Us Electricity Supply And Demand The Northeastern Region

This study was undertaken to examine the implications of alternative energy futures for the northeastern U.S. First, the past and present energy supply and demand patterns for the U.S. and the northeast region are reviewed. Then, on the basis of detailed analyses of present and possible future supply and demand activities, scenarios for the years 1985 and 2000 are constructed and compared to examine the implications of various policies that will affect future supply and demand activities. Economic and environmental consequences are also discussed. The principal findings of the study are these: (1) conservation measures can reduce fuel and resource requirements in the northeast by over 30 percent; (2) oil imports are likely to continue to be a major energy resource for the northeast since only if strong conservation measures are combined with large increases in U.S. energy supplies is there apt to be a substantial decline in oil imports to the region; (3) a shift to coal and other alternate energy supplies, coupled with increased conservation, could compensate for a curtailment in the use of nuclear power in the region; (4) new resource technologies are capable of supplying up to 20 percent of the region's energy requirements in 2000; (5) no single supply technology or single conservation strategy taken alone can reduce the region's increasing dependence on foreign oil. Rather, the creation of an acceptable energy system for the region will require efforts in many directions in terms both of reducing demand and developing reliable, diversified supplies.