Environmental Implications of Energy Development

Since no totally environmentally-clean forms of energy sources are available, our exponential growth in energy requirements has precipitated related pollution problems. Population growth has certainly been a major factor in this increase, but a more critical factor has been the per capita increase in energy use, so much so that a recent U.S. study attributes only 20% of the increase to population growth and the remainder, 80%, to increased use per individual. These developments have created a difficult dichotomy. On one hand, after decades of sustained growth, our current energy requirements are increasing at an even faster rate than in the past, and on the other we are intensely concerned with protecting the environment from the deterioration which the development, distribution, and use of energy can create.