Congress
of the
United States
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Congressional Budget Office
Natural Resources and Commerce
Washington, D.C. 20460
Office of Research and Development
Energy, Minerals and Industry
Washington. D.C. 20460
EPA-600/9-77-009
March 1977
AN EXPERIMENT IN
ZERO-BASE BUDGET
ANALYSIS --
FISCAL YEAR 1978
Interagency
Energy-Environment
Research and Development
Program Report
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THE ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
This volume is a part of the Energy/Environment R&D Decision Series. The series presents the
key issues and findings of the 17-agency Federal Interagency Energy/Environment Research and
Development Program in a format conducive to efficient information transfer. The volumes are of
three types: summaries—short synopses of larger research reports; issue papers—concise discus-
sions of major energy/environment technical issues; and executive reports—in-depth discussions
of an entire programmatic or technical area.
The Interagency Program was inaugurated in fiscal year 1975. Planned and coordinated by the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), research projects supported by the program range from
the analysis of health and environmental effects of energy systems to the development of environ-
mental control technologies. The works in this series will reflect the full range of program concerns.
The Decision Series is produced for both energy/environment decision-makers and the inter-
ested public. If you have any comments or questions please write to Series Editor Richard Laska,
Office of Energy, Minerals and Industry, RD-681, U.S. EPA, Washington, D.C. 20460 or call
(202) 755-4857. Extra copies are available on request.
Tins docarne^; u a\adjhle U.- lh: public Ihrough the National Technical Inionnylion
Service. Spring! ielu. \ iiginia 2 J 1 t> I . Menti-m ot trade names nr commercial products
h.irein d.jes nut c<:>n- litui c endorsement ur recommendation for use bv J:PA.
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EPA-600/9-77-009 March 1977
AN
EXPERIMENT IN
ZERO-BASE
BUDGET ANALYSIS --
FISCAL YEAR 1978
"INTERAGENCY
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
R & D PROGRAM
by:
Natural Resources and Commerce Division
Congressional Budget Office
The Congress of the United States
and
Office of Energy, Minerals and Industry
Office of Research and Development
United States Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, D.C. 20460
-------
\
f Jjjy I UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
\. ^ WASHINGTON, D.C. 20460
•
OFFICE OF
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
INTRODUCTICN
At the request of the Congressional Budget Office, the
Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Energy, Minerals, and
Industry (OEM!) conducted a "Zero-Base Budgeting" (ZBB) review of
the OEMI coordinated Federal Interagency Energy/Environment R&D
program for Fiscal Year 1978. This ZBB review produced important
insight into the capabilities and problems associated with applying
ZBB procedures to Federal research and development efforts. It also
provided improved understanding of the program itself — its rationale,
products and applications.
Considering the short time frame of the effort (less than two
months) and the general lack of familiarity with the ZBB process, our
efforts were, at best, an awkward step in a long learning process.
However, it is a first step which, we hope, will be of interest to
all of those who seek more effective administration of Federal programs.
Stephen J. Gage
Deputy Assistant Administrator
for Energy, Minerals, and Industry
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
SECTION I - OVERVIEW 1
SECTION II - ZBB DECISION UNITS 17
Control Technology 18
Health and Ecological Effects 60
Program Integration 107
SECTION III - CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE
REVIEW 113
Volume 1 - Analysis 114
Vol time 2 - Appendi ces 149
SECTION IV - OEMI PRIORITY OF PROGRAM INCREMENTS
WITHIN THE RANGE OF PLUS AND MINUS
$10 MILLION 174
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SECTION I - OVERVIEW
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HISTORY OF THE PROGRAM
In June 1973, the President directed the chairman of the Atomic
Energy Commission (AEC) to recommend an integrated energy research and
development program for the Nation, The AEC completed its effort in
December 1973 and forwarded its recommended program in a report, "The
Nation's Energy Future." The report identified five tasks (Energy
Conservation, Oil and Gas, Coal, Nuclear Energy, and Advanced Energy
Resources) required to support the goal of "Regaining and Maintaining
Energy Self-Sufficiency at Minimal Dollar, Environmental, and Social
Costs." On the basis of the AEC report, the President's budget for FY-75
requested an appropriation through the budget of the Environmental
Protection Agency for a much expanded Federal effort in energy/envi-
ronment R&D.
In early 1974, the Office of Management and Budget and the
Council on Environmental Quality established two interagency working
groups to analyze the Federal R&D efforts on Health and Environmental
Effects of Energy Use and on Environmental Control Technology for Energy
Systems. These working groups were to recommend how the Federal funds,
requested through the EPA, could be most effectively allocated to
support the Federal energy R&D program.
The Interagency study on Health and Environmental Effects of
Energy Use developed a comprehensive research program dealing with the
human health and environmental aspects of the Nation's expanded energy
program. The "Report of the Interagency Working Group on Health and
Environmental Effects of Energy Use," completed in November 1974,
-------
presented an integrated environmental sciences research program for the
FY 75-79 period. The working group addressed research needs in five
major areas:
o Pollutant Characterization and Monitoring
o Environmental Transport Processes
o Health Effects
o Ecological Effects
o Integrated Assessment
Simultaneously, another interagency task force addressed an
optimal Federal R&D program in Environmental control technology for energy
systems. The task force recommendations, presented in the "Final Report
of the Interagency Working Group on Environmental Control Technology for
Energy Systems," were based upon analysis of objectives, strategies, and
program content in nine program areas:
o Energy Resource Extraction o Nuclear Waste Control
o Coal Cleaning o Thermal Control
o Flue Gas Cleaning o Improved Efficiency
o Direct Combustion o Advanced Systems
o Synthetic Fuel
EPA Coordination Role
The guidance contained in the two interagency reports formed the
basis of an integrated, systematic interagency program in energy/
environmental R&D. Seventeen Federal departments and agencies participate
in the program. The task of implementing the interagency effort fell
-------
to the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Energy, Minerals and
Industry which is responsible for the proper disbursement, monitoring
and control of financial resources within both EPA and the other
participating agencies.
The program has been funded at roughly the $100 million per year
level since FY-75, with about 40% of this amount being devoted to health
and ecological effects research and about 60% to control technology R&D.
The President's FY-78 budget request for the program is $96.4 million
including $39.2 million for health and ecological effects research and
$57.2 million for control technology R&D.
Since the program's inception in FY-75, there have been continuous
efforts to coordinate, evaluate, and modify, where appropriate, the
program's many activities. These efforts have ranged from a national
symposium covering the entire program (held in Washington, B.C. in
February 1976) to detailed project reviews by technical experts.
Relative priorities of research projects have been adjusted to reflect
a number of factors identified in the reviews: changes in emphasis
in the Nation's energy plans, increased awareness of technological or
economic problems faced by certain energy sources, new knowledge gained
through the research projects, etc. Realistically, the ability to
initiate new high priority projects was severely limited in FY-76 and
FY-77 because of lower-than-anticipated funding in each of those years.
However, vigorous attempts were made to restrict the impact of the
reductions on those key research projects being conducted by each of
-------
the participating Federal agencies. In the FY-78 budget, the $4 million
reprogrammed from control technology R&D to health and ecological effects
research will provide for the initiation of important "new starts"
in the latter area.
The ZBB Experiment
In the summer of 1976, the Senate Appropriations Committee
requested the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to review the Interagency
Energy/Environment R&D Program. Senate interest in understanding the
program in detail and the Budget Office's desire to evaluate alternative
approaches to budget review engendered discussions between EPA and CBO.
The result of these discussions was a commitment on the part of the OEMI
senior staff to complete a zero-base budgeting (ZBB) analysis of the
proposed fiscal year 1978 budget. The desire to provide CBO with the
ZBB review in time for them to prepare an issue paper for the Senate
appropriations hearings severely constrained the depth and breadth
of the analysis. Eight weeks were available for assembling the basic
planning information in the ZBB format. The CBO review of this effort
is enclosed as Section III.
The ZBB review of the energy control technology R&D subprogram,
which is both planned and implemented by OEMI, extensively involved
both OEMI headquarters and laboratory staff. The ZBB review of the
health and ecological effects research subprogram was conducted by
OEMl's Energy Coordination Staff in cooperation with selected project
officers in the various EPA laboratories. Because of the limited time
available, it was not possible to fully involve all of the participating
-------
agencies in the experiment. Thus, input from the other agencies was
primarily derived from the detailed project reviews conducted by OEMl's
Energy Coordination Staff within the past six months.
ZBB Perspective
The ZBB process itself is perhaps better understood as a
perspective. This perspective is built upon the disciplined, explicit
statement- of program purpose and utility. Programs are broken down into
heirarchical layers. For each layer, the program is divided into a logical
set of "decision units." These decision units are chosen without
regard to organizational structure but, rather, with emphasis upon
the internal cohesiveness, completeness and comprehensibility of the
decision unit from an upper management perspective.
Within each decision unit, alternative levels of funding are
presented. These alternatives may range from canceling the unit through
three or more increments of continued and additonal funding. Each of
these increments is accompanied by a concise statement of the benefits
to be derived. In the review process, each of the funding increments
of each decision unit is ranked by management. Upper management may
then review this ranking for concurrance and define the level of future
funding knowing what expenditures will purchase. In essence, the ZBB
process seeks to define clearly the purpose and payoff of each program
and, in the process, provides a historical record of major decisions.
