President Bush can do little to solve California's energy problems, according to Bruce Jaffee, IU professor of business economics and public policy and associate dean of the Kelley School of Business.

Jaffee, whose expertise is in energy markets and public utility regulation, said the solution to California's current energy shortage will have to come from within the state. He added that Bush cannot force private electricity generators to do business with California, and in the short term, conservation is the best option.

"It's going to be very tough to get the genie back into the bottle without conservation efforts," Jaffee said.

One such conservation method, he suggested, is to institute real-time pricing, which provides financial incentives to consumers for moving their heaviest electricity use to non-peak times. Eventually California may have to move to some re-regulation of electricity, or purchase electricity generating facilities in order to guarantee that electricity produced in California will remain within the state, he said.

Americans first learned about energy conservation during the energy crisis of the 1970s, but the issue became mired in questions about government interference in people's lives, according to Richard Wilk, an IU anthropology professor who researches consumer culture and energy consumption.

Back then, Americans' views were changing, "but at the same time, the way the government and many policymakers approached energy conservation fed the notion that conservation meant sacrificing our quality of life," Wilk said. "The image we always go back to is President Jimmy Carter saying that we all have to wear sweaters and turn down the thermostat."

Public debate during the Reagan administration focused on reducing the size of government and government's role in Americans' lives, and conservation came to be seen by many officials as intrusive, a view still held by many today, he said.

One example of this is the struggle over Energy Star, a voluntary U.S. Department of Energy program that allows companies to label energy-efficient products. "This was done with minimal funding and opposition from certain parts of industry. When you look at that, the very idea that we're ever going to have serious energy regulation in this country is doubtful," Wilk said.

A world authority on geothermal technology is Colin Harvey, IU visiting associate professor of geological sciences, who has worked on high temperature and low temperature resources throughout the world.

"The relatively constant-temperature groundwaters beneath the glacial till in northern Indiana have the potential to provide a useful resource of water at approximately 50 degrees F. which might be used for both heating and cooling by means of such devices as heat pumps and heat exchangers," Harvey said.

"Some commercial companies are currently active in developing this technology, but perhaps it can be more widely used to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. In Eastern Europe, for example, many district heating schemes which currently use low-calorific coals are being changed over to relatively warm geothermal waters piped from deep sedimentary basins. In this way, air pollution is reduced. Where else in the United States are deep sedimentary basins which might have similar potential?"

Energy conservation, investment in innovative energy research, and careful balancing of environmental considerations are critical elements in a sensible long-term energy strategy for our country, says A. James Barnes, professor and former dean of IU's School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

"Making efficient and innovative use of energy resources while protecting public health and the environment are both viable and central to maintaining a high quality of life in the United States," said Barnes, who served as the deputy administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1985-88 and who participated in the agency's formation in the 1970s.

"The fact that natural gas is such a clean fuel means that it may make sense to look for ways to drill for additional natural gas and also expand our pipeline capacity, so we can move it around," Barnes said. He also expects that research on "clean coal" technology and wind power generation will continue.

Concerning nuclear power, Barnes said it is about as sensitive an issue as oil drilling in protected federal lands in Alaska. "The major stumbling point is that we have not reached a resolution of where we're going to keep the nuclear waste from the existing nuclear/electric plants and other sources of nuclear waste," he said. "Until that is resolved and people are comfortable that we have some responsible way of trying to deal with wastes that would be around for half a million years, it's hard to see people ready to move forward with putting new plants in place."

Higher energy prices have a negative effect on the economy because consumers are spending more on energy and less on other goods and services, said Willard E. Witte, an associate professor in IU's Department of Economics.

"We are not yet into the peak of summer, which means the peak of energy demand, and the economy is already feeling the effects of rising energy prices," said Witte, who researches theoretical and empirical aspects in macroeconomics and monetary economics.

He cited lack of consumer confidence as the major problem. "Seeing higher energy prices eats away at consumers' confidence and makes them less likely to spend money on other products," he said.

Suppliers are feeling the energy squeeze as much or more than consumers, he added. "Higher energy prices can make production apparatus work inefficiently. In many businesses that require long power-up times, being shut down for two or three hours can cause disruptions that can lead to disaster," he said.

California feels the energy crunch first because that state warms up sooner than the rest of the country, but it won't be the only area to suffer, Witte cautioned. "Areas like New York and New England will come into their peak energy use in a month or so and will be a real wild card as far as the economy is concerned. If those areas suffer along with California, it may have an economic effect like we have never seen before," he said.

Efforts to increase energy production won't lower prices in the short term, according to Thomas P. Lyon, associate professor of business economics and public policy in IU's Kelley School of Business. Increasing energy supply requires massive new investments, and it can take years before new supply reaches the marketplace.

In looking at electricity, gasoline and natural gas, "the issue that seems to cut across all of them is the difficulty of expanding capacity in the energy industries," said Lyon, who researches energy regulation. "If you want to site a new generator, you find that nobody wants an electrical generator near them. The same is true with transmission lines, oil refineries, gas pipelines and oil wells. Nobody wants these things near them, but they want the economic benefits of greater production. We have a system that gives local opposition quite a lot of power to resist new projects. This is the classic 'NIMBY' syndrome -- 'not in my back yard.' If you look at the big picture, that's a big part of what makes it difficult to expand energy producing capacity."

As a result, energy conservation efforts are a better short-term response to higher prices, he said. Consumers can cut their electricity bills through simple measures such as using fans instead of air conditioners, installing high-efficiency light bulbs, insulating water heaters, and drying clothes on a clothesline instead of in an electric dryer.

Storing carbon dioxide from electric power plants in geological reservoirs may be one way to deal safely with this "greenhouse gas" produced by burning fossil fuels, instead of releasing it into the atmosphere where it may contribute to global warming.

Potential storage sites include producing and depleted oil and gas fields, unconventional oil and gas reservoirs, uneconomic coal seams, and saline aquifers.

MIDCARB, a project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, is building a digital database for five states (Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio) that will allow users to identify the amount of carbon dioxide available for storage in relation to a source supply, the geologic security and safety of a storage site, the long-term effects on a reservoir, and the cost of compression and transport of carbon dioxide between the source and the storage site.