Energy: Electric power's role in the U.S. energy crisis: A rapid increase in electrification is consistent with a necessary transition away from excessive dependence on oil and gas

The escalating imbalance between energy supply and demand may be the most difficult and pervasive problem facing the world today. And most responsible forecasts anticipate a major aggravation of the problem in the future. In the U.S., the root cause of the problem has been stated, almost universally, as the insatiable demand of the American public for energy as reflected in the exponential growth of its demand. The solution, as proffered by some, is the adoption of a no-growth or limited-growth philosophy and, by others, as the conservation of end-use consumption, either voluntarily or by government edict. These tenets will be examined here together with the role of electric power, a form of energy that has been growing at nearly double the rate of total “raw” energy demand (7.2 vs. 4.4 percent annually).