Considering the Alternatives

The Arab oil embargo awakened the U.S. to what energy experts had been saying for years: sooner or later the U.S. will run out of oil and need other forms of energy to heat homes, make electricity and run cars. Now, as a result of crisis and quintupled oil prices, federal funding for energy research and development is surging. The money is going toward getting energy from the sun, from hot rocks and steam reservoirs deep beneath the earth's surface, from the wind, from coal, even from the millions of tons of garbage discarded daily.

This fiscal year the Government is spending $1.4 billion on energy R. and D., nearly three times the amount authorized in fiscal '72 before the Arab embargo. Another $1.5 billion is proposed for fiscal '76, which begins in July. The nucleus of the effort is the Energy Research and Development Administration, a gangling bureaucracy set up only in January to pull together federal energy R. and D. programs.

ERDA is still pulling itself together; even physically, it has offices all over the Washington area. But ERDA'S mission is clear: to find out which alternatives to oil are feasible and which are not. An interim report on its progress in various fields:

SOLAR: ERDA'S fiscal '76 request: $70.3 million, increased to $143.7 million by the House Energy Subcommittee, up 274% from fiscal '75. Most of the technology is at hand for using the inexhaustible energy of the sun. The challenge now is to come up with cheap and reliable systems. Under the Solar Heating and Cooling Demonstration Act of 1974, 1,000 demonstration homes and office buildings are planned. ERDA and the state of Connecticut will build 20 solar-powered homes for the aged; estimates are that heating and hot-water bills will be cut by 80%. Under National Science Foundation grants, about 20 homes have been built round the U.S. that use the sun for partial heating. Four schools--in Boston, Minneapolis, Timonium, Md., and Warrenton, Va.--have been built with supplemental solar heating systems; a fifth, in Atlanta, will be the first test of a total "retrofitted" solar heating and cooling system--that is, one replacing conventional systems. In Colorado Springs, officials have been so impressed by solar experiments that they are considering requiring solar systems in new-home designs.

Large-scale commercial installations are a long way off because they would require vast "farms" of expensive solar collectors. But solar energy, once explored only by smaller companies, now is attracting such big firms as PPG Industries, Lockheed, Westinghouse and Revere Copper & Brass. This week General Electric will show off its solar-heated Valley Forge, Pa., plant to the public; the system uses 5,000 sq. ft. of roof-borne solar collectors and is expected to save 12,000 gal. of fuel oil in an average heating season.

Prognosis: Accelerated solar heating and cooling programs could save the equivalent of 1 million bbl. of oil daily by 1985, about 5.5 million bbl. by 2000.

GEOTHERMAL: ERDA'S fiscal '76 request: $22.8 million, increased to $55.8 million by the House Energy Subcommittee, up 106% from fiscal '75.

In areas west of the Rockies, generating electricity from the earth's heat is not only a bright prospect; it is a fact. Dry steam from the Big Geysers area north of San Francisco is fed to a generating system and already supplies the equivalent of half the city's power. Far more commonplace wet-steam deposits have not yet become commercially productive in the U.S. They must be "flashed," or dried, before being used to spin generators.

In New Mexico, the Government's Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory is pressing ahead on "hot rock" technology. This involves drilling down to hot rock, pumping in water and drawing out the resulting steam through a second hole. There are technical problems, chief among them the necessity for deep (16,400 ft.) drilling. But the lure is that electricity from some geothermal sources can be produced for less than 10 mills per kilowatt hour--easily competitive with oil, coal or nuclear plants.

Prognosis: By 1985 geothermal sources could be producing up to 30,000 megawatts of electricity; by 2000, output could reach 200,000 megawatts.

NUCLEAR FISSION: ERDA'S fiscal '76 request: $700 million, up 2% from fiscal '75.

A mature technology with adult problems, nuclear power has taken some hard knocks during the past few years. All sorts of delays have developed: labor problems, materials shortages, environmental wrangles, safety worries. More recently, capital shortages have produced construction stretch-outs, even plant cancellations. As of now, there are 53 active nuclear plants, v. six a decade ago; construction permits have been granted for 63 more plants. Clearly in trouble, though, is the liquid-metal, fast-breeder reactor, which has swallowed the major share of federal energy R. and D. dollars in recent years. Opposition has grown to the breeder and the plutonium it turns out; no accepted way has been found to dispose of the excess radioactive waste.

