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Winter of our discontent • Send e-mail to LEWIS W. DIUGUID

By LEWIS W. DIUGUID - The Kansas City Star Date: 03/27/01 22:00

The signs keep pointing to an energy Armageddon on the horizon because of Americans' dependence on fossil fuels and our escalating overconsumption.

California is riding the first wave of trouble. For many reasons, electricity demand has outstripped the supply, causing people to suffer rolling blackouts.

So far Midwestern residents haven't been affected. But many people worry that California's higher costs and anemic power supplies will happen in the heartland.

Gasoline prices are another concern. The outcry a year ago was over the cost topping $2 a gallon.

Gas prices hover around $1.50 now, which makes transportation, goods and services cost a lot more than they did in January 2000.

We also are paying more to stay warm. Winter natural gas prices jumped substantially.

The cold weather added to the tab. Brad Scalio, a WeatherData Inc. meteorologist, said November's average temperature of 36.6 degrees was 6.5 degrees below normal. December's reading of 19.1 degrees was 11.3 degrees below normal.

"It was a really cold start to winter," Scalio said. "It was one of the coldest Decembers on record."

January's average temperature of 29.2 degrees was 3.5 degrees above normal, and February's average of 30 degrees was 1.2 degrees below normal.

"March has been more seasonable and normal than the previous months," Scalio said. "If it wasn't for December, it was a pretty mild winter."

No one would have guessed that from our heating bills. I lamented in a March 1, 1997, column that my highest heating bill ever was $225.96 for 30,000 cubic feet of natural gas.

I didn't know then what high was. My November-December gas bill was $198.53.

That was topped by our December-January bill of $243.34. Then our January-February bill reached a demanding $247.57.

What didn't make sense was that we used just 20,500 cubic feet of gas. That bill was the most my wife, Valerie, and I had paid in our 25 winters together.

What also was striking was our highest bill this year was 9.56 percent more than our top heating bill in 1997 even though we used 31.66 percent less gas.

The 2 feet of insulation I put in our attic 11 years ago, storm windows and the fuel-efficient furnace we installed after the 24-year-old furnace died in 1996 saved us. Some folks' bills were more than double ours.

Like many people, I called the gas company and was told our next bill would be lower because of a rate reduction, beginning March 1.

But these personal and reoccurring energy crises make me relive the late 1970s and early 1980s gasoline shortages. Service stations ran out of fuel, and those that did have gas had long lines.

I remember hearing a radio commentator say while I waited for fuel with others that the biggest stockpile of gasoline wasn't held by the government, major oil companies or OPEC nations. Those millions of barrels of gasoline were rolling around in our cars.

We own it, but big oil and big government continually exploit our dependence to wring more money from today's population of power junkies. President Bush's and Vice President Dick Cheney's wealth comes from the oil industry.

That's why I remain skeptical about Bush's pronouncement last week of the nation heading for a full-scale energy crisis. The predicament is real.

But pushing the panic button seems more like a ploy for Bush to get unwavering public support for an energy policy that would boost domestic production of oil, natural gas and coal while enabling big oil companies to keep picking people's pockets. World oil consumption already is projected to rise from 75 million barrels a day now to 115 million by 2020.

Using up the earth's limited resources faster is the wrong answer to our problems. This country needs a 12-step program to overcome its dependence on fossil fuels. America's ingenuity must go into developing renewable power sources.

I'd love to see every U.S. home by 2010 have photovoltaic cells producing electricity from sunlight and solar collectors for heating and see people by 2020 riding solar-powered public transportation.

Wind energy is another alternative. It was encouraging that UtiliCorp United Inc. said it planned to purchase the output of a Kansas wind farm.

When it's done this year, the 165-turbine wind farm near Montezuma will produce 110 megawatts of electricity, which could power 27,500 homes.

The future is in that kind of clean energy. The past is in the oil, coal and gas from things that died millions of years ago.

Lewis W. Diuguid is a member of the Editorial Board. His column appears on Wednesdays and Fridays. To reach him, call (816) 889-7827 and enter 1134 or send e-mail to Ldiuguid@kcstar.com.

http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/printer.pat,opinion/37753ba2.327,.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 28, 2001