GENERAL SUMMARY. 151 



Going over the preceding summary of the energy situation and 

 drawing out the more significant defaults, the points around which 

 center the various more specific troubles, we find that (1) there is 

 excessive competition in coal mining; (2) inadequate transportation 

 is provided for coal; (3) the distributive manner in which coal is used 

 involves too much inconvenience and waste, especially for the 

 domestic consumer; (4) the economics of oil mining is out of adjust- 

 ment with oil occurrence; (5) water power is underdeveloped because 

 of the financial status of power-site developments. In attempting 

 to bring the whole compHcated energy situation down to a few, 

 concrete, practical issues which may find attachment to our current 

 machinery of national administration, we may set to one side the 

 matter of coal production. Not that this is unimportant, but the 

 other matters are more immediately important and may gain in 

 popularity by being thus divorced from an item, the correction of 

 which might involve a step that this country may not yet be prepared 

 to take. Moreover, coal production may be improved indirectly 

 through provisions in respect to transportation and utihzation. It 

 were better, then, that the fom- more immediate issues should stand 

 together and apart from the matter of coal conservation. 



Looking at the situation reduced to these heads, we find that coal and 

 water power overlap in respect to the provisions of industrial energy 

 (i.e., power), leaving a portion of the coal to apply to domestic needs 

 under the head of domestic fuel; while oil, by virtue of its specialized 

 service, still stands apart as distinctive, though not wholly unmeshed 

 from the general situation. Thus the default of coal in respect to 

 transportation and the default of water power in respect to production 

 are fundamentally parts of a single issue concerned with the supply of 

 industrial power; the wastes in the utilization of coal concern pri- 

 marily the domestic consumer and his methods of employing fuel; the 

 inadequacy in oil remains still a matter of improper production. 

 These three issues are beheved to lie at the base of the entire energy 

 situation. If we set aright the power supply through a proper 

 development of water power and the provision of adequate trans- 

 portation for coal, arrange for an economical supply of smokeless 

 fuel for domestic use, and correct the glaring wastes in respect to 

 petroleum growing out of the present methods of production, we will 

 have taken the most important steps essential to the proper function- 

 ing of our energy resources. 



PROBLEM OF POWER SUPPLY. 



Under present conditions the power supply of the country is 

 provided chiefly in the form of coal, with fuel oil the mainstay in 

 sections distant from coal fields, and water power drawn upon 