Through disciplined program documentation and concise analysis, the
ZBB process provides vastly improved program awareness for both
-------
program participants and upper management. It allows the clear identi-
fication of priorities and supports well-formed upper management
resource allocation decisions. The ZBB perspective also serves as an
effective test of management at each layer of the organization. It
challenges managers to make explicit their understanding of the goals
and purposes of their program within the context of the overall
organization. It also provides all parties involved with specific
product deadlines and an explicit set of historical data which can be
used as performance yardsticks for success. Hence, the criteria here
is not simply lower management's familiarity with the technical terms
of their own program, but rather their ability to place technical
issues in an appropriate management/decision context.
The ZBB format can be most effectively applied to any program
where a clear cost/benefit relationship can be defined. This charac-
teristic implies a host of problems for ZBB in the context of a large
applied R&D program within a Federal regulatory agency. While it is
easy to determine the costs of such a program, it is far more difficult
to establish the costs of not conducting, i.e. the benefit of such a
program. It is less simple to quantify the benefits to the Nation of
research where the entire purpose is to identify the health and environ-
mental cost of a particular pollutant. And it is even more complicated to
define a proper split between applied or solution oriented and basic or
discipline oriented research. In an applied R&D environment, the payoff
from staff and dollar resource expenditures are primarily of three
types. Each result is associated with a specific user.
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1. Attainment of a discrete event in developing a device,
software, or technology pilot demonstration, (e.g. proof of concept,
development of full-scale demonstration, commercialization). For such
events, alternative resource levels will change the timing of the event
and the probability that it will be achieved.
2. Acquisition of data and parameters, (e.g. SO atmospheric
A
conversion rates, threshold limits on contractions for health effects,
lethal doses). For such data, alternative resource levels will vary
the timing and confidence level (accuracy) of the data.
In more basic research there is only one payoff.
3. Improvement in scientific concepts, knowledge of research
techniques, (e.g. development of new model concepts and development of
method for relating micro-biological tests to health effects) .
Problem Definition Research
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of the ZBB process was the attempt
to specify the nature of long-term or problem definition research. The
R&D process, unlike repetitive manufacturing or routine government
service operations, is often difficult if not impossible to plan and
schedule with any precision. This is especially true of more basic
scientific and technological research. The managers of any large
applied research program will always recognize the soundness of more
fundamental research and therefore will allocate some resources toward
this end. The goal of the applied research process is the orderly
generation of new information. If programs are large enough, expenditures
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designed to Improve the research program per-se will always appear attract-
tive. For example, if an applied research program is designed to document
the health effects of specific types of air pollutants, projects designed
to develop alternative testing techniques, such as measures of enzyme
systems or cellular function inhibition, will always hold promise of
providing a more rapid and less expensive method of generating the needed
information. Likewise, in a program designed to improve control techno-
logies for a particulate matter in stack gases, program managers must
choose between expenditures designed to improve the performance of
established technologies versus providing resources for a more fundamental
research on the chemical and physical properties of particulates.
THE OEMI REVIEW
The ZBB review of the energy/environment R&D program conducted
by EPA divided the Interagency Program into 39 decision units. These
units were grouped into three major areas—health and ecological effects,
control technology and program integration. Three resource levels were
developed for each decision unit and the relative priority of each
increment was specified within the three major areas. The documentation
for each of the 39 decision packages is enclosed as Section II.
The experience gained in conducting this review has proven to
be of considerable benefit to the OEMI program managers. Several
substantive insights resulted from the application of ZBB approach
to the Federal Interagency Energy/Environmental R&D Program or, more
broadly speaking, to R&D programs in general. This initial effort at
ZBB review in OEMI has, however, been demanding on staff time. Such a
-------
review is extremely labor intensive; the incremental benefits of the
review must be weighed against the additional staff efforts above and
beyond the traditional planning and budgeting activities.
The ZBB concept, when applied to R&D programs, encourages the
use of supplementary methodologies for establishing the relative priority
of decision units. In the review of the energy control technology R&D
subprogram, a ranking model was found to be extremely useful. This model
included such factors as the expected commercial impact and anticipated
environmental problems of the energy system being considered, the
status of the applicable control techniques, the probability of achieving
pollution control objectives, and the utility to the Agency's standards
setting effort. The construction and calibration of such a model
yielded a framework which not only facilitated trade-off analysis
among various decision units in the subprogram, but also increased
confidence in the validity of the trade-offs.
The motivation for long-term research is always the belief on
the part of the manager that expenditures will improve the state-of-
the-art and thereby improve the accomplishment of an applied research
program. Decisions to expand long-term research are controlled by the
manager's feeling that advances are likely and that researchers of sufficient
quality can be found. Both of these aspects of the motivation for basic
research—belief that improvements will result and belief that good
researchers are available—are not output oriented. As such, the expected
accomplishments of basic research expenditures are extremely difficult to
10
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express, in terms of the specific goals of an applied program. The ZBB
tendency to be as quantitive as possible does not neatly mesh with the
analysis of more basic research.
The CBO staff comments on drafts of the ZBB analysis confirmed the
difficulty of comparing budget increments for research activities of
differing degree of direct applicability to research goals. Comparisons
of incremental expansions of activities, e.g., monitoring of three versus
five stream segments, were relatively simple to display in the ZBB format.
However, the relative programmatic importance of toxicology studies of
additional pollutants, versus the development of simplified screening
tests was considerably more difficult to establish.
Ranking Priorities
In the OEMI experience the major advantage, and perhaps the
distinguishing feature, of the ZBB process is that the rank ordering
of budgetary increments depends on the explicitly demonstrated program
accomplishments. This fact serves to reinforce in the mind of the
program managers the importance of the program's output. All too often
research program managers become preoccupied with the needs for the
research program's input and are vaguely aware of or concerned with the
program's actual achievements. This problem is worsened by the long
time lapses between resource planning for FY-78 and research publication
in FY-80. The OEMI program managers were surprised with the additional
insights that they gained from displaying the outputs as a function of
resource level. These insights have already led us to make a number of
modifications in our detailed plans for FY-78.
11
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Single Year Planning
Another aspect of R&D programs which complicates ZBB reviews is
that most projects require more than one year for completion.
The R&D projects being conducted under the Interagency Program typically
require three to five years. For example, this cycle may start with an
initial low investment in laboratory or bench-scale research activity
and be followed with increasingly larger investments for design, con-
struction and operation of pilot and full-scale equipment. Progression
through all of these steps may be necessary to develop and demonstrate
the concept. The demonstration phase can, in itself, require a period
of at least three years during which the sponsoring agency may be required
to provide funds for constructing and operating the demonstration unit as
well as for testing and evaluating the unit after shakedown is completed.
The concept of ZBB appears to focus on an individual fiscal year with
little consideration given to the "out-year" consequences of funding—or
not funding—a particular decision package. Consideration can be given
to this aspect by identifying the fraction of the project which would be
achieved with the funding provided by the decision unit resource level.
The implications of previous and future funding for R&D programs should,
however, be more fully investigated, with an eye toward further refinements
in the ZBB methodology for consideration of multi-year projects.
For such multi-year programs, however, the ZBB process can provide
a benefit to management. The ZBB format makes clear the threshold nature
of major R&D efforts. By explicitly defining both purpose and anticipated
12
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products, the ZBB format identifies those program areas which, although
considered important, are so underfunded as to be nonproductive. With
this fact made clear, management may then decide either to cancel the
program entirely or to increase support of the program to a level which
has some promise of useful payoff.
Annual incremental reassessment and reallocation of R&D funding
forces R&D managers to place an inordinately high value on projects with
highly visible short-term payoffs at the expense of more important
longer term objectives. Although ZBB can be misused to sustain this
imbalance, it could be used to display program packaging on an integrated
multi-year basis. When thus used, ZBB can permit a substantial improvement
in R&D efficiency. Once a decision is made, for example, to conduct
and complete R&D on a particular coal-cleaning technology, a multi-year
R&D decision package would be established. Such a package would define
the minimum threshold of a particular decision unit for the entire
multi-year span of the effort, and would thus greatly simplify the annual
ZBB program review process.
Multi-Agency Reviews
The Interagency Energy/Environment R&D Program employs, to considerable
extent, support from specialized technical experts in sixteen other Federal
agencies. The budget prioritization process, consequently, affects
activities such as program management, manpower and equipment scheduling,
and overhead resource allocation in the participating Federal agencies.
To assure adequate communications with these other agencies during a
13
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full ZBB review of the Interagency Program, contacts would have to be
made with hundreds of personnel. Further, it is not clear how a complete
ZBB review would be conducted on an interagency program. For example,
how would such a review handle simultaneously the rank ordering of decision
units by the organizational hierarchy in the coordinating agency (EPA)
and the performing agencies (e.g. ERDA, NOAA, TVA, USGS, etc.)? Another
question is how the participating agencies rank the projects carried out
under the aegis of the Interagency Program relative to those conducted
with their direct appropriations. Such difficulties must be satisfactor-
ily resolved before a comprehensive ZBB review is attempted on an
interagency program.
Another major problem in assigning priorities was the wide range
of complexity and dollar value associated with the activities. Indivi-
dual decision increments in the control technology program, for example,
makes the comparative ranking of competing decision packages extremely
difficult.
