Analysis of past and expected future trends in U. S. energy consumption, 1947--2000

In the first part of this paper, energy consumption trends to the year 2000 are estimated for 110 different industrial sectors and for household and government final demand sectors, and these trends are compared with historical 1947-to-1967 trends. For most sectors, energy consumption is expected to increase much less rapidly in the 1967-1985 period than it did in the 1947-1967 period as a result of the recent large energy price increases. Between 1985 and 2000, the rate of growth of energy consumption continues to moderate for most purchasing sectors primarily because of a slackening in output growth rates rather than because of any further decrease in per unit of output energy requirements. These future trends are estimated under the assumption that post-1976 energy price increases will be moderate. In the second part of the paper, alternative strategies for further reducing future energy consumption are considered, and a data base is presented for use in analyzing the effects of implementing the alternative strategies