Energy Policy and the Market

Publication Date: September 1982

Publisher: Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): S. Fred Singer

Research Area: Energy

Keywords: Energy and environment

Type: Report

Abstract:

The Reagan Administration is committed to maximum reliance on the forces of a free market and a minimum of government intervention. The price of oil is now so high that oil can be replaced by less expensive gas, coal and nuclear energy. These cheaper fuels can be substituted in many applications--principally for producing heat and steam--which make up about 60 percent of world oil use. Government policies need not do much more than remove political and institutional obstacles to the use of these alternative energy sources. Economics will do the rest.