5. Materials concerning alternative sources of energy and energy conservation a. Excerpt from a column by Jack Anderson, "Solar Scandal," the Washington Post, October 23, 1974

SOLAR SCANDAL

The only inexhaustible and nonpolluting form of energy, heat from the sun is being largely ignored because it holds no promise of giant profits for the nation's utility companies.

This is the discouraging conclusion of a secret Federal Energy Administration study on solar energy, one of a thick packet of draft documents we have obtained on every aspect of the energy crisis.

"Potentially solar energy could make a significant contribution to the goal of long-term energy self sufficiency says the document.

But Congress has authorized only $75 million to study the question. And "only minimal research and small feasibility studies will be conducted by private industry because the long-range markets are not competitive with other research and development investments," the report predicts.

If the nation would get serious about solar energy, the face of America would change as the nation declared independence from foreign oil. Giant 200-foothigh windmills, one behind the other, would line the landscape, says the report. Vast expanses of hot, arid desert land in the West would be covered by mirrors. The 10,000 square miles of California-Arizona desert "could theoretically provide... twice the present generating capacity in all of the U.S."

Within a few years after the year 2000, says the report, "solar systems may be capable of supplying 15 to 30 per cent of total U.S. energy requirements" if the country ends its "business as usual" approach and accelerates sun energy. "However, unless federal involvement increases substantially in the late 1970s," warns the FEA document, "it is unlikely that much development in solar energy will transpire even by 1990."

At present, solar energy is limited to about 25,000 solar water heaters and a few experimental houses and swimming pools.

b. Editorial by Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff, "Breaking the Nuclear Habit," The New York Times, December 2, 1974

BREAKING THE NUCLEAR HABIT

(By Abraham A. Ribicoff)

WASHINGTON-The Atomic Energy Commission was abolished recently, and for good reason. We are now nearly thirty years into the nuclear age, but still not near the point where we can safely harness the peaceful atom as a major substitute for oil.

By placing most of our energy research-and-development eggs in the nuclear basket we now find ourselves with problem-prone nuclear power as the only alternative to oil and coal as our major source of energy.

Instead of giving us a genuine energy option, the A.E.C. and the nuclear industry have sealed our dependence on blackmailing Arab sheiks and pricegouging multinational corporations for oil.

The nuclear promise of a ready substitute for coal to fire electric-generating plants has left us with a somnambulant coal industry still producing our most plentiful energy resource at about 1943 levels.

With most of our energy research-and-development dollars going into nuclear fission rather than into synthetic fuels or solar and geothermal energy or laser fusion or advanced energy storage, there are no alternative energy technologies to bail us out.

Only three years ago, the A.E.C. confidentially predicted that by 1975 there would be ninety reactors producing 12 per cent of the nation's electricity. Today, there are 45 reactors on which we can depend for only 6 to 7 per cent of our electrical power. The shortfall results from delays in reactor licensing and construction caused by technical and labor problems, many of them safety

related. Federal studies show that opposition from environmental and local groups is not a major cause of delay, despite what the A.E.C. and the nuclear industry would have us believe.

This is not to say, however, that the present design and operation of the nuclear-power industry should not be cause for concern. Reactors have been beset with increasing numbers of shutdowns and abnormal occurrences, despite a recent A.E.C. probability study showing only a million-to-one chance of a major reactor accident. The methods and findings of this study have been attacked by scientists.

Even if reactors eventually are found to operate safely, there are still the unsolved problems of safeguarding nuclear materials against theft and nuclear facilities against sabotage, as well as permanently disposing of high-level radioactive wastes.

Within ten years, civilian reactors will be producing, each year, more plutonium than the Government weapons program does. Present industry safeguards are “entirely inadequate” to prevent theft of weapons-grade materials and subsequent manufacture of terrorists' atomic bombs, according to an A.E.C. internal study.

Half a million gallons of nuclear wastes, which will remain toxic for up to 100,000 years, have already leaked into the ground from storage tanks. A permanent storage system has not been devised.

Enactment of the Energy Reorganization Act recently represented an agreement by Congress and the White House that the best way out of this mess was to abolish the A.E.C. and replace it with an Energy Research and Development Administration (E.R.D.A.) to explore all, not just nuclear energy technologies. A Nuclear Regulatory Commission was also established to regulate, not promote, the nuclear industry.

The act, however, does not provide an instant solution to our energy problems. The most optimistic projection for Project Independence is that it will take 10 years before new energy technologies are available to make us self-sufficient.

Both the Federal Energy Administration and the Ford Foundation Energy Policy Project estimate that, at current world oil prices, we can achieve selfsufficiency by 1985 by reducing growth in energy use to 2 per cent annually through conservation efforts.

The first priority of E.R.D.A., therefore, should be to develop the technologies necessary to bring energy use down to this level of growth over the next decade. The E.R.D.A. should help develop at least a 20-mile-per-gallon automobile, more efficient space heating and cooling (including currently available solar converters), and more efficient industrial machinery and home appliances.

The E.R.D.A. will also be developing alternative energy sources with the goal of having some of them on line for practical, widespread application by 1985. The most promising technology is the development of synthetic oil and gas from coal.

