently there are a few things we should all remember: 1. Don't assume sponsored research is well-balanced. Sponsorship per se should not lend legitimacy, whether by govern- , ment agencies, foundations or other institutions, but rather should be reason'to sus·pect biased conclusions. 2. Check their biases. Values and past activities of both the .contractor and the contracting agency should be either explained in the report's introduction or researched and weighed by the reader. 3. Demand full disclosure. We should, under our rights detailed in the 1974 Freedom of Information Act, continue to force complete disclosure of both internal government documents and taxpayer-funded research. 4. Give greater credibility to non-funded research. Pro bono research, which can bring a necessary, broader spectrum •of information and opinion into ·public decision-making, • should be respected, encouraged, and given greater attention. through NTIS until the press forced copies out of ERDA under the Freedom of Information Act; Transition , the Oregon Energy Study, was declared "out-of-print" due to electric utility pressure soon after Governor Bob Straub took over from Tom McCall, despite large sales and income for the state. • Delay so that, in the absence of supporting documentation for new options, the old options continue to be implemented: Wind Power for Farms, Homes & Small Industry, by Jack Park & Dick Schwind, ERDA contract No. E (04-3) -1270, sul;>mitted 7 Jan. 1977 to ERDA Wind Energy pivision, and still not available to the public. This is the elitism and technocracy Eisenhower and many others warned against. As we shap see in the discussio_n of Perception C, many believe there is a limit to _the degree of institutipnal centralization, but this Trilateral study concludes there is a different limit: • The vulnerability of democratic government in the United States.thus comes not primarily from external threats . .. but rather from the internal dynamics of democracy itself in a highly educated, mobilized, and participant society. We have come to recognize that there are potentially desirable limits to die indefinite extension of political democracy. B-Soft Technolo~ Transition In Perception B, most problems are correctable through first a thorough understanding and then enactment of policies designed to correct or eliminate the source of the ·problem. Donella Meadows has examined the structure of the market system under various economic regimes and concluded that, •" . .. the market system has a flaw that nqt only balloons pr'oductive units far bey0nd their most efficient size, but that could lead to the destruction of the market system." This analysis shows that "as productive units expand, labor costs decrease while capital costs increase."
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz