From TIME'S inception 50 years ago, we have organized the weekly news and presented it in clearly defined sections. To retain our flexibility within that newsmagazine format, we have responded to changing events by merging or dropping departments or--as we are doing this week--by creating a new one. The newcomer: ENERGY, which begins on page 24.

Our most recent new section, THE SEXES, was started in January to accommodate the growing amount of news about the heightened consciousness and militancy of women (and male reaction to that movement). ENERGY is being launched in response to a very different crisis: the shortages dramatically precipitated by the Arab oil embargo. THE SEXES will probably remain a permanent fixture, but ENERGY may be a separate section in TIME only as long as the current emergency lasts. For the duration, the new section will report on Government policy, explore what should and can be done to alleviate the situation, describe the involvement and influence of other countries, and assess the impact of the crisis on both people and institutions--from housewives to landowners to big business leaders.

Stories in the section this week deal with the continued energy shortage and its effects; the variety of ways to cut down on energy waste; the impact on the environmental movement; and an analysis by TIME'S Board of Economists of the effect on the economy.

Senior Editor Marshall Loeb will oversee the new section, which will be written and researched by the Business staff but will also draw on the expertise of Environment, Science and other departments. A journalist since the age of 15, when he wrote sport stories in two Chicago periodicals for $2 per week. Loeb joined TIME as a Business writer in 1956 and has been senior editor of the Business section since 1968.

In the summer Loeb swims for 30 to 60 minutes almost every morning ("to warm up for the day ahead") unless he is traveling, which is what he was doing in August 1971, when President Nixon announced the implementation of Phase I controls. Within 24 hours of the announcement, Loeb had returned to New York from Norway to co-edit a 13-page report for that week's issue of TIME.

"For the first time in a long while," says Loeb, "people in this country are worried about the supply of a basic commodity. This new section will allow us to give prominence to a subject that is Topic A on everyone's mind right now." Loeb confesses, incidentally, that the accompanying photograph was taken before he had read the Energy section story that explains why burning wood on the family hearth can actually drain a house of its heat.

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