ABSTRACT

It is visualised that this latter scenario will eventually happen even if there is no crisis due to war or other political situations but this could be a hundred years away. This longer period should not, however, be taken as indicating complacency for two reasons. Firstly, to react to a crisis would be impossible unless the necessary action had been proved and, secondly, one of the major crisis actions, namely the production of liquid hydro-carbons from coal, will be very expensive and indeed more viable in the United States from open-cast fields than in Britain. Thus an introduction of some of the crisis solutions may well prove necessary and desirable well before a hundred years.