2000 A.D.

How much of an increase in world production is needed to raise the backward nations to a minimum standard of decent living? The world needs at least another $25 billion worth of food a year and another $15 to $25 billion in housing, medicine, clothing, etc.,--an increase of 7% to 10% in present world production of consumer goods and services. This is the estimate of Economists Wladimir and Emma Woytinsky, a husband & wife team who have spent five years compiling an exhaustive (1,268 pages) study, World Population and Production, published by the Twentieth Century Fund.

To achieve the necessary increase, the world will need to produce more than four times as much energy by the end of this century as it does now. The demand for more energy is already being felt in backward countries, where the U.S. and Western Europe, by exporting capital and know-how, are setting up a "spiral of industrialization" which will mechanize underdeveloped areas. Say the Woytinskys: "This is a one-way road, and there is no going back to grinding grain and making flour at home."

The quadrupled energy requirements are based on an estimated population increase from 2.4 billion at the half-century to 3.3 billion 50 years hence, and on a "conservative" increase in per capita energy needs of 2.5% a year. Thus, if our sources of energy are used twice as efficiently by the century's end, we will still need twice as many sources.

Where will all the needed energy come from? Surprisingly enough, the Woytinskys estimate that four-fifths will be obtained just the way it is now--from coal, oil, gas, water, wood and work animals--and only one-fifth from such new sources as the sun, the wind and the atom (see chart). While petroleum consumption "is certain to rise from decade to decade," there may be a worldwide shortage by the end of the century. Coal, on the other hand, sometimes regarded as a dying industry, is in for a big boost in the coming decades. Say the authors: "The use of fuels extracted in liquid and gaseous form from the earth's crust will probably . . . approach its completion by the end of this century. The era of coal, which began 150 years earlier, is likely to continue longer and leave a deeper impact on mankind."

The Woytinskys are unenthusiastic about the immediate prospects for atomic energy, point out that for several decades, more energy will go into building atomic piles than the plants will release. Eventually, however, some time after the year 2000, man will stop picking "crumbs of energy" from the soil and move toward "deliberate control over the energy in his environment."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.