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Review Exercise IIIb: Energy Policy
Identify the fallacies that occur in the following long passage.
 

 
     There is no good reason to suppose that solar energy will be capable of meeting all of our energy needs. And since solar energy is incapable of meeting our energy needs, it is clear that we must not decrease government support for nuclear energy.
     For all their thinly disguised rhetoric, founded upon the cheapest misrepresentations of scientific fact, the environmentalists have not yet succeeded in laying to rest the uncomfortable visions that accompany the thought of a future without nuclear energy. One can imagine a human race thown into chaos by the spectre of starvation and cold. Already there have been instances of elderly persons on fixed incomes literally freezing to death because they could not afford heating fuel. As the top executives of every major oil corporation have pointed out, we can all expect to endure some energy shortages in the near future. The energy problems that face this nation, and the entire world, are nothing less than a crisis.
     Despite the seriousness of the situation, many environmentalists propose that we should now abandon nuclear energy and rely entirely on passive solar energy. How are we to meet the energy needs of the world on an energy source as unreliable and costly as solar energy? You can take it from me that all of the various tricks that masquerade under the head of solar "technology" are pitifully inefficient. Using the greenhouse effect to heat water, for example, rarely succeeds in increasing the water temperature to slightly below tepid. From this we may infer that all of the other methods of solar heating are equally inefficient, and since this is true it should be obvious that solar technology as a whole cannot possibly collect enough energy to meet the needs of an ever-increasing world population.
     We must, therefore, not abandon our efforts to improve nuclear technology. Although not all the bugs have been worked out of our present nuclear reactors, the environmentalists have no room for complaint. Solar energy is also far from perfect. More importantly, we must not reduce governmental support for nuclear power. The recent energy shortage followed directly on the heels of precisely such a reduction in governmental support. Had the government not relaxed its efforts on behalf of nuclear energy, the country would never have had to endure that devastating crunch.

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