aFigures for fiscal years 1973, 1974, and 1975 are from the Dec. 1, 1973, report. They reflect the information the AEC Chairman's staff had available while developing the report.

This includes only the civilian portion of an ongoing laser fusion program. Additional funds, totaling $329 million for the 5-year period, are included in the national security section of the ABC budget.

--demonstrating the promise of new cell materials by 1979, and

--developing standards and measurement equipment and
facilities by 1977-79.

The solar energy review panel's funding recommendations for the six areas of solar energy research, including photovoltaic conversion, were as follows:

When the overview panel recommended that solar energy be funded at $200 million, rather than at the higher levels the solar energy review panel recommended, ERU directed the solar energy review panel chairman to modify his panel's original funding recommendations to fit within the $200 million program. The chairman of the solar energy review panel--the Assistant Director for Research Applications at the National Science Foundation--told us that, in redoing the review panel's funding recommendations, he had used as a guide a budget which the National Science Foundation had previously developed for fiscal years 1974-78, which is shown below.

The review panel chairman said he had modified the National Science Foundation's budget by increasing funds for heating and cooling of buildings and wind energy conversion, in keeping with the priorities which the review panel had established for these two areas because of their potential to contribute to energy supply in the short term. He said he had decreased funding for other solar research to reflect the review panel's priorities while keeping within the $200 million limit the overview panel had established.

The funding levels for the six areas of solar energy research presented in the December 1, 1973, report are as follows:

This section deals with (1) AEC's treatment of solar energy in its reactor environmental impact statements, (2) the availability of the solar energy review panel's report in ABC's public document room, and (3) the availability of the report from AEC's Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Technical Information Center.

Treatment of solar energy in AEC ́s environmental impact statements

The Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4332) requires AEC to develop statements assessing the environmental impact of nuclear reactors. The act also requires AEC to discuss in these statements reasonable alternatives which are available to meet the projected electricity demand which the proposed reactors are to satisfy.

There are two classes of nuclear reactors for which environmental impact statements must be prepared: present-generation reactors, such as light water reactors, and experimental reactors, such as breeders, which are still under development. AEC's regulatory organization prepares the environmental impact statements for the presentgeneration reactors. AEC ́s General Manager organization has prepared impact statements for experimental reactors.

According to an AEC regulatory official, AEC interprets the act as requiring AEC to treat, in its impact statements, only those alternatives which it considers viable. Since AEC regulatory has concluded that solar energy is not a viable alternative to present-generation nuclear reactors, it has not provided a detailed analysis of solar energy in its consideration of alternative powerplants. In the 13 draft and final light water reactor--present-generation reactors--impact statements AEC regulatory issued between December 1, 1973, and April 31, 1974, solar energy is either not mentioned or mentioned merely as a future source of energy along with several other alternatives, such as fusion and tidal energy.

In March 1974 the AEC General Manager issued, for comment by interested parties, a draft impact statement for the liquid metal fast breeder reactor--a new class of reactors scheduled for commercial application in the late 1980s.

The draft environmental impact statement, issued for the entire liquid metal fast breeder reactor program rather than for a single reactor, discussed solar energy in the section dealing with alternatives. AEC discussed the projected impact that solar energy would have on total energy supply. Although the draft environmental impact statement mentioned the solar energy review panel's report in its treatment of solar energy, the statement did not cite any information from the review panel's reports.

that:

The draft environmental impact statement concludes

"The outlook appears to be that solar energy has
little potential as an economical, major source
of electricity for several decades. In fact, the
only proposed solar application that potentially
could play a significant energy role in this cen-
tury is as thermal energy for. buildings. Although
this use could be important, the impact on total
electrical production is likely to be minor, at
least until the year 2000, Thus, the conclusion is
drawn that the use of solar energy will not mate-
rially reduce the need for alternative electrical
energy sources in the foreseeable future."

The review panel's report points out that the widespread application of solar energy could help toward increasing our future energy supplies. The panel report states that:

"The goal of the Solar Energy Program is to
develop and demonstrate economically competi-
tive and environmentally acceptable Solar Energy
Systems at the earliest practical time. For
each of the six subprograms, (1) Heating and
Cooling of Buildings, (2) Solar-thermal Conver-
sion, (3) Wind Energy Conversion, (4) Ocean-
thermal Conversion, (5) Bioconversion, and (6)
Photovoltaic Conversion, the objective is to
develop proof-of-concept experiments and
demonstration projects which will allow in-
dustry and user agencies to begin the aggres-
sive commercialization of each of the tech-
nologies thus assuring its widespread
technologies it is estimated that 10 to 30% of
the Nation's required input BTUs can be pro-
vided by solar energy by the year 2000 and as
much as 50% by the year 2020."

(See app. III for a more detailed description of the review panel's projected impact.)

The AEC officials responsible for developing the fast breeder reactor program draft environmental impact statement told us they had not included in the statement a specific discussion of the solar energy review panel's report because an AEC member of the solar energy review panel told them that, in general, the review panel's report supported the conclusions on solar energy in the draft environmental impact statement. These AEC officials did not ask any solar