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A major target for saving natural gas and oil will be home insulation. "Your home is your castle," runs one current Washington quip, "but your attic belongs to the Government." At present, as much as 40% of house heat escapes through poorly fitting windows, too thin walls and faulty flues. Schlesinger plans a mandatory program that will force homeowners to insulate whether they want to or not. Enforcement will be through state commissions and local utilities. One proposal: order public utilities to insulate homes and spread out the cost through higher billing to all customers. For added energy saving in homes, utilities will be required to install remote-control switches on central heating and air-conditioning units and water heaters. The heaters and air conditioners can then be turned off for 15 to 20 minutes each hour to conserve fuel while the water heaters can be switched off for two to four hours to ease the peak load.
The insulating program will heavily lean on industries and companies. Plants and office buildings will have to be weatherized to prevent energy loss. New federal building standards will be promulgated to force a switch from energy-squandering buildings that are cheaper to build but more expensive to operate because they must be air conditioned winter and summer.
COAL
According to Schlesinger's estimates, the U.S. has enough coal—"the great black hope"—to last for 400 years. Other experts put the figure far lower, at 50 to 90 years. The supply is adequate to carry the U.S. well past the transition from the end of the oil and gas era to new, possibly not yet discovered sources of energy in the 2000s. The program will count on the profit consciousness of the coal companies, which now mine about 655 million tons per year, as a spur to increasing production to 1 billion or more tons annually by 1985.
Meanwhile, factories and utility power plants now using natural gas will be compelled to switch to coal as soon as possible. The cost to U.S. industry will be incalculably huge; the utility plants alone will be required to spend an estimated $75 billion on conversion. Tax credits and federal loans will be given to sweeten the wrench. Plants that cannot convert from gas will be taxed for its continued use. The energy plan may allow some relaxation of antipollution laws in order to speed up the transition to coal.
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