power: its significance and needs. 
25 
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 . 1 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. 
In the second place, and viewed from the standpoint of the large 
consumer of power, the use of fuel is the established convention for 
YOT H STORAGE 
DEVELOPED TOTAL AVAILABLE 
Fig. 2. — Chart showing the develofed water power- op the United States contrasted 
WITH THE TOTAL RESOURCE. 
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 standing. 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. 
