: 50 ESTABLISHMENT OF A SOLAR ENERGY RESEARCH INSTITUTE We have emphasized the importance of technology transfer to the economic application of solar energy. Activities of this nature are primary to SERI's purpose, and such actions and results should be important on the scale for evaluation of SERI's performance. Some point to the achievements of the AEC laboratories in the development of nuclear power, and to their lesser success in transferring technology to industry and into productive use. Human nature, AEC patent policy, tax structure, monopolistic practices have all been advanced as contributors to the difficulty of technology transfer. Those of us with experience in industrial research laboratories agree that the problem is serious, even when (or especially when) the technology to be transferred is the invention of the research institution and the receiver is another division of the same corporation. Our recommendations on technology transfer are to measure the performance of SERI against this goal; to have an Assistant to the Director of SERI for Technology Transfer; to have SERI a contract-operated institute so that it can be freely criticized by ERDA, by the Congress, by industry, and by user organizations. Some consider that a SERI would be a solar-energy advocate, when we need instead a balanced analysis of all energy production and consumption possibilities. The roles we assign to SERI emphasize the importance of a technical-economic assessment of not only solar energy but of the alternative energy environment, at the time when solar-energy technology could be made widely available. SERI's concentration on solar energy will be greater than on alternative energy sources, but its analyses of solar energy should not be slanted. As a contract-operated institute, rather than a government department, SERI will be much more exposed to criticism engendered by evaluations consistently biased in favor of solar energy. This same exposure to criticism presents a problem for ERDA. Objective evaluation of the performance of various commercially available solar-energy systems may lead to substantial political pressure. This cannot be avoided entirely, but SERI could reduce this danger by emphasizing the setting of performance standards and leaving it to commercial laboratories to do such relative evaluations. Another concern in SERI's contributing to the realization of the economic potential of solar energy is the question of adequate contact with and influence on national and ERDA programs in energy storage and transmission. Within ERDA, energy storage is the concern of the Assistant Administrator for Conservation (page 21), but storage and transmission are far more important for solar energy than they are for alternative forms of energy. Therefore, we have emphasized the work that SERI must do in this field. It is up to ERDA management, however, to commit the larger funds to the development of storage and transmission systems that SERI investigations may show to be warranted. WASHINGTON OPERATIONS, MTR-7067 Industry Opinions on the formation of a MITRE Technical Report Industry Opinions on the formation of a ABSTRACT Section 10 of Public Law 93-473 says that a Solar Research Institute (SERI) is established, but there the legislative prescription stops. To administer this provision of the law, the Energy, Research & Development Administration (ERDA) is widely soliciting recommendations for the development of a SERI. The MITRE Corporation, under contract to ERDA, has sought to acquire and report a distinctly solar-energy-industry viewpoint. This paper summarizes the recommendations and caveats on the formation of the SERI obtained from a small selected sample of that industry. iii |