POWER. 



121 



source has demonstrated its capacity to compete with the cream of 

 the fuel resources, and it is a fair assumption that the balance is 

 reasonably even in this area of rich values. But most of the cream, 

 aside from that withheld by Federal restrictions and assiduously 

 sought after by special interests with a taste for such matters, has 

 been skimmed from water power, while it has not yet been exhausted 

 from coal and oil; and the average of hydroelectric power, under 

 present conditions, can not compete against the residuum of cream 

 now being assiduously removed from the other two.^ But the course 

 of preferential skimming will tend to equal matters up, and a steady 

 increase in the significance of the water-power resource is to be 

 anticipated. 



WITH STORAGE 



VY(THOUT STORAGE 



DEVELOPED 



TOTAL AVAILABLE 



Fig. 15. — Chart showing the developed water powek of the United States contrasted 



WITH the total resource. 



In the second place, and viewed from the standpoint of the large 

 consumer of power, the use of fuel is the established convention for 

 covering the needs for power. Where steam power is wanted, 

 fuel of course must be used. But even where electricity is re- 



1 It is evident, of course, that considerable coal and oil are being sacrificed for the sake 

 of giving water power a better resource staudin?. This, in a national sense, is unfor- 

 tunate ; for the coal supply, while great, is not unlimited, and its needless use involves 

 the loss of coal products, the true importance of which in a few years are bound to be 

 recognized ; while the petroleum reserve is already on the verge of exhaustion. The fuel 

 resources are fixed in quantity and are in the nature of capital which does not draw* 

 interest; water power, on the other hand, may be compared to an annuity, the annual 

 increments of which lapse if not currently used. Hence, as a concession to convenience 

 and in the flush of resource wealth, this country has run into the economic impropriety 

 of drawing upon its energy capital while neglectful of its energy annuity. While this, 

 of course, will afford an unpleasant contemplation to the next generation and may even 

 affect the younger members of the present, at the same time it is recognized that such a 

 consideration has scant practical weight in favor of bettering the situation as standing 

 now. 