Priority Rankings Among Major Areas
This preliminary review of the Interagency Program highlighted
the inherent difficulties in using the ZBB approach to manipulate
programmatic information effectively enough to allow comparisons at
alternate levels of aggregation. The funding increments of the decision
packages used in the OEMI exercise typically represented a collection of
individual, but related, projects. As such, each of the program managers
involved were able to view each funding increment as an entity within
one of the three major areas (health/ecological effects, control technology,
14
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program integration). From this perspective, each funding increment could
be assigned a priority relative to the other funding increments within
that major area_. Extreme difficulty was encountered, however, when
funding increments within one major area were compared with funding
increments within another major area, and such comparisons were not
vigorously produced.
This, of course, was not completely consistent with the spirit of
ZBB. Two overriding factors, however, dictated this course of action.
First, the short time available for the project precluded the devotion of
adequate management time to detailed review and cross-comparison of the
alternative funding increments. Second, and more fundamental, the
disparate yet interconnected activities of the overall Interagency Program
were inherently very difficult to rank. For example, the development of
an instrument to measure pollutant concentrations in the environment, and
the development of control hardware to reduce the release of that pollutant
may seem to be separable activities. In some instances, however, the
demonstration of the control device will dictate the performance specifi-
cations of the required instrument. Hence the program managers found it
exceedingly difficult to mold together the three major areas and to rank
order the combined list of decisions packages.
OEMI senior staff did, however, undertake the difficult task of
ranking health and ecological effects research units relative to control
technology R&D units for a limited subset of program decisions units.
The example shows the relative ranking of decisions units within a range
of $10 million above and below the $96.4 million requested in the
15
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President's FY-78 budget. The decision units involved and their relative
priority is presented in Section IV. The relative ranking of the
funding increments within a range around the nominal level of the total
program was considerably easier for two reasons: First, the relationships
among the outputs of the several funding increments could be more easily
understood. Second, the impact of adding or deleting the outputs associ-
ated with those increments could be compared with the impact of
higher priority parts of the program. This comparison at the margin
is especially important in evaluating budget allocations in a complex
inter-related program.
16
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SECTION II - ZBB DECISION UNITS
17
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CONTROL TECHNOLOGY
18
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ZBB DECISION ACTIVITY PRIORITY RANKING
CONTROL TECHNOLOGY
Lowest Budget
First Increment
Additional Increment
Priority
Ranking
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Activity
NO Control
x
Fine Particles, etc.
Flue Gas Desulfurization
Solid Fuel Extraction
Phys/Chem Coal Cleaning
Fluidized Bed Combustion
Waste-as-Fuel
Syn. Fuel (Non-Coal)
Adv. Energy Systems
Waste & Water Pollution Control
Syn. Fuels (Coal)
Oil & Gas Extraction
Adv. Oil Processing
Adv. Energy Conversion
Indus. Energy Conservation
TOTALS
$1,000
7,895
5,942
1,999
3,400
3,995
2,951
2,900
1,110
500
1,675
2,743
1,700
1,532
400
400
39,142
Priority
Ranking
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
Activity
NO Control
x
Fine Particles, etc.
Flue Gas Desulfurization
Solid Fuel Extraction
Fluidized Bed Combustion
Phys/Chem. Coal Cleaning
Waste-as-Fuel
Syn. Fuel (Non-Coal)
Advanced Energy Systems
Waste & Water Pollution Control
Syn. Fuel (Coal)
Oil and Gas Extraction
Industrial Energy Conservation
1,423
943
1,133
800
2,346
332
1,200
400
300
1,133
1,788
500
300
12,598
Priority
Ranking Activity
29 Fluidized Bed Combustion
30 Flue Gas Desulfurization
31 Phys/Chem. Coal Cleaning
32 NO Control
x
33 Solid Fuel Extraction
34 Fine Particles, etc.
35 Waste-as-Fuel
36 Syn. Fuels (Non-Coal)
37 Advanced Energy Systems
38 Syn. Fuels (Coal)
39 Advanced Energy Conversion
40 Advanced Oil Processing
41 Industrial Energy Conservation
12,582
19
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DECISION ACTIVITIES - CONTROL TECHNOLOGY
75% 100%
Energy Resource Extraction
Solid Fuel
Oil and Gas
Physical/Chemical Coal Cleaning
Flue Gas Cleaning
Flue Gas Desulfurization
NO, Control
Fine Particle and Hazardous Material
Waste and Water Pollution Control
Direct Combustion
Fluidized-Bed Combustion
Advanced Oil Processing
Energy Conservation and Advanced Technologies
Synthetic Fuels (coal)
Synthetic Fuels (non-coal)
Advanced Energy Conversion Cycles
Advanced Energy Systems
Industrial Energy Conservation
Wastes as Fuel
$1,000
3400
1700
3995
1999
7895
5942
1675
2951
1532
2743
1110
400
500
400
2900
RANK
4
12
5
3
1
2
10
6
13
11
8
14
9
15
7
$1,000
(Al)
800
500
332
1133
1423
943
1133
2346
0
1788
400
0
300
300
1200
RANK
19
27
21
18
16
17
25
20
26
23
24
28
22
$1,000
(A2)
1110
0
1353
1631
1500
1968
0
714
1318
488
200
200
700
500
900
RANK
33
31
30
32
34
29
40
38
36
39
37
41
35
39142
12598
12582
20
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PROGRAM
Energy/Environmental
COMPONENT
Control Technology
SUBCOMPONENT
Energy Resources
Extraction
ACTIVITY
Solid Fossil
Fuels
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 LOWEST LEVEL BUDGET
ERDA $ 1*00,000
EPA (IERL-CI) 3,000,000
TOTAL $3,1+00,000
FIRST INCREMENT
$800,000
TOTAL $800,000
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
$1,110,000
TOTAL $1,110,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
This decision package covers the EPA national program for research, develop-
ment, and demonstration of pollution control technology for mining, beneficia-
tion and transportation of solid fuels. The various individual areas of
investigation involve: l) Eastern Surface Coal Mines, 2) Eastern Underground
Coal Mines, 3) Western Coal Mines, h) Treatment of Mine Drainage, 5) Oil Shale
Mines, 6) Uranium Mines, and 7) Transportation of Solid Fuels. The extraction
of Solid Fuels Program is primarily designed to determine potential environ-
mental damages from mining, transportation, and "beneficiation processes, to
develop treatment and control options to abate air, water and land pollution
from these operations, and to demonstrate the feasibility and cost effective-
ness of the use of the various environmental control technologies. A corollary
objective of the program is to transfer the information developed to the user
community (mining companies, State regulatory agencies, EPA Regional offices,
ERDA, etc.) through Manuals of Practice, seminars, training programs and
technical presentations.
USE OF OUTPUTS
The outputs from the EPA Solid Fuel Extraction R&D Program- will be used by:
o Federal (EPA), State and local environmental bodies having regulatory
(standards-setting and enforcement) responsibilities to establish
practicable and environmentally acceptable standards and guidelines for
the rapidly expanding mining industry.
• Mining companies themselves and their consulting engineers and equipment
vendors in designing and implementing full-scale applications of the
control methods and techniques developed. Data on pollutant identification
(particularly of toxic components) and pollutant generation rates will
stimulate privately-funded R&D within the mining industry itself to
develop cost-effective control approaches.
• Federal and State energy agencies (e.g., ERDA) to aid in establishing
their own positions and priorities with regard to the various fuel
alternatives under consideration.
21
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DESCRIPTION.OF. OUTPUTS EO.R..LOWEST;.BUDGET.-,(,.$3?UOQ-f.O.OO) - •--Rank No. 4-
Outputs from this activity include:
• The development of a comprehensive audio-visual instructional package on
environmentally protective mining methods to aid in the training of mine
inspectors, environmental technicians, mine foremen and mine operators.
• A predictive pollution control model on active mining operations for use
as a tool for planning and issuance of permits by State agencies.
• A manual of practice for controlling environmental damage from Eastern
surface coal mines. .
• A demonstration of the feasibility of stowage of waste materials in closed
sections of underground mines to provide a method to prevent acid mine
drainage.
• An interim manual of practice (current state-of-the-art) .on demonstrated
methods for prevention of pollution from active and abandoned Western
United States surface and underground coal mines.
• An interim manual of practice* (current state-of-the-art) on demonstrated
methods of abating pollution from the extraction and handling of oil shale
and tar sands.
OUTPUTS FROM THE FIRST INCREMENT ($800,000) Rank No. 19
« Assessment of the potential environmental impacts of the mining
activities associated with the in-situ retorting of oil shale.
This information is essential to EPA, ERDA, Dept. of Interior and
private developers of oil shales. ERDA must have such information to
intelligently guide its energy development program in regard to oil
shale, EPA must have such data to properly set environment standards
and guidelines, and Dept. of Interior must have such data to determine
the advisability of granting further oil shale leases.
• Assessment of the environmental effects of coal haulage by railroad to
allow local, State and Federal authorities to define appropriate
regulations, standards and guidelines for this activity.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($1,110,000) R_ank Mo. 33
• An environmental assessment of uranium extraction by the surface mining and
in-situ leaching processes, including projections of the effects on
surface and subsurface water and on air quality, and a hydrogeochemical
model of the effects uranium extraction on ambient grouhdwater quality
in a sandstone aquifer. This information is required by EPA, ERDA,
DI, state agencies and private uranium extraction concerns. EPA will
utilize this information to set certain environmental standards and
guidelines. Department of Interior and state agencies must have this
data in order to grant additional mining leases, and ERDA requires this
information for input to its energy program concerning uranium.
• A detailed operations manual on environmental protection techniques
will be prepared for use by the extraction industry and regulatory
personnel. This manual will provide guidance on mining techniques
and water and air pollution abatement procedures.
