Still a Time to Choose ... Ten Years Later

Abstract

I think it is appropriate that we should end this conference on energy economics with a look at the record of the past nine years, the years since the energy world was turned upside down by the 1973 Arab oil embargo. This nation's foremost energy accomplishment of this period has not been in achieving increased production. Despite a tenfold increase in the price of crude oil, U.S. production in 1981 was about the same as in 1973. Natural gas production was down. Production of coal and uranium has gone up some, but overall, neither consumption nor domestic production of energy has increased in the last nine years.