energy in transition
1. the era of cheap and convenient sources of energy is coming to an end. a transition to more expensive but less polluting sources must now be managed. understanding this transition requires a look at the two-sided connection between energy and human well-being. energy contributes positively to well-being by providing such consumer services as heating and lighting as well as serving as a necessary input to economic production. but the costs of energy--including not only the money and other resources devoted to obtaining and exploiting it but also environmental and sociopolitical impacts--detract from well-being.
2. for most of human history, the dominant concerns about energy have centered on the benefit side of the energy--well-being equation. inadequacy of energy resources or (more often) of the technologies and organizations for harvesting, convening, and distributing those resources has meant insufficient energy benefits and hence inconvenience, deprivation and constraints on growth. energy problems in this category remain the principle preoccupation of the least developed countries, where energy for basic human needs is the main issue; they are also an important concern in the intermediate and newly industrializing countries, where the issue energy for production and growth. aside from having too little energy, it is possible to suffer by paying too much for it. the price may be paid in excessive diversion of capital and labor, or it may be' paid in excessive environmental and sociopolitical impacts. for most of the past 100 years, however, the problems of excessive energy costs have seemed less threatening than the problems of insufficient supply. between 1890 and 1970 the monetary costs of supplying energy and the prices paid by consumers stayed more or less constant or declined, and the environmental and sociopolitical costs were regarded more as local nuisances or temporary inconveniences than as pervasive and persistent liabilities.
3. the 1970's, then, represented a turning point. after decades of constancy or decline in monetary costs--and of relegation of environmental and sociopolitical costs to secondary status--energy was seen to be getting costlier in all respects. it began to be plausible that excessive energy costs could pose threats on a par with those of insufficient supply. it also became possible to think that expanding some forms of energy supply could create costs exceeding the benefits.
4. the crucial question at the beginning of the 1990's is whether the trend that began in the 1970's will prove to be temporary or permanent. is the era of cheap energy really over, or will a combination of new resources, new technology and changing geopolitics bring it back? one key determinant of the answer is the staggering scale of energy demand brought forth by 100 years of unprecedented population growth, coupled with an equally remarkable growth in per capita demand of industrial energy forms. supplying energy at rates in the range of 10 terawatts, first achieved in the late 1960's, is an enterprise of enormous scale. the way it was done in 1970 required the harvesting, processing and combustion of some three billion metric tons of coal and lignite, some 17 billion barrels of oil, more than a trillion cubic meters of natural gas and perhaps two billion cubic meters of fuelwood. it entailed the use of dirty coal as well as clean; undersea oil as well as terrestrial; deep gas as well as shallow; mediocre hydroelectric sites as well as good ones; and deforestation as well as sustainable fuelwood harvesting.
5. except for the huge pool of oil underlying the middle east, the cheapest oil and gas are already gone. the trends that once held costs at bay against cumulative depletion have played themselves out. even if a few more giant oil fields are discovered, they will make little difference against consumption on today's scale. oil and gas will have to come increasingly, for most countries, from deeper in the earth and from imports whose reliability and affordability cannot be guaranteed.
6. there are a variety of other energy resources that are more abundant than oil and gas. coal, solar energy, and fission and fusion fuels are the most important ones. but they all require elaborate and expensive transformation into electricity or liquid fuels in order to meet society's need. none has very good prospects for delivering large quantities of electricity at costs comparable to those of the cheap coal-fired and hydropower plants of the 1960's. it appears, ihen, that expensive energy is a permanent condition, even without allowing for its environmental costs.
参考译文：变革中的能源
1．能源既廉价又便利的时代已经结束。目前必须转向价格昂贵但污染较 轻的能源。要理解这种转变，需要考察一下能源和人类幸福之间的双重关系。 从积极的方面来看，能源促进了人类幸福，不但启动了经济生产，而且为人 类提供了消费服务，如供热和照明等。但另一方面，能源的成本——不但包 括投入开采和应用能源的资金和其他资源，而且包括能源对环境和社会政治 所造成的影响——却破坏了人类幸福。
2．在人类历史的大部分时间里，其主要关注的是能源和幸福关系的积极 的一面，能源短缺或(更为常见的是)在开采、转化和分配能源的技术和组 织上的不足减少了能源的积极作用，因而产生能源使用的不便，能源使用权 利被剥夺，以及发展受限制。此类能源问题在最不发达国家是他们最为关注 的焦点，在这些国家，能源主要是用于人类需求：在中等发达国家和新兴工 业化国家，能源也是人们关注的重要问题，这些国家中，能源主要用于生产 和发展。除了能源短缺，代价太高也是问题。这种代价的方式可以是各种各 样的资金和劳务，也可以是能源对环境和社会政治所造成的多种影响。但是， 在过去一百年的大部分时间里过高能源代价问题的威胁不如能源短缺所带来 的威胁。在1890到1970年间，能源供应的资金代价以及消费者所付出的代 价基本上保持稳定或有所下降，而能源对环境和社会政治所造成的影响被认 为更多的是地方问题和暂时不便，而不是普遍的、持久的趋势。
3．然后，20世纪70年代出现了一个转折点。资金代价经过了几十年的 稳定和下降，环境和社会政治代价屈居几十年的次要地位之后，能源在各个 方面的代价都在增加。能源使用代价过高的危害可以同能源短缺相提并论的 观点开始显得合理起来。同时，也可以认为，提供某些能源供应所付出的代 价要大于获得的利益。
4．90年代初的关键问题是70年代出现的这种趋势是暂时的还是持久的。 廉价能源的时代是真正结束了，还是通过发现新能源、应用新技术和改变地 缘政治形势能够重新出现?回答这个问题的关键是要看过去一百年中由于史 无前例的人口增长而带来的能源需求的惊人增长，同时，工业能源人均需求 的增长也同样明显。从60年代开始，能源供应以十万亿瓦的规模增长，这样 巨大的规模十分危险。按照70年的能源供应，需要开采、加工和燃烧大约30 亿公吨的煤和褐煤，大约170亿桶的石油，一万多亿立方米的天然气和大约 20亿立方米的木柴。这意味着需要除了利用优质煤炭，还要利用劣质煤炭； 除了利用陆上石油，还要利用海洋石油；除了利用浅层气，还要利用深层气： 除了利用条件良好的水电站，还要利用条件一般的水电站：除了可承受的木 柴采伐，还要破坏森林。
5．除了中东地下巨大油藏而外，最廉价油气资源已经枯竭，过去曾出现 通过抬高成本来抑制能源的日益枯竭的趋势本身也已消失。即使再能发现几 个大油田，对于如今规模巨大的能源消费来说，也无济于事。对于大多数国 家来说，石油和天然气将越来越多地依赖于从地层深处开采，并依赖进口， 而油气进口无论是资源供应的可靠性还是进口国家的支付能力都难以得到保 证。
6．尚有其他许多能源资源要比油气资源丰富。煤炭、太阳能以及裂变聚 变燃料是其中最主要的几种。但要将这些资源转化成电力或者是液体燃料以 满足社会需要，都需要复杂的技术和昂贵的成本。要靠这些资源来大量生产 电力，从成本上说，任何一种都无法同60年代廉价的火力发电站和水力发电 站相比，因而，前景不会太好。这样看来，能源昂贵的情形将长久持续，这还不包括使用能源在环境上所付出的代价。