Word: petroleum
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...country would seem to present a better case for nuclear power than Sweden. It has no petroleum, and so little coal that virtually none has been mined in 50 years. Its oil bill of $3.1 billion last year made it the world's largest per capita importer. On the other hand, the country has Western Europe's largest uranium deposit, the unmined 300,000-ton Ranstad lode in southern Sweden, which some regard as their future energy ace in the hole...
...energy problem, Reagan says: "From the time of the horseless carriage until 1971, there was no energy shortage. What happened is that in 1971 Government got into the energy business. If Government would just get out of the energy business and leave the oil companies alone, the greatest petroleum geologists have told me we would not have to buy from OPEC." Reagan ignores the fact that before 1971, the Government was heavily involved in energy, largely by erecting tariff barriers to protect the prices of domestic oil and to limit imports. As for those future supplies that Reagan sees waiting...
...deficits, and 2) to the extent that a cutback in driving reduces oil imports, the U.S. will make itself less vulnerable to petroleum price increases that the OPEC cartel may decree. But the fee will not spur all that much conservation: a reduction of only 100,000 bbl. a day the first year, by Carter's estimate, in petroleum imports that now average 8 million bbl. a day. In order to prompt really significant conservation, a gasoline tax on the order of the 50?-per-gal. bite that Republican John Anderson has been proposing might well be required...
...China's ambitious Four Modernizations program, petroleum-based chemicals are a pivotal industry. Says Silin: "It leads into so many other areas of basic industry, like synthetic fibers, fertilizers, rubber and plastic." His basic finding: China has embarked on a promising effort to expand its petrochemical production dramatically so that it could eventually become a major manufacturer and exporter of synthetics and resins. By 1985, if all goes well, China's production of ethylene will quadruple from 455,000 metric tons a year to 1.9 million. Polyethylene output is expected to expand from its very low current levels...
...butyl mercaptan is a light petroleum liquid whose skunklike odor is so foul that it is used for detecting leaks in natural-gas pipelines. Now a Texas entrepreneur named J.W. Small is promoting it as a rape repellent. Rapel, as his $9.95 product is called, is an inch-long plastic cylinder that contains a fragile glass ampoule of the obnoxious fluid. The pencil-thick device can be clipped to the inside of a dress, bra or nightgown; when pressed lightly, the ampoule breaks, releasing the ardor-killing odor. One rape crisis expert frets that Rapel "lulls the user into...