• A surface reclamation technique will be developed for open pit uranium
mines and tailings ponds for use by mine operators and regulatory personnel.
22
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PROGRAM
COMPONENT
Energy/Environment Control Technology
SUBCOMPONENT
Energy Resource
Extraction
ACTIVITY
Oil and Gas
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 LOWEST
EPA (IERL-CI)
TOTAL
LEVEL BUDGET
$1,700,000
$1,700,000
FIRST INCREMENT
$500,000
TOTAL $500,000
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
0
TOTAL 0
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The principal objective of the EPA oil and gas production research program is to
assure that the recovery of the nation's offshore and onshore oil and gas re-
sources fr.om existing, frontier and ecologically sensitive sites, is conducted
in an environmentally acceptable fashion. This is to be done by developing
methods, technology and equipment to prevent, control and abate the discharge
of environmental pollutants, including those from accidental spills and opera-
tional releases from oil and gas exploration, production, storage and transpor-
tation facilities. This program vill demonstrate and document the technical/
operational feasibility and cost/effectiveness of environmental control options
and provide effluent control guidelines on a timely basis.
USE OF OUTPUTS
• EPA will utilize program results in setting water quality standards for oil
and in development of effluent guidelines for the oil production and trans-
portation industries.
• Federal (EPA and Coast Guard), State and local agencies responsible for oil
spill Glean-up will use program outputs for the development of their spill
contingency plans and equipment purchase programs.
• The petroleum and oil transportation industries will use program results in
the design, construction and operation of oil/gas production, transportation
and storage facilities.
• International bodies such as IMCO will use program results as U.S. inputs to
their standards for the identification, allowable discharge levels and
required treatment of oily waste waters.
• The U.S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Land Management will use program
outputs in their offshore site selection/leasing programs and in setting
standards for platform installation and facility operation.
DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWEST BUDGET ($1,700,000)
Rank No. 12
The program will assess the existing and potential adverse environmental impacts
(air, land, water) from active and planned oil and gas production, storage and
transportation facilities. The R&D will feature the development, evaluation, and
assessment of oil spill prevention, cleanup and control equipment and will give
special emphasis to the development and demonstration of oil and gas production
environmental control technology and practices for use in offshore and onshore
facilities.
23
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summary of the outputs from the Lowest Level Program is:
Assessment of available control technology and initial development of an im-
proved ir.ethcd to control the environmental impacts from secondary and tertiary
recovery programs for onshore oil and gas production facilities.
Field manuals for l) describing proper disposal of spill generated debris,
2) using chemical and biological oil spill control agents, 3) determining the
extent of contamination and effectiveness of oil spill cleanup operations, and
h) describing the proper techniques for protecting and restoring oil spill
contaminated shorelines.
Specification of operation and maintenance practices and equipment to reduce
discharges from offshore oil and gas production facilities.
Evaluation of off-the-shelf spill cleanup equipment at OHMSETT—EPA' s Oil and
Hazardous Materials Simulated Environmental Test Tank. Field manuals describ-
ing the capabilities of this equipment will be produced.
Demonstration of a method for environmentally acceptable treatment of bilge
and ballast water at shore reception facilities.
OUTPUTS FROM THE FIRST INCREMENT ($500,000) Rank No. 27
» An environmentally acceptable pollution control method for the treat-
ment of oily waste discharges from offshore oil and gas production
facilities will be selected, evaluated and demonstrated to the proto-
type scale. This treatment system will be used by the petroleum in-
dustry on existing and new production facilities to meet BAT effluent
guideline requirements.
• Initial evaluations of alternative oil spill prevention techniques
for tank farms will be completed. These techniques will be used by
the petroleum industry to meet the Oil Spill Prevention Regulation
requirements.
0 Five commercial oil spill cleanup systems will be evaluated at OHMSETT.
Information from this evaluation will be used by individuals respon-
sible for oil spill response in determining equipment needs.
# Approximately 10 chemical systems for shoreline protection and restor-
ation will be evaluated. These systems will be used by those respon-
sible for oil spill cleanup in responding to spill incidents.
OUTPUT FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($0) Rank No. (None)
No additional outputs will be produced.
24
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PROGRAM
COMPONENT
Energy/Environment Control Technology
SUBCOMPONENT
Fuel Processing
ACTIVITY
Physical/Chemical
Coal Cleaning
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 LOWEST BUDGET
TOTAL $3,995,000
FIRST INCREMENT
TOTAL ?332,000
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
TOTAL $1,353,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The overall purpose of this decision package is to develop means of removing pollution-
causing substance from coal prior to its use as fuel, thereby permitting the use of additional
quantities of U.S. coal for energy production without adverse environmental effects, and
providing an alternate control technology to those sources (area type) that may be restricted
either physically or economically from use of flue gas treatment'processes. The principal
objectives are 1) to determine the extent to which U.S. coals can be cleaned of pollution-
causing substances prior to combustion, 2) to develop and demonstrate the technology for
removing such substances, 3) to assess the environmental effects of utilizing coal-cleaning
technology, and 4) to develop means of controlling such environmental effects within
acceptable limits.
USE OF OUTPUTS
Results of environmental assessment of coal cleaning processes will enable federal and state
officials to determine the environmental impacts of those processes and to define appropriate
emission/effluent/solid waste control and disposal regulations.
Results of coal technology development activities will provide equipment and conceptual
design and operational characteristics to designers, manufacturers, and users of coal cleaning
technology; also, will provide performance requirements to manufacturers of pollution control
equipment.
Results of both the environmental assessment and technology development activities will
provide information used by EPA utility sector and state/local pollution control authorities
in defining minimal-cost, technically-sound approaches for meeting sulfur emission standards
and other pollutant-release regulations.
25
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWEST BUDGET ($3,995,000) Rank No. 5
° Environmental Assessment of Coal Cleaning. Information would be used
~~ effects groups, regional
office and enforcement for planning and problem definition; ERDA for
environmental impacts, control technology needs and design reviews;
and other government/industrial groups for guidance and evaluation.
Pollutant characterization in waste streams from physical
and chemical coal and in dusts and leachates from storage
of raw coal, cleaned coal, and process residues using levels
1, 2, and 3 analysis (60%)
Comprehensive assessments of the environmental impacts of the
production and utilization of cleaned coal using IERL/RTP
environmental alternatives analysis methodology (50%)
- Development of components of the IERL/RTP environmental assess-
ment methodology (75%)
Development of manuals of recommended practice for coal cleaning
operations produced on a schedule consistent with timetable for
standards setting (50%)
° Coal Cleaning Technology/Development/Control Technology Development.
Information would be used by EPA to define control capabilities
and applicability of process technology for problem solving, by
ERDA and industry to define usage and potential environmental effects.
Amenability of a large variety of U.S. coals to physical or
chemical cleaning has been determined in earlier stages of
this program. This characterization is continuing with increased
emphasis on Western coals (70%)
Evaluation of the sulfur reduction effectiveness and associated
costs of (1) currently available and advanced methods of physical
coal cleaning as the pilot and/or commercial scale, and (2) the
Meyers (chemical) process on the pilot scale (80%)
Identification and evaluation of alternative chemical treatment
processes (60%)
- EvaluatiDn of the effectiveness of existing control technology
and identification of criteria for new technology (90%)
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($332,000) Rank No. 21
0 Evaluate and Develop New Control Technology. Information would
be used by EPA for planning and new regulations and by coal
users to reduce or eliminate environmental site specific problems.
Dewatering of fine coal elimination of thermal dryers and
energy conservation (brings project to 50% completion)
Residue evaluation and assess control applicability (brings
project to 25% completion)
* Level 1 Comprehensive Screening"
Level 2 Directed Detailed Analysis Based on Level 1
Level 3 Process Monitoring on Selected Priority Pollutants Based on Levels 1 and 2
26
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OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($1,555,000)
Rank No 31
Initiate Combined FGD/Physical Coal Cleaning Demonstration
(brings project to 20% completion). This demonstration would impact
on regulatory and utilities groups defining an integrated technology
which would improve control and reduce control costs. ERDA and FEA
would be interested in the potential for utilization of the Eastern
high sulfur coal reserves for power generation.
- Evaluation of technical advantages
- Evaluation of superior economics
- Determination of environmental effects
Develop Alternatives to Slurry Pond Disposal (brings project to
50-6 completion). Information from these studies would be used by
EPA regulatory and water planning group to define programs and
environmental effects. Technology would be useful to the coal
industry as a means of increased recovery of coal and elimination
of the slurry pond problem.
- Elimination of slurry pond usage
- Elimination of pond run-off/toxic discharge problems
- Elimination of hazards of aam failures
- Convert slurry discharge into solid discharge; reduction of
leakage
- Increase recovery of usable coal
27
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PROGRAM
COMPONENT
SUBCOMPONENT
Energy/Environment Control Technology Flue Gas Cleaning
ACTIVITY
Flue Gas
Desulfurization
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 LOWEST BUDGET
FIRST INCREMENT
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
TOTAL $1,999,00.0
TOTAL $1,133,000
TOTAL $1,631,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The purpose of the funding described in this decision package is to continue
to develop and demonstrate technology which would improve the reliability, per-
formance and economics of flue gas dusulfurization systems including first
and second generation non-regenerable systems and regenerable systems with
marketable by-products. Flue gas desulfurization is the only near term tech-
nology enabling compliance with sulfur oxide standards while expanding use of
abundant coal supplies, thus meeting environmental and energy goals. The
package also addresses comprehensive research and development programs to
develop, demonstrate and recommend environmentally acceptable and cost effec-
tive techniques for disposal and utilization of flue gas cleaning wastes. The
program includes the development and implementation of a strategy to effec-
tively disseminate the associated control technology information.
