POWER. Ill 



adequacy of American economic practice, which relies upon competi- 

 tion and the automatic working of the natural law of supply and 

 demand to bring all good things to pass, neglectful of the fact that 

 in the by-product realm supply is conditioned otherwise than by 

 demand, that pending the creation of a proportionated demand the 

 discrepancy of overweight on the side of supply is rejected as waste.^ 

 In such manner have the three principles of transportation de- 

 veloped in American economic practice. In the realm of common 

 carriage, competition has been found to be out of place and is no 

 longer relied upon, community interest taking its place. In the 

 realm of advance preparation, competition has proved effective; and 

 its free operation there is desirable. In the realm of full utilization, 

 competition alone has been unable to achieve adequate results; and 

 the need for constructive help to make competition effective here is 

 coming to be recognized. These principles have registered among 

 mineral resources in the main; they have failed dismally to find 

 lodgement in the field of power resources. It remains to determine 

 why the contrast and what the remedy. In the attempt, the three 

 aspects of the situation will be considered in the reverse order of their 

 presentation above. 



FULL UTILIZATION OF POWER MATERIALS. 



E(5lb of multiple production. 



The power materials are coal, oil, and water, and, in the present 

 connection, it is desirable to examine how fully the amount trans- 

 ported is utilized. Water, of course, is not carried considerable dis- 

 tances for purposes of power generation and therefore presents no 

 problem in this connection. Oil, on the contrary, is in part inade- 

 quately utilized, but this matter involves many complexities, which 

 are given in detail elsewhere^ and accordingly may be passed over 

 without further comment here. This limits our consideration, under 

 the present head, to coal. 



Current demand calls for the annual transportation and distribu- 

 tion of about 700 million tons of coal.' Much of this demand could 

 be satisfied with no other commodity or form of energy, while any 

 change in the part open to modification can take effect only slowly. 



1 This important matter is examined in greater detail on pages 95-98. 



2 Petroleum : A resources interpretation, Bulletin 102, Part 6, of this series. 



' In 1917 this country produced 640 million tons, but the requirements for 1918 -will 

 toe over 700 million. While roughly only two-thirds of the output is used for power 

 generation, the other third being employed for the manufacture of coal products (chiefly 

 coke) and for domestic heating, the principle of full utilization applies to the total 

 amount. 