Prognosis: Despite the problems, nuclear fission could account for about 15% of U.S. energy production in 1985 and 30% by 2000, v. 2% now. By 1985, ERDA officials project, about 250 nuclear plants will be operating. The 200 new plants planned between now and then will be the equivalent of oil-fired generating plants that consume about 5 million bbl. of oil daily.

NUCLEAR FUSION: ERDA'S fiscal 76 request: $129.7 million, up 58% from fiscal '75.

Controlled energy from nuclear fusion--joining atomic nuclei instead of splitting them as in fission--still remains what it has been for a generation: a possibility. But in a number of laboratories and one private company--KMS Industries of Ann Arbor, Mich.--scientists are moving closer to doing what they know can be done: fusing the nuclei of deuterium and tritium to create a powerful burst of energy. At KMS and the Government's Los Alamos lab, lasers are being used to "implode" deuterium pellets. Energy has been produced, but not enough to be measured accurately or drive the laser. Within three to five years, scientists hope to reach that break-even point. Power from fusion could become a commercial reality on a small scale by the middle to late 1990s.

Prognosis: Fusion will have no real impact on the U.S. energy scene until after the year 2000. But in combination with solar technology, it holds the greatest promise for the next 100 years.

COAL: ERDA's fiscal '76 request: $323 million, down .3% from fiscal '75.

The U.S. has enough coal to last 400 years. Much of it, though, is of the high-sulfur variety and cannot be burned without violating federal and state environmental regulations. In a pilot plant soon to be built in California with financial help from the Environmental Protection Agency, TRW will test a process for removing sulfur from coal smoke with ferric sulfate and naphtha. If proved efficient, the process could quadruple use of high-sulfur Eastern coal.

But a big chunk of coal's future lies in turning it into something else, specifically gas or liquid fuel. ERDA'S fiscal '76 request for R. and D. in this field: $206 million. Currently, gasification is drawing the most interest, with three pilot plants already in operation. Two giant plants, costing $800 million each, are being planned for New Mexico by El Paso Co. and Wesco Financial, but the projects raise important legal and jurisdictional questions that are now being argued before the Federal Power Commission.

The economics of fuels from coal remain hazy. One estimate is that high-quality synthetic gas will cost $3 to $4 per 1,000 cu. ft. by 1980, compared with roughly 51-c- now for "new" natural gas shipped interstate. But William Gouse, head of ERDA'S synthetic-fuels program, cautions: "We're guessing."

Prognosis: Coal as coal will continue to be an important part of the U.S. energy scene for years. Coal as a source of gas will, by 1985, account for .5 trillion cu. ft. of production, about 2.2% of total U.S. output. By 2000, production could go as high as 6.5 trillion cu. ft.

In addition to these major areas, the Government is pressing ahead on several other research fronts. Oil from shale in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah could supply U.S. needs well into the next century. But processing costs could reach $16 per bbl., well above the current world price of $11. Still, a promising recovery technique is underground processing; fires are set beneath the surface, sweating the oil from the shale so that it can be pumped out. ERDA wants $7.7 million for research into this technique in fiscal '76, up 108% from this year.

At the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Lewis Research Center near Cleveland, a 5-kw. commercial windmill with two 62.5-ft. blades (built by Lockheed) is nearing completion. The biggest wind turbine in 30 years, it will be part of an experimental 100-kw. system--one of three planned for several U.S. climatic areas to feed into local power grids. ERDA is on the verge of starting at least 30 research projects, from measuring wind movement in various U.S. regions to seeing how wind can be used to dry crops. In all, ERDA would like to spend $11.5 million on wind projects next year. Under accelerated development programs, wind energy could save 800,000 bbl. of oil daily by 1985, almost 8 million bbl. by 2000.

ERDA is also moving ahead on projects in bioconversion (turning urban garbage and sewerage into gas or fuel alcohol), in photovoltaics (converting sunlight directly into electricity) and in ocean thermal conversion (using differences in the temperature of sea water to generate power). The objective, says ERDA'S Gouse, is to examine many alternatives on at least a pilot-plant basis to get a firmer fix on how much each would cost. Says Gouse: "We'll have to develop a number of options so that when the country has to make a choice, there will be a number of choices." There will be no time for experimenting when the oil runs out.

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