The "Your voice" column by Edward W. Wiederhold ("We urgently need a new fuel policy," June 18) is absolutely correct, except for the headline. It should have been "We urgently need an energy policy."

The sad reality is that we in the United States have never had a comprehensive energy policy. Yes, there is a federal Department of Energy, which spends lots of tax money. And yes, back in the 1970s there was a ceiling on gasoline prices at the pump. That was called an energy policy. There was a time when Ohio offered tax incentives for homeowners to install solar heating systems.

These are examples of a potpourri of legislative and administrative actions that haven't really created a national energy policy.

As a nation, we waste huge amounts of energy. For every gallon of oil used to provide transportation, three more gallons of oil are wasted. For every unit of energy used to generate electricity, two units are wasted.

As our population grows, so does our appetite for energy. Yet we continue along the path toward increasing consumption of energy without attention to the critical need for more capacity for refining oil and generating electricity. We continue to let energy-efficient means of transportation (small cars, metro bus and rail networks, and trains) wither in favor of single-occupant big cars and intercity trucks.

Wiederhold correctly recognizes that available supplies of petroleum are dwindling, and the prospects for finding new deposits of petroleum are also dwindling. He also recognizes that the needs of a petroleum-based energy infrastructure cannot be satisfied by "alternative energy sources" - a polite euphemism for solar power, wind power and the like.

American business and industry have no reason to develop an energy policy, except to ensure that the cost of energy purchased for their own operations remains low. And what is mistakenly called an energy policy isn't even close to a meaningful public policy on energy.

Without a comprehensive national policy for energy development and use, we can look forward to paying $2 for a liter of gasoline, not for a gallon. (That's more than $7.50 per gallon.)

How soon? I cannot predict that date, but I suspect it may be before 2010.

---

Bruce Bardes of Montgomery is a retired General Electric engineer and a consultant.

Want your voice here?

Send your column or proposed topic, 400 words or fewer, along with a photo of yourself, to assistant editorial editor Ray Cooklis at rcooklis@enquirer.com or call (513) 768-8525.