COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DON FUQUA, Florida, Chairman ROBERT A. ROE, New Jersey JIM LLOYD, California JEROME A. AMBRO, New York MARILYN LLOYD BOUQUARD, Tennessee DAN GLICKMAN, Kansas HAROLD L. VOLKMER, Missouri HOWARD WOLPE, Michigan NICHOLAS MAVROULES, Massachusetts BILL NELSON, Florida BERYL ANTHONY, JR., Arkansas STANLEY N. LUNDINE, New York ALLEN E. ERTEL, Pennsylvania KENT HANCE, Texas KF27 .539 1979 Vol.5 JOHN W. WYDLER, New York WILLIAM CARNEY, New York CONTENTS Dr. Maxine Savitz, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Conservation and G. Harvey, Director Industrial Conservation Programs, Department Page February 22, 1979 (joint hearing with Subcommittee on Transportation, Ms. Omi Walden, Assistant Secretary, Conservation and Solar Appli- cations, Department of Energy, accompanied by Vincent J. Esposito, Director of Transportation Programs; Ron Scott, Director, Solar Applications Programs; Kenneth Friedman, Policy Planning and Evaluation, Conservation and Solar Applications; and Dr. Maxine Savitz, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Conservation and Solar Applications, Department of Energy-- Dr. John Deutch, Acting Assistant Secretary for Energy Technology, Department of Energy, accompanied by Dr. Bennett Miller, Pro- gram Director, Solar, Geothermal, Electric Energy Systems and Storage Program; and Dr. Martin Adams, Acting Deputy Director, Jack H. Gibbons, director, the environmental center, University of Beno Sternlicht, board chairman and technical director, Mechanical Ronald D. Visness, associate director, Minnesota Energy Agency- Dave Webb, vice president, Washington operations, Gas Research Dr. L. Robert Lawrence, director, Gas Research Institute. Glen Smith, venture manager of fuel cells, Englehard Industries, Sheldon A. Butt, president, Solar Energy Industries Association, accompanied by Anthony W. Adler, Government relations director, Ben Wolff, executive director, American Wind Energy Association, accompanied by Alvin Duskin, vice president, U.S. Wind Power Dr. Henry Ehrenreich, chairman of the American Physical Society study on solar photovoltaic energy conversion__ H. M. Schurmeier, assistant laboratory director for energy and tech- nology applications, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, accompanied by Dr. Marshall Alper, manager, solar energy program, Jet Propulsion Dennis R. Costello, project leader, photovoltaic venture analysis and branch chief, economics and market analysis, Solar Energy Research Institute, Golden, Colo., accompanied by Dr. Donald L. Feucht, manager, photovoltaic program office, Solar Energy Dr. George Marienthal, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Environment, and Safety, accompanied by Donald_D. Faehn, division project officer, energy systems project office, Electric Power Laboratory; Capt. Thomas Stallman, Director, Navy Energy and Natural Resources; and Joseph F. Wise, technical manager, solar energy conservation, energy conservation branch, aerospace power division, Aero Propulsion Laboratory... APPENDIX I: SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD 1. DOE press release: "DOE_Selects 20 Municipal 'Waste-to-Energy' Projects in 15 States and Puerto Rico". 2. Final regulations: Patents, Data and Copyrights and Related Matters, July 13, 1977, Energy Research and Development Administration... 3. "Draft Report: National Program Plan for Passive and Hybrid Solar 5. "U.S. Energy Demand: Some Low Energy Futures," Science, April 14, 736 7. "Long Term Prospects for Energy Conservation," John H. Gibbons, director, Environment Center, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 9. The Good News about Energy, Counsel on Environmental Quality- APPENDIX II: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS FOR THE RECORD 1. Question by the Honorable Howard Wolpe and answer submitted for 801 1980 DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY AUTHORIZATION WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1979 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY DEVELOPMENT AND APPLICATIONS, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in room 2325, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Richard L. Ottinger, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding. Mr. OTTINGER. The subcommittee on Energy Development and Applications will resume its hearings on the DOE budget. I am going to concentrate today on conservation, primarily on the buildings and industrial areas. And we are sorry that Omi Walden cannot be with us, but we will look forward to hearing from her tomorrow on the conservation and solar applications and the transportation area. As we proceed today to consider the budget proposal for the Department of Energy's conservation research and development efforts, I must say that I regard the