Alternatives to Oil

Most experts agree that the timetable for Operation Independence --President Nixon's code name for the achievement of U.S. self-sufficiency in energy by 1980--is unrealistic. Under the best of circumstances, it will take longer than that. But there is nothing unreal about Nixon's call for the commitment of $10 billion for energy research and development over the next five years. Since Congress strongly backs the idea, the funds will likely be appropriated. The money can certainly be well spent; the question is how best to divide it among worthy programs.

An answer lies in a special report that goes to the White House this week. Called "The Nation's Energy Future," it is the result of a crash effort by a Government task force headed by Dixy Lee Ray, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. Given an extremely tight schedule--Nixon requested in June that a blueprint of energy research and development needs be delivered to him by Dec. 1--Ray's team tapped all available sources: Government agencies, private corporations and scientific institutions. After sifting the suggestions, it came up with guidelines for the U.S.'s research program for the next five years.

The most notable increase proposed in the R. and D. budget involves the nation's most abundant fuel--coal. Where coal research now gets a relatively small $167.2 million a year (almost twice last year's figure), the report recommends $405 million next year. By fiscal 1979, some $2.18 billion would be spent on such priority projects as taking sulfur out of coal and turning the black mineral into more easily transported and more widely used fossil fuels: gas and oil.

The other big money item in the R. and D. budget is the breeder reactor, the machine that will produce energy in the next generation of nuclear (fission) power plants. This promising device, which creates (or breeds) slightly more fuel than it consumes, has been heavily funded ever since Nixon called for its fast development in 1971. Though other nations--most notably the U.S.S.R.--have prototype breeders, the U.S. does not. Its breeder program now gets $365.6 million a year. Next year, the report says, that amount should jump to $515.5 million, and a total of $2.8 billion should go to the breeder through fiscal 1979. Another $1.25 billion would be spent to improve conventional nuclear plants, which are expected to produce more and more of the U.S.'s electricity; the lion's share--almost 60%--would be for making safer reactors and thus quieting anti-nuclear critics.

Looking further into the future, the report stresses thermonuclear fusion, the process that causes hydrogen bombs to explode. Controlling fusion is extremely difficult, but the effort is worthwhile. Unlike fission processes (such as those used in the breeder), fusion produces only very small amounts of dangerous radioactivity. Better yet, its fuel can be deuterium, a common element in sea water. This year only $98.7 million in research funds are allocated to domesticate this almost limitless source of energy. But next year fusion should receive $145 million and--if the research pays off--much more money thereafter. Solar energy (now getting $13.2 million) would be boosted to $32.5 million in fiscal 1975; a total of $200 million is earmarked for sunpower through fiscal 1979. As for harnessing the earth's own heat, the report recommends that geothermal research be increased from this year's $11.1 million to $40 million next year and $185 rnillion through 1979.

Ray's report makes clear that spending $1.4 billion over the next five years in order to find ways to conserve energy would be a wise investment. While properly insulating homes and turning off unnecessary lights are helpful in saving energy, Ray's team focused on overcoming the gross inefficiencies in the existing energy system. In particular, $1.2 billion should go to cut losses of electricity in its presently wasteful transmission* and to improve the efficiency of the U.S.'s energy-guzzling machines, from high-powered autos all the way down to the incandescent light bulb.

Ambitious as Ray's suggested program may seem, some critics think it is too short-lived. Senator Henry M. Jackson's Interior Committee has reported out an alternative energy research and development bill. Its suggested budget for the next ten years: $20 billion.

* As a rule of thumb, about 10% of generated electricity is lost when it is moved from power station to consumer because of static along the wires.

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