USE OF OUTPUTS
The FGD development/demonstration data, models and comparisions can be employed
by utilities, process and equipment vendors, architects and consulting engineers,
plus Federal, state and local environmental bodies having regulatory and
advisory responsibilities to determine the desirability (based on cost, relia-
bility, and performance) of various FGD alternatives for a specific situation.
The data produced for waste disposal of sludge produced by the demonstrations
will be valuable in development of waste handling techniques for various other
sources (i.e., particulate, FBC sludge, etc.). Similarly, the waste utili-
zation techniques can be employed in other areas. The demonstration and infor-
mation transfer programs will also accelerate commercialization of the various
FGD systems.
28
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWEST BUDGET ($1,999,000) RANK NO. 3
• Comprehensive test and evaluation of the WeiIman-Lord/Allied FGD demonstration
will be completed. This first application of this technology to a utility
in the U.S., to a coal-fired utility anywhere in the world, and to by-production
of elemental sulfur, the most desirable by-product, in the U.S.,will demon-
strate its viability for compliance with current and projected sulfur oxides
standards. (100)*
• FGD data books, cost and reliability models and comparisions between FGD
processes and with alternative technologies will be produced. These outputs
will accelerate decision-making with regard to compliance with standards and
improve the overall effectiveness of those decisions. (20%)
• The full-scale double alkali demonstration program will be completed. Results
from this program will provide a 2n" generation alternative to lime/lime-
stone scrubbing having significant energy, reliability, performance, and
cost advantages. (100%)
• Comprehensive analyses of FGD wastes and by-products such as sludge and gypsum
from nonregenerable FGD systems and sulfur and sulfuric acid from regenerable
FGD systems will be produced. This data will indicate the effectiveness and
economical acceptability of disposal techniques, and the marketability of
regenerable by-products and utilization products. (75%)
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT'(.$1,133,000) RANK NO. ,18
• The IERL-RTP in-house FGD pilot plant will be converted to a double alkali con-
figuration for support of the full scale double alkali demonstration program.
The pilot plant data will decrease the risk factor associated with full scale
demonstration by providing a facility for investigating any problems which may
occur during the demonstration program, (100%)
• A pilot/prototype study of double alkali scrubbing using limstone regeneration
will be performed to establish designs and operating parameters for optimum
utilization of this mode. Limestone (rather than lime) is the preferable mode
of regeneration because of the expected cost and energy savings. (50%)
• The test program for the 100 MW demonstration of the aqueous carbonate process
will be completed. This relatively simple and inexpensive process is a low
energy consumer and produces elemental sulfur, the most desirable by-product,
with inexpensive, readily available coal. Commercialization will increase the
availability and effectiveness of technology for compliance with sulfur oxide
standards. (100%)
*Figures in parenthesis indicate percent completion of project with budgeted
funding.
29
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OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($1,631,000) RANK NO. 30
An assessment of the capital/operating costs associated with primary regenerable
and non-regenerable systems for a variety of industrial boiler sizes and types
will be performed. The assessment along with presently available FGD industrial
boiler data will be employed to determine data deficiencies and will provide
information for setting of SC>2 standards for industrial boilers. (100%)
A demonstration of combined coal ceaning and FGD technologies for control of
sulfur dioxide (802) form a utility power plant will be performed. These
technologies, in combination, may enable most cost-effective and applicable
regulatory and compliance strategies for meeting S02 standards. (The package
is cost shared between FGD and coal cleaning and will complete 100 percent
of Phase I of a four-phase program.)
30
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PROGRAM
COMPONENT
SUBCOMPONENT
ACTIVITY
Energy/Environment Control Technology
Flue Gas Cleaning
NO Control
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 LOWEST BUDGET
FIRST INCREMENT
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
TOTAL $7,895,000
TOTAL $1,423,000
TOTAL $1,500,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The purpose of this decision package is to develop control technologies necessary for the
effective abatement of nitrogen oxides (NO ) and related pollutants generated by combustion
processes, and to provide comprehensive environmental assessments and system analyses of
these control tehcnologies, evaluating their technical-soundness, cost and acceptability
relative to environmental quality and energy conservation. This development effort should
lead to the demonstration of optimum technology for all combustion sources in support of
OAQPS needs and of Agency NO /Maximum Stationary Source Technology (MSST) strategy. The
principal objectives are: (I) to research and develop combustion modification (CM) techn-
ologies for environmentally acceptable and economical abatement of combustion generated
emissions from major combustion sources; (2) to assess the environmental impacts and
analyze the strategy options of applying the NO control technologies; and (3) to identify,
develop and assess Flue Gas Treatment (FGT) technology for the post combustion control of
emissions from the combustion process particularly NO and NO in the presence of SO .
The technologies under consideration will be applicable to both new and existing combustion
sources burning conventional and new candidate fuels.
USE OF OUTPUTS
The specific information and combustion data gathered can be used by Federal, state, and
local regulatory officials to aid in their development and enforcement of standards for
the associated pollutants (criteria (NO ), trace elements, POM). The data gathered on
the NO control methods (FGT and CM) can be used by utilities, industries, manufacturers
and vendors to develop or optimize their NO control programs. The results of the
fundamental research will be used to optimize combustion modifications and identify new
approaches for a variety of source types.
31
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWEST BUDRF.T C$7,895,000) Rank No. 1
Brief statements of the outputs for various work areas are as follows:
' Perform Environmental Assessment of Combustion Control Technology
- characterize performance of CM for NOcontrol, evaluating effectiveness, economics,
acceptability and potential problems
- perform systems analysis of various control strategies to assess contribution of
CM toward attainment of prescribed ambient NO levels
- generate data on combustion related pollutants, including Levels 1/2* analysis
- reports and data support EPA and ERDA in environmental/energy planning, policy
decisions, and standards setting
- results assist utilities, industry and equipment manufacturers in early attain-
ment of reduced NO emissions C30% completion)
Perform Applications Testing of Combustion Control Technology
- quantify corrosion effects of low NO CM on two non-NSPS and one NSPS utility
boilers
- apply comprehensive sampling and analytical system to in-house projects
- corrosion effects results support EPA's OAQPS standards development
- data and results identify and define further R§D needs for IERL program planning
C90% completion)
Develop Combustion Control Technology for Utility and Large Industrial Boilers
- continue evaluation of full scale optimum coal burner design, with potential for
reducing NO emissions to 0.3 lb/10 Btu
- results support EPA's OAQPS in NO standards development
- provide utility/industry users ana equipment manufacturers with advanced burner
designs offering superior environmental benefits (2S% completion)
Develop Combustion Control Technology for Small Industrial/Commercial and Residential
Systems
- continue CM development for small watertube, residual oil-fired package and
industrial stoker coal-fired boilers
- field verify performance of an integrated oil-fired residential furnace optimized
for pollution control and energy conservation
- results support EPA's OAQPS in standards setting for small industrial boilers
- provide EPA § FEA a more energy conserving and environmentally acceptable approach
for home heating Can area source for which improved technology has not been avail-
able here-to-fore) C25% completion)
Level 1 - Comprehensive Screening
Level 2 - Directed Detailed Analysis Based on Level 1
Level 3 - Process Monitoring on Selected Priority Pollutants
Based on Levels 1 and 2
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Develop Combustion Control Technology for Industrial Process Combustors
- complete preliminary feasibility study phase of afterburner technology assessment
- provides IERL with information for program planning relative to hydrocarbon and
carbonaceous particulate emissions control technology for industrial applications
(100% completion)
Develop Combustion Control Technology for Stationary Engines
- continue development of "dry" CM techniques for utility gas turbines and large
bore I.C. engines to minimize NO and other combustion related emissions
- results support EPA's OAQPS in standards netting
- results identify for equipment manufacturers improved approaches to reduced
emissions (15% completion)
Develop Combustion Control Technology Based on Advanced Processes
- continue limited pilot scale development of advanced CM concepts and burner designs
- investigate use of alternate and future fuels
- results identify, for EPA's ORD/IERL program planning, technology offering potential
for significant improvement in emissions control
- provides EPA, ERDA, FEA and potential users with data on combustion of alternate
fuels and on environmental alternatives (30% completion)
Perform Fundamental Combustion Research (FCR)
- continue low level of FCR, emphasizing chemistry, aerodynamics and modeling relative
to reactions of fuel bound nitrogen compounds
- provides basic understanding to research community of combustion processes as they
impact on pollutant formation and control
- results used by^IERL and other researchers (university and industry) to identify
improved pollutant control technology for future development (20% completion)
Evaluate Flue Gas Treatment (FGT) for NO Control
- identify and evaluate FGT NO control technology
- assess potential requirements for such technology
- provide inputs to EPA's ORD/OEMI and to Program Offices for planning regarding this
alternative control technology for NO
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($1,423,000) Rank No. 16
Extend Applications Testing of Combustion Control Technology
- perform field tests of industrial process combustion equipment for uncontrolled
operation and with state-of-the-art combustion controls applied
- data used by IERL for technology development program definition in industrial
combustion equipment area
- provides EPA's OAQPS with data on state-of-the-art control technology for standards
development (20% completion)
33
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" Extend Development of Combustion Control Technology for Small Industrial/Commercial
and Residential Systems
- increase study of effects of fuel/atomization on NO control for residual oil-fired
package boilers to include engineering design phase
- provides guidance for equipment manufacturers
- permits earlier demonstration by EPA or ERDA of advanced technology for practical
package boiler designs (40% completion)
' Expand Development of Combustion Control Technology Based on Advanced Processes
- establish a catalytic combustor research program
- results, if successful, would lead to a low NO combustion alternative for area
x
sources for consideration in energy/environmental policy and strategy planning
for the future by ERDA and EPA (40% completion)
Extend Fundamental Combustion Research
- increase to include additional studies on other primary and secondary pollutants
(sulfates, organics, etc.) of potential hazard to health and welfare
- results used by IERL and other researchers in developing improved control
technologies (22% completion)
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($1,500,000) Rank No. 32
Expand Development of Combustion Control Technology for Utility and Large Industrial
Boilers
- perform long term tests of the effect of-CM on corrosion for 3 types of NSPS utility
boilers, quantifying corrosion rates with respect to the type and degree of CM.