matter with the utmost of concern. Two years ago President Carter proposed the National Energy Act, the cornerstone of which was the conservation of energy. Three years before that, the Nation was crawling out from under the OPEC oil embargo of 1973-74. The previous administration and the present one both emphasized the need to conserve energy, the need to decrease our reliance on imports-and the outward flow of petrodollars-and to increase not only our own production, but also our productivity in utilizing what we have. The National Energy Act is now law. OPEC and domestic prices have increased. We have declared the moral equivalent of war, but sad to say, we have not yet won that war; indeed we have not addressed it with the kind of urgency those words imply. During the past year, even as the Congress debated and enacted the National Energy Act, our imports of oil have increased, and the flow of dollars abroad has not diminished. This subcommittee is in the process of considering and acting upon a proposed budget of roughly $2 billion of the Energy Department's overall budget. Much of this is targeted for spending on researching new kinds of energy and new methods of production. Only about a third of the nondefense portion of DOE's budget will be spent on energy conservation. There are provisions in the National Energy Act which will help, including the tax credits, but they will not make a sufficient dent in our consumption. We must do more. The report of the Council on Environmental Quality, released yesterday, along with the studies upon which it was (1) based, indicates that the Nation can achieve meaningful conservation results, and do that generally with a much smaller investment than the equivalent gains in fuel production would cost. I will insert that report in the record at this point because I think it offers a very good guideline. See Appendix 1, §9. It will be something that I hope we can work together on. There is both research and regulatory aspects of it. It sets forth more or less the goals I would like to achieve; and of course I have two hats, as chairman of this subcommittee and as the ranking democrat on the Energy and Power Subcommittee of House Commerce. We share enthusiasm in what is capable of being done in this field. What is essential, it seems to me, is for the American people to make the connection between conservation and production; in many cases the one can directly supplant the other. Another important lesson, and one which Secretary Schlesinger has recently discussed, is that our energy supply levels need not be tied to our Gross National Product. It is well established that GNP can continue to be healthy and to grow without equal growth in our energy production and consumption levels. Again to cite the CEQ study, with a minor effort we can hold our increases in energy consumption by the year 2000 to 25 percent above current levels. But if we make a substantial effort, and I am convinced we should, we can hold that increase to 10 percent, even while continuing a steady growth in GNP. The beauty of embarking on such a conservation program is that the return on our initial investments is clearly substantial, and with that payback we limit the impact on inflation as well. Indeed, it is clear that the conservation investment might be as little as 10 to 50 percent of that of investment in new energy supplies. In national security terms alone, this course is essential. This appeal is heightened further when one considers the potential for having capital available for other, nonenergy programs. I look forward now to hearing from the Department's witnesses about some of the plans and programs in the research and development areas under way in the coming years, and I have real concern about some of the cuts being made by OMB and some of the other areas. I would like some of the details about it, recognizing you can't counteract policies made, but still I would like to know where and what your assessment is of the programs that have been cut, and I think you will be able to do that. Mr. Kramer, do you have a statement? Mr. KRAMER. Yes; I do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to join with you in welcoming our witnesses from the Department of Energy today. I am sure that their testimony will be informative and useful in helping us review the Department's programs in conservation and solar applications for fiscal year 1980. I think that it is a very opportune time for us to consider these programs. Based on events in Iran and elsewhere, it is certainly apparent that we cannot afford to rely indefinitely on foreign supplies of oil. Our Nation must take actions now to avoid the disastrous consequences that will result if we continue to be subject to the supply interruptions caused by events in foreign countries that are outside of our control. |