page 2- sminy 3, 1977.- North Shore News

re eu

I think oil is too cheap.

I’m not suggesting that

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the ‘seven sisters’ are

not making enough money. They seem to be.doing
ali right for themselves. But the view of oil as
simply an energy seurce shows an incredible
underestimation of its value as a resource.

Oil is the cornucopia, from
which flows modern man’s
transport, heat and light—-
but also much of his clothing,
most modern shoes, ‘fertili-
zers and insecticides, deter-
gents, candles, long-playing
records, ointments and face
creams, drugs, roofing,
plastic drainpipes and gut-
ters, furniture and curtains,
paints and many household
utensiis, to name a few. Oil is

the indespensable source of

our plastics, artificial fibers
and many of our chemicals. It
is aiso being developed as a
source of protein for a
hungry world.

And yet we squander it
extravagantly. Only a small
part of the world’s dwindling
the things mentioned above.
Most of it is extravagantly,

and inefficiently, burned to-

propel people around in
automobiles,
their homes.

Automobiles are
ient, for sure. They are too
large, for starters. It doesn’t
make much sense in the

scheme of things to have to -

expend the energy necessary
to move a five-thousand
pound car to transport .a

two-hundred-pound individ-_

_ual from place to place.

And autos are notoriously
poor users of the energy in
gasoline. Only one-third of
the energy is translated into
power. One third is dischar-
ged into the atmosphere as
products of incomplete com-
-bustion (smog),
remaining one-third is con-

independent

capac fetactomteingeintorsionrenctamert

- ficient

and to heat

inefific- .

and the

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verted into heat and wasted

. into the atmosphere.

Most homes are equally
inefficient. The basic design
of homes hasn’t changed
since the Middle Ages. They

. are still built as ignorantly as

they were then, with insuf-
insulation, poorly
designed fireplaces that leak
warm air into the atmos-
phere, and, in general
layouts that encourage the

-wastage of fuel.

For instance, we all
demand central heating, and
yet I think central heating is
just as inefficient as the
automobile.
the continual heating of
rooms that don’t need heat,
and to my mind a much more
efficient system would be to
take the fuel to the room
where the heat is required
and burn it there by raeans of
an individual room heater,
gas, electric or whatever,
rather than burn it in a
central system and face: ali
the losses of heat involved in
transporting the heat from
room to room, and from
basement to attic.

European. néwcomers
laugh at us crazy North

Americans—-when we feel.

chilly we turn.a dial and raise
the heat in our 2,000 square
foot home, while any Euro-
pean knows that when you
feel chilly you put on warmer
clothes.

In the planning and design
of houses, no attempt’ is
made to use natural heat
sources. Solar technology

and

“but homes

it encourages

efficient than the automobile

‘is the equivalent of

considerable
portion of any local home’s
heating requirements now,
utilizing the
inexpensive and_ sensible
solar heating concepts are so
few and far between that
they rate headline stories.

can provide a

Insulation of most homes :

is substandard, with tremen-

dous losses through the huge _

surface areas demanded by
‘conventional’
codes.

And why? Because ofl is
tso cheap.

We’ re running out of oil,
as everyone is becoming
aware. I’ve been saying that
in this space for seven years.
In the. hundred years of the
twentieth century we have
burned off almost the entire

world’s supply of oil—a
non-renewable resource.
And now that it’s almost

gone from Norta America we
are making: frantic plans to
ship it from other r parts of the
world. .

the tanker rade was othe
subject of this column last
week. Really, inthe long
run, tankers don’t matter

either, because in fifty years |

or less they will be so much
scrap metal. They are use-
less with nothing to haul.

Surely in this, the so-called
space age,
transit systems that are more

—or at least, invent auto-
mobiles that don’t ‘waste
two-thirds of the energy in
their fuel.

‘And surely we can lay
down building codes that will
structure the homes of today
and tomorrow to use the
energy of the sun and the
wind. What will happen to
our present homes when oil
ten
it’s
will

dollars a gallon, when
obtainable? How long
the trees last?

underway, reports said. They
later discovered that the
intensity of the fire was fed
by the severed gas lite.

Someone had told us earlier
that the building was heated
by an oiJ-fired heater, and
not by gas,’’ one fireman
said.

Four days

later, when

investigators returned to the -

scene to conclude their
investigation, charred wood-
en planks crisscrossed the
basement floor, and every
accessible inch of the house
was charred and soggy.

Part of the second floor
kitchen area caved in and it
looked as if the entire section
was about to give way
anytime. A_ standard-sized
refrigerator, which didn’t
quite fall through was
supported by a few pieces of
splintered flooring. Said
Robertson: “It’s hanging
there by the grace of God.”’
The building is considered
dangerous and signs have
been posted warning tres-

‘passers to “Keep Out.” ' °°)

building |

we can devise .

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