- data firmly supports EPA's OAQPS revised NO standards development
- results identify for EPA, utilities and equipment manufacturers any potential
problems associated with use of CM technology (20% completion)
34
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PROGRAM
Energy/Environment
COMPONENT
Control Technology
SUBCOMPONENT
Flue Gas Cleanina
ACTIVITY
Fine Particle and
Hazardous Material
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 LOWEST BUDGET
TOTAL $5,942,000
FIRST INCRrMENT
$943,000
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
$1,968,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The purpose of this decision package is to develop and demonstrate control technologies
(e.g., devices such as: electrostatic precipitators, scrubbers, filters, cyclones)
capable of effectively removing large fractions of particulate and fine particulate
matter produced in the combustion of fuels or other industrial processes. Particulate
removal will reduce what would otherwise be released to the atmosphere to the detriment
of human health and ecology, and in the case of hot gas cleanup, what might otherwise
damage process equipment. Development includes efficiency improvement of conventional
removal devices which would be required if more stringent standards are to be imposed,
application technology for special fuels or industrial processes, and hot gas cleanup
necessary for operation of advanced energy systems.
In addition, in the area of hazardous materials control, an assessment will be performed
describing the character of combustion pollution emissions from a wide range of com-
bustion sources. Data are to be obtained by field sampling, only when available by other
means, and of sufficient importance to justify the effort.
USE OF OUTPUTS
Developments will have direct application to the utility and other industries requiring
combustion of fuels or other processes producing particulate laden gaseous emissions.
Devices capable of operation at elevated temperature and pressure will offer environ-
mental protection and have special application to the cleanup required for protection
of equipment (e.g., turbines) used in advanced energy systems such as coal gasification.
Improved collection efficiencies and newly developed devices for processes presently
lacking effective particulate control will provide the basis for New Source Performance
Standards and will impact on Ambient Air Quality Standards in the many Air Quality
Regions currently failing to meet suspended particulate standards.
The output from the assessment of combustion systems will be used as a statistical data
base for developing control strategies. Knowledge of the pollution contribution of
representative sources maybe projected to estimate total emissions resulting from
implementation of different abatement options. These estimates will be an input to
establishing priorities for control technology development; determining the "environmental
concepts" that can be expected from control of specific pollution sources; and what
effects may be anticipated from resulting emission.
35
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWEST BUDGET ($5,942,000) Rank No. 2
• Demonstration of a baghouse on a 15 MM coal fired industrial boiler will be completed
to provide technology for setting NSPS for coal fired industrial boilers. (100%)*
Demonstration testing of a baghouse on a 350 MW utility boiler, firing low sulfur
coal, will be conducted. A successful demonstration will offer an environmentally
sound and economical particulate control alternative for meeting current and future
standards when using low sulfur western coal. (60%)
• An improved electrostatic precipitator (ESP) for use on low sulfur coal will be piloted
to demonstrate technical feasibility. Completion of this work will provide an
economical and reliable means of controlling particulate emissions from burning low
sulfur-high ash resistivity coal. (50%)
• The potential environmental impact of many currently available flue gas conditioning
agents will be assessed, and an environmentally acceptable flue gas conditioning
agent for improving the performance of ESPs will be developed. This project will
provide EPA with basis for decisions concerning the use of low sulfur coal as a
current alternative to SO scrubbing, and will allow utilities when switching to low
sulfur coal to use existing ESPs, thus avoiding very expensive retrofits. (80%, 100%)
• Three mobile particulate control units—an ESP, a scrubber and a baghouse--will be
used for field tests of the particulate control difficulty anticipated for selected,
priority industrial sources, and as a basis for recommending the most suitable
collection device.
• The development of improved fabrics, aimed at expanding the operating range and
capability of baghouses for fine particulate control, will continue. This work will
have an impact on the potential application of fabric filters, the most efficient
of the conventional collectors, to a broad variety of industries to meet current
and future standards.
• A comprehensive, multimedia emissions characterizations and source assessment of
56 important combustion source categories will be conducted. Sources will include
priority utility, industrial, commercial and residential combustion systems. Results
will be used by EPA to examine regulatory strategies and standards options and to
prioritize control technology needs. (60%)
• An environmental assessment of conventional stationary combustion sources will be
performed aimed at estimating control costs and multimedia pollutant residuals
resulting from use of best current and projected control techniques and disposal
options. (30%)
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($943,000) Rank No. 17
• The most promising high temperature, high pressure particulate control technology
will be demonstrated at a pilot scale. This technology must be proven and developed
* Figure in parenthesis indicates percent completion of project with budgeted funding.
36
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to commercial scale before advanced energy processes such as FBC, CAFBC, and those
using synthetic fuels can be successfully commercialized. (30%)
New particulate control concepts associated with electrostatic enhancement of fabric
filters and device oriented control of fugitive emissions will be investigated. The
enhancement of filters will offer more efficient fine particle control at a con-
siderable energy savings, and the development of devices to control fugitive emissions
will aid in the setting of standards and implementation of control techniques for this
currently uncontrolled source of particulate matter. (100%, 30%)
Fine particle control technology transfer conferences will be organized and sponsored
to inform the user sector of the results of EPA's ongoing R&D program and to encourage
the use of the most modern and efficient control methods. (100%)
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($1,968,000) Rank No. 34
• The full-scale baghouse demonstration for dry control of particulate emissions from
a 350 MW boiler firing low sulfur western coal will be expanded to include the dry
control of SO by sorbent injection. Successful demonstration will provide a dry
method of simultaneously controlling both SO and particulate emissions, will reduce
greatly the problems associated with the disposal of sludge from SO scrubbers, and
will give the western utilities a method for utilizing western sulfur coal while
still meeting the very stringent local state standards for SO and particulate. (50%)
X
A comparative, multi-media environmental assessment for two exemplary utility
boilers (incorporating best currently available environmental control technology
combinations)--one firing a typical eastern coal and the other residual oil—will be
made. Results will permit an environmental comparison of controlled and uncontrolled
pollutant residuals for these two important combustion categories. (80%)
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PROGRAM
COMPONENT
Energy/Environment Control Technology
SUBCOMPONENT
Waste and Water
Control
ACTIVITY
Waste and
Water Pollu-
tion Concrol
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 LOWEST BUDGET
TOTAL $1,675,000
FIRST INCREMENT
$1,133,000
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The purpose of this decision package is to evaluate, develop, and
demonstrate control technologies for minimizing or eliminating the
adverse environmental effects of solid wastes and liquid discharges from
power plants, including the effects of cooling systems. These tech-
nologies include chemical treatment (and other methods for disposal or
utilization) of flue gas cleaning wastes (scrubber sludge and coal ash)
to prevent contamination of surface and ground waters through run-off
and leaching caused by rainfall; increased recycle and reuse of water to
minimize consumption, thereby also minimizing or eliminating discharges;
advanced treatment methods of waste streams where discharges are neces-
sary; and advanced cooling systems such as dry cooling towers to mini-
mize cooling water consumption in areas where water is scarce or expen-
sive. Development/demonstration of these technologies will serve to
support current SO^/particulate regulations, current and future effluent
guidelines, and future solid waste regulations. In addition, these
technologies will support the growth of coal-produced energy in an
environmentally acceptable manner.
USE OF OUTPUTS
Developments under this activity will have direct application to the
electric utility industry and other industries which use fossil fuels to
generate large quantities of energy. Flue gas cleaning waste disposal/
utilization efforts will provide a variety of options so that the most
38
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cost-effective approach, for a specific plant site, can be taken to pre-
vent water pollution caused by disposal of these wastes. This will
allow plants to meet New Source Performance Standards and will support
attainment of Ambient Air Quality Standards for SO. and particulates in
a manner which will avoid secondary pollution effects. Water recycle/
reuse and effluent treatment efforts will also provide a variety of
options so that the most cost-effective approach can be taken to mini-
mizing water consumption and effluent discharges. This will allow
plants to meet current Effluent Guidelines as well as providing tech-
nology for establishment of future guidelines. Advanced cooling systems
efforts will be aimed at: dry (non-evaporative) cooling systems to
eliminate cooling water consumption and other effects such as cooling
tower drift (fogging); and prevention of entrapment of fish and other
aquatic life in cooling water intake structures.
Developments under this activity will serve as a data base for Federal,
state, and local groups who regulate or advise industry in environmental
and land use matters.
DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWEST BUDGET ($1,675,000) Rank No. 10
0 Evaluation of commercially available, environmentally acceptable
methods for disposal and utilization of flue gas cleaning wastes
will continue and be completed in support of air pollution and
solid waste regulations.
0 Pilot demonstration of FGD waste disposal in a coal mine will be con-
ducted to provide an alternative to on-site disposal for power plants
which lack land for waste disposal (co-funded). (45%)*
0 Pilot studies to improve FGD waste solids will be completed to pro-
vide a reduction in the volume of waste generated by FGD systems,
thereby also reducing the water pollution potential of these wastes.
(100%)
0 Long-term weathering studies of chemically treated FGD wastes will
be conducted to insure that no future environmental problems will
be encountered from disposal of these wastes. (50%)
e Pilot demonstration of reclamation (revegetation) of an FGD waste
disposal site will be completed to demonstrate proper disposal tech-
niques for FGD waste. (100%)
0 Studies for marketing of FGD by-products will be completed to provide
a firm economic basis for utilization of these waste products, there-
by avoiding potential pollution effects of their disposal. (100%)
*Figure in parenthesis indicates percent completion of project with
projected funding. _Q
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o Pilot demonstration of water recycle/reuse techniques will be con-
ducted at an actual power plant to minimize water consumption and
prevent unnecessary discharges. (50%)*
o Development of a magnesium carbonate water treatment process will
be completed to provide an effective inexpensive method for re-
ducing suspended solids, silica, and hardness in cooling tower make-
up water, thereby allowing the use of lower quality water. (100%)
0 Pilot demonstration of alternatives to chlorination for cooling
system biofouling control will be initiated to eliminate the poten-
tial environmental effects of chlorine discharges. (10%)
0 Pilot demonstration of membrane technology for treatment of various
power plant effluent streams will be conducted to minimize chemical
discharges and allow plants to meet effluent guidelines. (40%)
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($1,133,000) Rank No. 25
o Pilot demonstration of FGD waste disposal in a coal mine will be
expanded to include a comparison of the environmental effects and
economics of untreated versus chemically treated wastes (co-funded
program). (65%)
0 Pilot demonstration of advanced techniques for dewatering FGD wastes
to reduce the volume of wastes generated will be completed. (100%)
o Case studies of site-specific factors to evolve a design approach
for disposal of flue gas cleaning wastes will be initiated so that
the best disposal method for a specific plant can be selected. (20%)
0 Pilot demonstration of water recycle/reuse techniques will be expanded
to include the examination of additional options so that closer to op-
timum integrated water use arrangement can be determined. (65%)
° Pilot demonstration of alternatives to chlorination for cooling system
biofouling control will be expanded to two techniques (rather than a
single approach); this should enhance the opportunity for establishment
of several options. (20%)
0 Evaluation of ammonia as an intermediate fluid in the cooling circuit
in a dry cooling tower will be initiated to enhance the use of dry
cooling systems in water-scarce areas (co-funded program). (30%)
*Figure in parenthesis indicates percent completion of project with
projected funding.
40
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0 Development of a porous dike intake structure for cooling systems
will be initiated to reduce fish entrapment and entrainment of
larvae and post-larvae, reducing the environmental impact of cool-
ing systems (co-funded program). (25%)*
o Studies of waste heat utilization in future energy systems will be
initiated to reduce environmental effects of thermal discharges and
promote energy conservation. (25%)
*Figure in parenthesis indicates percent completion of project with
projected funding.
41
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PROGRAM
COMPONENT
SUBCOMPONENT
ACTIVITY
Energy/Environment Control Technology
Direct Combustion
Fluidized
Bed Combustion
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 LOWEST BUDGET
TOTAL $2,951,000
FIRST INCREMENT
TOTAL $2,346,000
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
TOTAL $714,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The purpose of this decision package is two-fold; 1) to continue with the characterization
of the air and water pollution, solid residues and other environmental problems associated
with atmospheric and pressurized FBC processes thereby establishing environmental goals for
the Fluidized Bed Combustion processes and 2) to continue to develop at laboratory and bench
scale the control technology necessary for adequate control of all the indicated pollutants,
with consideration given to all media for all variations of the FBC processes.
USE OF OUTPUTS
Outputs of this decision package will be used by EPA to independently assess the environ-
mental impact of the FBC processes to establish appropriate data base for environmental
standards development and best multimedia control practice for the processes, and to carry
out a program to develop the necessary control technology. The control technology developed
in this decision package will be applied by all users of FBC systems, thus ensuring that the
systems operate in an environmentally acceptable manner.
DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWEST BUDGET ($2,951,000)
Rank No. 6
Comprehensive Analysis of Emissions which will Identify Significant
Environmental Problems (15%).Results will be used by IERL to compare
with independently-derived environmental goals (based upon health/
ecological effects) for the process; this comparison will enable
definition of derived control technology development program. Will
also be used within EPA to identify those compounds for which addi-
tional health/ecological effects data and analytical techniques are
necessary. Will identify whether process involves environmental
hazard not previously recognized. Are necessary data base to enable
recommendation of environmental standards.
42
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0 Complete Design of an Environmental Testing Program which can be
Implemented on the Earliest Demonstration Program Sponsored by~ERDA
(60%).. Data from this designed test program will provide IERL with
an important part of the data base necessary to recommend standards
for atmospheric FBC, to develop manuals of best available technology,
to plan future program requirements, and to lay the groundwork for
policy. The data will also provide independent environmental review
of ERDA's FBC technology development program.
Interim Emission Goals will be Established and Preliminary Recom-
mendations for Emission Standards for Atmopsheric FBC Systems
(90%). This information will be used by EPA's Program Offices to
develop environmental standards; this output is a key purpose of
the IERL program. The emission goals will be used by IERL to plan
their control technology program.
0 Laboratory and Bench Scale Units will be Operated to Develop Best
Available Control Technology Recommendations for Atmospheric FB"C (25%)
The results can be used by IERL in recommending large-scale testing
on ERDA units to confirm best available control technology. Once
the technology is confirmed on larger scale, it can be used by EPA
enforcement personnel and by industry users/suppliers.
Recommendation will be Provided on the Best Available Control Technology
for Atmospheric FBC Systems and Documented in Manual Form (90%1~]This
crucial information can be used by: EPA program offices in developing
standards; EPA enforcement personnel in enforcing standards; ERDA in
assessing the combustion technology that they are developing; and users/
process developers/control technology developers/suppliers in industry.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($2,346,000) Rank No. 20
Develop Control Technology for Pressurized Fluid Bed Combustion. The
results can be used by IERL in recommending large-scale tesTing on
ERDA units to confirm best available control technology for pressurized
systems. The results will provide initial guidance to ERDA and industry
concerning likely control requirements.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($714,000) Rank No. 29
0 Accelerate-Environmental Assessment of Atmospheric FBC Systems. Results
will be used by IERL to compare (on an accelerated basis) comprehensive
emissions data with health/ecological effects goals, thus identifying
the environmental impact of the process and control needs. Results will
also expand the data base needed by the program offices for standards
setting.
0 Accelerate Control Technology Development of Atmospheric FBC Systems.
Will accelerate acquisition of data needed by: EPA program offices
in developing standards; EPA enforcement personnel in enforcing
standards; ERDA in assessing the combustion technology that they are
developing; and users/process developers/control technology suppliers
in industry.
43
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PROGRAM
COMPONENT
SUBCOMPONENT
ACTIVITY
Energy/Environment Control Technology
Direct Combustion
Advanced Oil
Processing
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENC¥
FY-1978 LOWEST BUDGET
TOTAL $1,532,000
FIRST INCREMENT
TOTAL 0
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
TOTAL $1,318,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The purpose of this decision package is to 1) define processing/utilization options for
residual oil which minimize multimedia environmental insult and identify related problem
areas and 2) develop and demonstrate on a small commercial scale, a chemically active
fluidized bed fuel cleanup process capable of utilizing residual fuel oils as well as other-
solid fuels which are now difficult or impossible to utilize in an environmentally acceptable
manner. The package is composed of an environmental and economic assessment, pre-demon-
stration engineering and technical support, demonstration unit design, installation and
operation, and engineering analysis of demonstration results. All of these elements will be
integrated in support of a program aimed at residual oil utilization environmental guidelines.
USE OF OUTPUTS
The data resulting frmm this package will allow the identification of potential environmental
problems resulting from process operation and provide information on potential solutions to
these problems. Such information is necessary to the development of environmental standards
for the operation of this source category. The information can be used to devise and
refine monitoring techniques, determine the adequacy of existing techniques for effluent
control, and identify requirements for development of new or modified control technologies.
The design and operation data can also be utilized in the design of retrofit systems for
current users who must abandon or reduce their use of conventional gaseous fuels but who
desire to maintain their existing equipment. The data will substantially reduce the risk in
the design of such equipment to both the vendor and the user, and thus increase the accept-
ability of such a process in the commercial market.
44
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWEST BUDGET ($1,532,000) Rank No. 13
0 Definition of Key Existing and Projected Processing/Utilization
Options for Residual Oil and the Preliminary Environmental Assessment
of Problems and Advantages Associated with These Options (60%).
EPA, NIOSH, the Administration, Congress, and environmental groups
will be able to evaluate the environmental alternatives and control
options using the information developed in the output. Industry,
both process developers and control technology developers, will be
given a clearer picture of the challenges and opportunities facing
them.