The use of solar energy, thermonuclear (fusion) energy and hydrogen fuel cells to produce electricity may not be possible before the year 2000, although some advocates claim that there could be immediate breakthroughs if only substantial Federal support is finally made available. The same potential applies to low-temperature storage of electricity, which could double electricity available from existing power plants.

The E.R.D.A. represents the nation's greatest technological undertaking since the moon-landing program-a $20 billion, ten-year investment in conserving and developing all types of energy, using the A.E.C.'s $10 billion complex of national laboratories.

The time has come to follow a bold energy research-and-development policy that is faithful only to the independence of invention. Continuing to serve basically entrenched nuclear-power interests could leave us dangerously dependent on oil and the other fossil fuels for our energy.

Abraham A. Ribicoff, Democratic Senator from Connecticut, was the principal author and manager of the Energy Reorganization Act abolishing the Atomic

c. Article by John O'Dell, "Nuclear, Coal Energy Sources Supported," the Register, February 14, 1973

INSTITUTE OFFICIAL TELLS MEETING NUCLEAR, COAL ENERGY SOURCES

SUPPORTED

(By John O'Dell, Register Staff Writer)

LOS ANGELES-America's dependence on oil for electrical energy can be significantly reduced-but not by relying on alternate sources such as solar and geothermal energy, according to the head of a major industry-oriented research group.

Nuclear power plants and coal-burning generators will provide the immediate solution to the nation's "energy malnutrition," said Dr. Chauncy Starr, president of the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto.

Nuclear critics who point to "mystical sources" such as solar energy as an answer to environmental and economic problems are perpetrating "a public fraud," Dr. Starr said Thursday.

Dr. Starr, speaking at the first regional meeting of the institute, told a group of nearly 100 military company representatives that the major power producers for at least the next 40 years will be coal, nuclear energy and oil and natural gas.

EPRI, the first group to attempt to coordinate research and development activities for the entire utility industry, was founded nearly two years ago as a cooperative venture by utility companies throughout the nation.

Thursday's meeting was the first time the institute's leadership has publicly reported its activities to supporting members. The meeting was one of seven to be held around the country in coming weeks.

Starr, backed by directors of the institute's four major divisions, spent nearly two hours detailing EPRI's history and the thrust of its major research programs.

The institute, which so far has not accepted government funding, began in 1973 with two staff members and a $70 million budget, Starr said.

This year, 220 staff members will be working on 320 projects with a total budget of $176 million-$133 million earmarked soley for research and development.

In addition, EPRI has secured agreements with several federal agencies and foreign governments to "share" research work, Starr said.

"We don't accept government money, but we cooperate on projects, sharing costs and manpower."

The institute "is a child born of necessity," Starr said, because utilities are frantically seeking ways to reduce costs at the same time they are being forced to spend more and more money for raw fuel and government-required safety and environmental controls.

EPRI concentrates on maintaining ecological standards while chopping operational costs, Starr said.

Among the institute's ongoing projects, he said, are:
-Development of inexpensive and clean ways to use coal;

-Research into alternate energy sources such as solar and geothermal power generation and nuclear fusion;

-Improved methods of transmitting power;

-Continued research to improve the light water nuclear reactors now in use; -Research and development of other nuclear power generating systems. "We are not pro anything," he said, "we will examine and develop all the alternatives we can and then let the utility managers decide which is best for them."

But when questioned on viable future energy systems, Starr sticks with those already in use.

“I'm reasonably optimistic that we'll be able to do what needs to be done" to. meet government-imposed controls and keep costs from climbing, he said.

His "guess" of the major power sources by the turn of the century has coal supplying 50 per cent of the nation's energy, nuclear power supplying 25 per cent and oil and natural gas supplying another 25 per cent.

The state of the art does not provide for any significant development of solar energy within the next 25 years, he said, and because the sun cannot be controlled, it probably will never account for more than 15 per cent of all energy production.

Milton Levenson, director of EPRI's Nuclear Power Division, said much of his group's energy is being spent on developing increased assurance of nuclear generator safety.

"That's assurance-not insurance. We're developing better computer models, better arithmetic" and compiling more accurate facts and figures to convince the public of the safety of present-day reactors, he said.

"You can never say anything is absolutely safe, but the latest analogy is that the chance of your being killed by a nuclear reactor accident is about the same as the chance of being hit by a meteorite," Levenson added.

He said a proposal to stop nuclear development until positive safety could be proven rests on the assumption that an improbable situation will occur.

"It's like the FAA requiring the airlines to develop a plan to get people back in case an airplane reaches terminal velocity and goes into orbit around the earth," be equipped to the accompaniment of loud applause from his audience. Critics of nuclear power and those who would halt other energy development projects for environmental or safety reasons, Starr said, "expect something for nothing."

"We must lay out all the facts and the alternatives," Levenson said. "If we don't use nuclear energy, then we have to use coal and coal means strip mining and black lung and air pollution."

The nation cannot continue to rely on gas and oil, he said, and there are not that many other sources of energy that the consuming public can afford.

"There's no alternative for the truth," when arguing the merits of the push for increased development of known energy resources, Starr said. "But the problem is that truth is what each person perceives it to be."