We’re sucking up more and more ‘juice’every year –but a lot of Americans just aren’t ready to hear that our demand is exhausting our energy sources.

I live in a spacious, drafty, old New Orleans house. The hot water heater runs on natural gas and so does the floor furnace – two facts that make me one of Entergy’s favorite customers these days. Like the rest of you whose energy bills look like house notes, I am outraged and indignant. Nonetheless, after spending the past month or so resisting the urge to vent my anger in various ways, both legal and illegal, I have come to accept two things:

  One, Entergy is not solely to blame here. They’ve got to pay their natural gas suppliers, who are supposedly having a supply problem right now. Two, there’s a reality we’re going to have to face in a minute. There is not an unlimited supply of energy on the planet and our days of electricity and gas flowing as plentifully and cheaply as beer on Mardi Gras day may be ebbing to a close. Think I’m exaggerating? Call your relatives in California.

  There are those who say that California’s crisis is not a national crisis, but the result of a badly managed experiment in deregulation (the state of Pennsylvania has apparently been successful at deregulating electricity while maintaining steady prices and meeting demand). Nonetheless, it seems silly to ignore the message that California and anger-inducing heating bills are sending. The country as a whole has an insatiable and growing demand for energy that modern technology may not be able to meet.

  From ever-larger SUVs (somebody stop the madness) in every driveway to an electricity-consuming computer or two (and a DVD player and an automatic bread baker and a George Foreman Grill and … ) in every home, we’re sucking up more "juice" every minute. The Department of Energy says electricity consumption alone in this country was up by almost 25 percent between 1990 and 2000. That means we used nearly 660 billion more kilowatt hours than we did the decade before. That’s equal to the current consumption of Canada and Mexico combined. According to a report from Pacific New Service, global consumption of all types of energy – oil, natural gas, coal, etc – will grow by 50 percent over the next twenty years. Energy suppliers will have to scramble to meet the demand. Oil production, for example, will reportedly have to rise from 77 million to 110 million barrels per day. Natural gas production will have to double.

  It’s clear from the tone of the current administration in Washington – which would seemingly have us set up drilling platforms and pipelines from sea to shining sea – and from current public reaction that a lot of Americans are not quite ready to hear that our lifestyles may not be sustainable. Sure consumers are taking prudent steps in California – cleaning out hardware stores’ supplies of fluorescent bulbs and other energy-saving gadgets – but, then, the conservation movement is much stronger in California to start with, and, right now, what choice do they have? Most folks just want to know when and where are they going to find more gas, hydropower, whatever. We really do feel entitled to the conveniences of modern, American life. We flip switches, turn knobs, press buttons and stick the key in the ignition and the power we need is there – instantly and at a "reasonable" price. We expect it to be like that and believe that expectation takes precedence over anything else, including whatever such conveniences cost us in clean air or water or even the health of people who live near energy production.

  I certainly don’t profess to being any different from the rest of the blissfully clueless masses of Americans, but I do think it’s silly of us to wait until the entire country is faced with a California-sized energy problem before we start to regulate our behavior just a little bit.

  As for our Entergy (and energy) bills, I think the reality is that we may have to adjust to slightly higher prices. Nonetheless, what’s happened this winter is a sign that deregulation of the industry that provides the means for people to keep their families warm is something that ought to be approached very carefully, if at all. Being relatively warm in winter is hardly a privilege (if that energy is available); it is a matter of public health and should not be subject to the vagaries of capitalism and the pursuit of profits.

  Excuse me while I go turn on my computer.