ARGUMENT208

TOPIC: ARGUMENT208 - The following appeared in a memorandum from the planning department of an electric power company.
"Several recent surveys indicate that homeowners are increasingly eager to conserve energy and manufacturers are now marketing many home appliances, such as refrigerators and air conditioners, that are almost twice as energy-efficient as those sold a decade ago. Also, new technologies for better home insulation and passive solar heating are readily available to reduce the energy needed for home heating. Therefore, we anticipate that the total demand for electricity in our area will not increase, and may decline slightly. Since our three electric generating plants in operation for the past 20 years have always met our needs, construction of new generating plants should not be necessary.
"WORDS: 391 TIME: 00:58:54 DATE: 2008-3-5 21:31:04

At first glance, it seems somewhat reasonable that additional construction of generating plants is not dispensable as the statement presents, however, close scrutiny of the evidence unveils that the argument actually suffers from several vital flaws. For instance, the reliability of the recent surveys is questionable, and even if the surveys are credible, the arguer is too hasty to make the conclusions, where some alternative explanations exist. These flaws will be discussed respectively.

As a threshold matter, the sample masses that the surveys have investigated might not represent the typical composition of multitude that is the mainstream in society. Consider, for example, people asked to respond questions in the so-called surveys may altogether poor peasants living in undeveloped districts. They are eager to conserve a variety of energy, including electric power, by nature and all the time. Consequently, the outcomes of surveys are of no practical sense in respect of credibility.

Secondly, although passive solar heating systems are ready to use, according to what the speaker says, whether these new systems alike will undoubtedly change the demands of electric power energy is still questionable. Solar heating is merely said ready to be bought in ordinary stores, nevertheless which is not to say every family has such manufacture in practical utilizing. How would solar heating system lower demanding electric power, to some extent, needs to be calculated in details, and results may not as surprisingly conspicuous as the arguer proclaims.

A third flaw has to do with the necessity of constructing new generating plants. The arguer considers that it is unnecessary to build new plants in result of the surveys which merely focus on homeowners, who might not be the major users of electric power. On the other hand, it is enterprises that consume the most part of electric power. The surveys have no idea about the demands of such departments. It is probable that these enterprises are right expanding their operating scales, under which circumstance demanding of electric power may increase sharply in predictably future. Hence, there is definitely a need to construct new generating plants.

On balance, the arguer fails to consider that the surveys do not reflect the actual fact from several perspectives, and works out erroneous conclusions. To support his or her statement, the speaker might provide more information about the accurate current demands of demands of electric power.