andPower Company, the first corporate predecessor of the present Portland General Electric Company (PGE). PGE receivedits major outside financing fromOld Colony Trust of Boston and the General Electric Company, also of Boston. Between 1892 and 1906 PGE expandedits operations by acquiring other local power companies and in the latter year took its largest corporate leap, forming the Railway Light and Power Company to provide electricity forPortland's street railway mass transit system. Inthe early 20th century Portland hadadiversified and rather experimental energy system. Electric streetcars werecarrying 70 million fares a year by 1919. Electric utilities, mostly financed byout-of-state corporations, were expanding rapidly. The automobile, with its total dependence on outside energy sources, was well on its way to replacing the electric streetcars—terminating what had been called the best urban railway system in the country. Heating oil, later to become a major source of home heat in Oregon, was first delivered in Portland during this period. Coal was imported into the area for industrial applications and occasional home heating use. Pacific Power and Light for years operated an electric generating plant (south of the Hawthorne Bridge) that used sawdust. With World War I, Portland suffered its first energy crisis. The Great War had a big effect on the local economy. Oil and coal were needed for the war effort and so, no longer energy self-reliant, Portland felt the squeeze without its imported energy supplies. Energy resource development and consumption altered dramatically in the 1920s and '30s, not only in Portland but throughout the Northwest. Energy production in the United States became dominated by a few very large corporations. By 1932, over 90 percent of the electricity generated in the United States was sold for private profit; 75 percent of the private power output was controlled by 16 giant holding companies. Portland's electric and gas utilities were integral parts of the interstate holding company networks. Electricity was primarily benefitting urban residents. In 1932 only one rural house in 10 had electricity, compared to over 70 percent of urban and suburban homes. The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), chartered in 1937, was established largely as a broker for the energy produced through massive federal dams on the Columbia. The BPA was specifically forbidden to operate or invest in generating facilities of its own. The Roosevelt Administration had become actively involved in the push for public power in the Northwest, aiding in the takeover of private utilities and the formation of locally controlled public utility districts (PUDs). World War II once again changed the energy face of the Pacific Northwest. The region's strategic position on the Pacific Rim, combined with an enormous surplus of cheap hydroelectricity, made the Northwest an excellent location for many of the Nation's industries—particularly aluminum. Increasing population growth coupled with electrical dependence (one of the largest in the world) caused demand for energy to double over 10 years, leading to projections that the region's hydropower capacity would peak by the mid- 1970s. Shortages were anticipated as early as 10 years later. In 1957, 21 Washington public utilities formed the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS), pooling their resources to meet immediate energy demand. Coal and nuclear, they predicted, were the energy of the future. By 1970, the region's utilities had unveiled the Hydro Thermal Power Program (HTPP) as a strategic response to regional growth. The program called for the construction of one new major coal or nuclear plant almost every year, for a total of 26 by the year 2000. Forecasts estimated this new construction would triple the region's power supply. Three coal and five nuclear plants began the first phase of HTPP in the early '70s, but the program's optimistic projections were short-lived. Skyrocketing construction costs drained the financial resources of the utilities, drove up the cost of energy to the consumer, and delayed the construction of additional plants. From 1962 to 1977 Oregon's population grew 31 percent; in the same period our total energy consumption increased about 80 percent. When the gasoline and fuel crisis hit with the Arab oil embargo in 1973, it hurt. The Northwest's previous struggle through a fuel crisis in 1917 was a minor matter in comparison with the gas crisis of 1973. An event thousands of miles away had a dizzying number of unexpected and incalculable consequences. The winter of 1973-74 was also a dry one, which reduced hydroelectric generating capacity. Prices went up everywhere and we learned, like children suddenly without allowances, about the real costs of energy and material consumption and waste. In response to the energy crisis, then-Governor Tom McCall entered the scene, becoming the national energy folk hero as he actually tried to do something about it. In 1974 he formed the predecessor to the present Oregon Department of Energy (ODOE), often referred to as the Energetics Office. Also called the governor's "Think Tank," or the first state office of consciousness change, the office published several reports, such as "Cosmic Economics," before the office itself was transformed 47 Ancil Nance
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