Oil priorities
Page 68
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Your energy conservation article including Dr Pearce's remarks raises again the question of determining the priorities of use of oil and what we must do to conserve it. Not long back a leading OPEC minister remarked, "There is plenty of oil available in the West but you burn it to keep warm."
It is acceptable that it be used at the moment for transportation and running industry and it is wasteful indeed that oil is squandered heating ourselves. Most power stations, excepting nuclear complexes, are coalfired or have converted back to it and have a small back-up of oil. But what of the thousands of hospitals, old people's homes, institutions, DoE complexes, etc, that annually consume millions of gallons throughout the land, most are dependent on oil for heating. Try convincing them to revert to coal-firing and you will receive a clear and realistic, No!
The oil industry inherited the present vast volume of oil distribution from coal. Since it engages about two thirds of its output to this end, it is inconceivable that it would be prepared to forego this market.
It is notable however, what almost all of the DoE complexes newly constructed have changed to North Sea gas. Among private industry Vauxhall of Luton have converted to gas with only, once yearly, a back-up of oil. Could this be the pattern for the future! Most oil companies today proclaim themselves energy companies, in fact Esso as Dr Pearce well knows, is engaged in the North Sea with the Gas Corporation in developing resources there.
The sensible reason for intelligent conversion is clear, the government must act statutatory and restrain oil heating in the many agencies it controls, the high price of oil and its scarcity makes it imperative. Private industry must be encouraged to seek new forms of energy with the co-operation of the Government in the form of subsidies. The fossil fuel resources of the world are not inexhaustible and we must determine the priorities as to how we apply them.
M. FOGARTY, Reading, Berks.