U.S. Energy Development: Four Scenarios

Date

1974-10-25

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

The State of Texas Governor's Energy Advisory Council

Abstract

The Governor's Energy Advisory Council of the State of Texas program consists of a number of interrelated studies and projects covering supply and demand, legal and regulatory aspects, environmental and social aspects, and new technology. One aspect of this work is necessarily a definition of the changing energy environment within the United States as a whole. The Futures Group has been contributing to the Energy Advisory Council's effort in this area. Specifically, the contribution of the Futures Group is to: - Prepare a set of scenarios depicting the evolution of energy supply, demand, and policy in the United States for the periods between the present and 1985, and 1985 and 2000. - Participate in a series of meetings to be held in Houston during the first week of November to discuss the implications of the U.S. scenarios on Texas energy policy. - Prepare a report based on the Houston meetings which focuses on the interface between potential U.S. and Texas energy policy. This report is designed to satisfy the first objective listed above: it presents a set of scenarios which describe the energy situation in the United States as it might exist between 1975 and 1985, and between 1985 and 2000. Throughout this work, it has been our intent to present plausible images which are self-consistent and, where possible, quantitative. We do not believe that any of the scenarios presented in this document is completely accurate. Since a scenario is, ideally, a description of a total "world," we are almost certain that in retrospect these scenarios will be seen to have omitted important, but now unknowable, events. Furthermore, the energy situation in the United States and throughout the world is extremely dynamic, and even the most reputable sources of information about the extent of energy reserves, energy supply, or demand, rapidly lose currency. Therefore, wherever possible, the authors have attempted to make all assumptions explicit and to document the sources of data and prior analyses.

Description

140 pages

Keywords

energy policy, energy usage

Citation