nuclear energy production is inevitably a prelude to nuclear arms proliferation, increasing both the likelihood and magnitude of future international conflict. But these contentions, however compelling they might be to some, are not within the scope of this paper. What we are primarily concerned with here is the nature and validity of the claims made for the ability of the soft energy path to promote particular values on the domestic scene. How valid are these claims? There is no question but that hard energy paths generally will require a high degree of compulsion in the sphere of economic production. Coal will be produced in mines, or in highly organized stripping activities, electricity in large power plants. But it should be noted that these compulsions will primarily involve simply a continuation of the compulsions (indeed in almost identical form) which have existed throughout the history of industrial society — that lack of “freedom from" which has seemed acceptable to participants in the productive process. There will, it is true, be only limited consumer choice of energy sources — electricity, natural gas, or oil primarily (including oil extracted from shale, etc.) at the point of consumption. But his situation, while it violates the “freedom to" principle, is nothing new, constituting a lack of variety of choice which consumers have long endured. There is, however, an increase in political controls over the population inherent In the hard energy path. Subsidy will almost certainly be necessary for expansion into the areas of nuclear energy and synfuels in the future as it has been in the past. Private capital has not so far proven adequate to finance these through the market mechanism. Compulsions will also be necessary to cover the cleanup costs when nuclear plants fail, witness the aftermath of the Three Mile Island disaster, where costs are being levied not only upon the customers of the utility directly involved, but also indirectly through higher energy bills upon the customers of neighboring utility systems. Finally government legislation such as the Price Anderson Act which makes it impossible to sue for damages in the normal manner in the case of a major nuclear disaster is a governmental interference in the normal workings of the free market system which inherently involves compulsion through political means. All subsidies involve compulsion, taking money from some people by means of taxation and giving it to others. This, while it involves a loss of “freedom from," is again something people are used to and will relatively easily accept, however they may grumble. But in addition the hard path will involve further restrictions on both “freedom from” and “freedom to.” As mentioned above, one restriction is, of course, the safety and security controls necessarily associated with nuclear energy, which will increase by a quantum jump the public health and security measures to which citizens are already accustomed (28). Such measures inevitably involve a fallout of controversy and suspicion. Another dimunition of both kinds of freedom and one which will be more directly perceived by the population as such will be the use of government compulsion to make any synthetic fuels program workable, already present in measures sponsored by the Carter administration to streamline the process of moving into synfuels. The Reagan administration, on taking office, moved to radically revise and virtually eliminate the synfuels program of its immediate predecessors, but future administrations or Congresses may change the picture once again and there is an inherent social logic behind movement in the direction of synfuels (29). People are used to the loss of freedom inherent in eminent domain so that conventional public utilities can operate smoothly, but the attacks on existing social structures and environmental amenities entailed by any major synfuels program, along with the ancillary seizure of land and
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