And Now, the Chillout

THE much-discussed U.S. energy crisis often tends to sound like a fairly distant event that may well be avoided by wise planning and careful allocation of resources. But last week the crisis became all too real. In scattered sections of the nation there were cold schools, unfilled jet-aircraft tanks, empty propane containers and a hasty scramble among high state officials to arrange emergency delivery of precious fuels. Just as the nation's utilities have been forced to conserve electricity in recent summers by staging "brownouts," so they and the fuel industry at large had to ration cold-weather heating fuel by enforcing a series of "chillouts."

Residents of Sioux City, Iowa, were asked by Mayor Paul Berger to turn back their thermostats to 68DEG until the shortages end. Public schools in Denver, Wichita, Kans., and Nebraska City, Neb., were either shut down or put on short hours for want of anything to put in the furnaces. In Illinois dozens of grain-elevator operators have been unable to buy gas, leaving heaps of undried grain in danger of rotting. In New York City, American Airlines and TWA converted some nonstop transcontinental flights into interrupted runs so that the planes could fuel up along the way. The schedule changes resulted from cutbacks in jet-fuel deliveries by Texaco refineries.

Even some of the sun states were affected. The University of Texas at Austin, which is endowed with hundreds of thousands of acres of oil-rich land, postponed registration for 38,000 students because natural-gas deliveries had been halted. Staffers at KLRN-TV, the university-operated station, reported to work in thermal underwear and huddled around a camping heater. "We submitted a plan for a nuclear power plant here, but it was rejected by the voters," said Austin City Manager Dan Davidson. "This is an unfortunate education for our citizens that we must have a new source of energy." In Indiana, Senator Birch Bayh rushed to aid farmers by arranging an emergency shipment of grain-drying propane gas from New Jersey's Public Service Electric & Gas Co. and Houston's Tenneco Inc.

Dirty Alternative. Unusually cold weather caused much of the mess. Almost the whole state of Texas was coated with a rare ice storm, and Denver temperatures in early January averaged 17DEG below normal. Even so, according to the National Weather Service, temperatures in six representative cities in the early part of this winter have averaged only 3.7DEG below normal, indicating that fuel reserves for unexpected cold spells are low.

The nation's basic fuel problem is a shortage of natural gas, the cleanest and often the cheapest source of heat and electricity. In recent years, demand for that ideal fuel has jumped by an average 6% annually, while proven domestic reserves have actually declined. Fuel oil No. 2, a clean alternative to natural gas for many industries and other big users, is in unusually short supply this year. Iowa Governor Robert Ray, whose state has been among the hardest hit by the chillout, charges that operators of major refineries are responsible for the shortage because they have lately found it more profitable to produce auto gasoline than No. 2. General George Lincoln, director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, agrees that the fuel-oil shortage is partly due to the price-control program, which was introduced in 1971 during the late summer, when gas prices are usually high and those for fuel oil low. Last week's new rules for Phase III, which loosen the price-control system, may help alleviate the shortages.

But the national fuel shortage is likely to outlast any adjustment of wage-price controls. To prepare for the all-but-inevitable rationing that will be necessary in the next few years, the Federal Power Commission last week drew up a service-priority list for serious chillouts in the future. It gives residential and small commercial customers the most security in the event of gas shortages and big industrial users the most "interruptible" rating. Other emergency plans under consideration include a further loosening of some restrictions on fuel imports and a system of "variances," already being studied by Iowa officials, that would permit the burning of high-polluting grades of coal and oil in times of shortages.

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