Initiation of the Characterization of Available Residual Fuels in
Terms of Types, Quantities, and Associated Chemical and Biological
Hazards (30%). The health and ecological groups in EPA will use
this output, in the form of .samples and information to perform
source characterization, evaluate test facilities and satisfy ecologi-
cal testing needs, and pollutant effects data needs. The EPA groups
in the environmental sciences area will use this output to define
analytical needs, perform pollutant transport/transformation studies
and evaluate test facilities using the samples for cross checks.
Completion of Pre-Demonstration Testing and Development of a Test
Program for the Chemically Active Fluid Bed Process (CAFB) (100%).
NIOSH will use this output for information on the process and like
processes. The samples collected (and the evaluation) will provide
much data to NIOSH while relieving them of much of data acquisition
burden.
0 Post-Demonstration Engineering Analysis and Development of Detailed
Operating Procedures for CAFB (90%). The EPA program offices will
use this output for problem definition, control and disposal alterna-
tives evaluation and for cost input to the standards setting
process. This output will also give a basis for policy and planning
activities in EPA. The Regional offices will derive information on
problems and control options on a multimedia basis. Technical
assistance to the regions is also included in this output.
0 Preparation of Specific Reports:
- Alternatives for Solid Effluent Control (70%)
Criteria for Disposal of Solid Effluents (70%)
- Alternatives for Control of Water Effluents (70%)
- Alternatives for Control of Air Effluents (70%)
- Final Report on Process Design, Operation and
Engineering Analysis (70%)
These reports will provide information to the general public on the problems
and control technology. The EPA program offices will use these reports for
problem definition, the development and definition of control and disposal
options and to give cost input to the standards setting procedure.
45
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OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($0) Rank No.(None)
Same as lowest budget.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($1,318,000) Rank No. 40
0 Perform Levels 1 and 2* Environmental Assessment Sampling and Analysis
for Major Residual Oil Processing/Utilization Technologies to Provide
Basic Environmental Data on Process Operation (Will bring the project
to 75% completion.) The EPA health and ecological effects groups
will obtain samples from this output and will also receive input to
aid them in source characterization, determining ecological testing
needs, and in assessing the adequacy of their test facilities. The
state and local regulatory agencies can use this output for a clearer
picture of the multimedia integration of industry environmental con-
siderations 1 The industrial process developers can use this output
for a better definition of the requirements of and opportunities open
to their processes.
0 Perform Optimization of the CAFE Demonstration Process for Residual Oil,
Lignite and other Coals in Order to Reduce Overall Risk in Design of
Future Units and thus Increase the Commercial Acceptability of the Tech-
nology (Bring to 75% completion). Industry will benefit from this output.
All segments will be able to judge what opportunities are open to them
for supplying equipment, fuel, service, or for adopting this process to
meet their energy/environmental requirements.
* Level 1 - Comprehensive Screening
Level 2 Directed Detailed Analysis Based on Level 1
Level 3 Process Monitoring on Selected Priority Pollutants Based on Levels 1 and 2
46
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PROGRAM
COMPONENT
SUBCOMPONENT
ACTIVITY
Energy/Environment Control Technology
Energy Conservation and
Advanced Technologies
Synthetic
Fuels (Coal)
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 MINIMUM BUDGET 1 FIRST INCREMENT
TOTAL $2,743,000
TOTAL $1,788,000
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
TOTAL $488,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The purpose of this decision package is two-fold; 1) to characterize the environmental problems
associated with processes for converting fossil fuels into cleaner fuels and to assess alter-
natives for reducing any negative environmental impact or enhancing any positive impacts,
and 2) to develop, evaluate and demonstrate environmentally sound control technology applicable
to fuel treatment processing and converter output streams, products and by-product streams
from fuel conversion/fuel utilization streams, system waste utilization and disposal streams,
coal preparation and feeding streams, and wastewater treatment streams.
USE OF OUTPUTS
Outputs of this decision package will be used by EPA on an independent basis for environmental
evaluations and identification of best multi-media control practices. Outputs will also be
used by process and equipment developers, by process owners or users, and by regulatory agencies
and other interested parties in programs to establish appropriate environmental standards for
-synthetic fuel processes, .and in programs .to apply-the control technology necessary to ensure
that the systems operate in an environmentally acceptable manner.
DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWEST BUDGET ($2,743,000)
0 Characterization of Environmental Problems Associated with
Low-BTU and High-Bill Gasification and Liquefaction Processes.
The output will be used by EPA's health and ecological groups
and by IERL for determining their program emphasis, by inte-
grated assessment contracts as needed intput; by regulatory
agencies (local, state and federal), by ERDA for process develop-
ment guidelines, by environmental groups for public awareness
and by industry in selection of alternatives.
- Initial reports on chemical, physcial, and biological
screening tests on laboratory, bench-scale, pilot plant
and commercial scale Levels 1/2* (75%)
Rank No. 11
* Level 1 Comprehensive Screening
Level 2 - Directed Detailed Analysis Based on Level 1
Level 3 - Process Monitoring on Selected Priority Pollutants Based on Levels 1 and 2
n.47
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Environmental alternatives analysis initiated (20%)
Review of available environmental impact statements for the synthetic
fuels commercialization program and for various specific synthetic
fuels demonstration program (100%)
- Initiate research data base for multimedia standards development
and review any guidelines, regulations and standards development
by the program official (30%)
° Evaluate Existing Technology-Transferrable Control Options (60%). The
output will be used by EPA for standards setting, enforcement and
program direction, by ERDA for process development and by industry
for satisfying regulations and for process development.
Identify best options
- Identify control development needs
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($1,788,000) Rank No. 26
0 Increase Environmental Assessment Program for High BTU Gasification
Process (will bring project to 25% completion). The incremental
output will be used by regulatory agenciesto address the new
technologies, by environmental effects groups to determine differ-
ences from older technology and by development groups to ascertain
the relative advantages or disadvantages of the technology and
its merit of pursuit.
0 Initiate New Control Evaluation, Development for Gas Treatment
(bring to 10% completion). The incremental output will be used
by EPA to have controls available for attainment or improvement
of ambient air quality, by EPA to protect the public health and
welfare, by industry to seed their development of needed controls,
and by regulatory agencies as options; e.g., tradeoffs on preven-
tion of significant deterioration.
° Initiate New Control Evaluation/Development for Water and Solids Waste
Treatment (brings to 10% completion). The incremental output will
be used by regulatory agencies to establish more cost effective alterna-
tives, by health and ecological groups especially in long term and
water effects.
° Initiate New Control Evaluation/Development for Product/By-Product
Treatment (brings to 10% completion)"!The incremental output will
be used by regulatory agencies, by industry to allow utilization of
otherwise unacceptable materials, by industry as seed to indicate
the benefits of private process control development, and by ERDA
for decision making by evaluation of marketability of by-products
which would affect the main product's competitiveness.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($488,000) Rank No. 38
0 Increase Bench-Scale Generic Control Process Evaluation in Support
of Standards Development (brings to 10% completion). The incre-
mental output would be used by regulatory agencies, by EPA and
other groups for determining environmental and worker effects, and
by ERDA and private industry as a data base for needed control
development.
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- Increase carbonyl sulfide and organic sulfur development at
existing gas treatment test facility
- Initiate design/construct!on of a solids treatment test facility
- Initiate design and experimental program for Fischer Tropsch
indirect liquefaction test facility
'-Provide Pilot Scale Evaluation Support for Direct Stretford Sulfur
Control/Water Treatment for Fixed Bed Low Btu Gasifier [Morgantown)
(brings to 50% completion). The incremental output would be used
by EPA and other regulatory agencies, by ERDA for process evaluation,
by industry for guidance in implementing the technology, and by
health effects and assessment groups to provide input for better
quality and more statistically significant results.
49
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PROGRAM COMPONENT SUBCOMPONENT ACTIVITY
Energy/Environment Control Technology Fuel Processing Synthetic Fuels/
Non-Coal
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 LOWEST LEVEL BUDGET
EPA (IERL-CI) $1,110,000
TOTAL $1,110,000
FIRST INCREMENT
$1+00,000
TOTAL $UOO,000
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
$200,000
TOTAL $200,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Various non-coal "based synthetic fuel processes are under development. The
environmental and health effects of producing and utilizing synthetic fuels
from oil shale, biomass, etc., are not thoroughly understood. This activity
will identify the probable environmental effects of such processes and then
develop and demonstrate pollution control technology to allow appropriate
environmental standards to be written, adequate pollution control methods
to be specified, and commercialization of synthetic fuel processes to proceed
at a maximum rate. The program will also develop the necessary methodology
and technical data base on processes to assist regulatory authorities in
monitoring emerging energy commercialization activities. The program will
facilitate development of environmental protection technology, concurrent
with process development, to accelerate commercialization.
USE OF OUTPUTS
Research results will be utilized by:
• Industries and utilities in developing design and operational specifica-
tions for utilization of synthetic fuels.
• Equipment designers and manufacturers in developing equipment to control
pollution from production of synthetic fuels-*
e Federal, State and local authorities in setting standards and developing
guidelines for production and utilization of synthetic fuels from non-
coal sources.
50
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWEST BUDGET ($1,110,000) Rank No. 8
• Pollution control methods and devices will be tested on pilot-scale
retorting of oil shale at:
• Paraho (Anvil Points, Colorado) - surface retorting
• ERDA or Occidental - in-situ retorting
• An assessment of the "best available control technologies for the emerging
oil shale industry will be completed.
• An Analytical Methods Manual for expected pollutants from the syn-fuel
industry will be prepared.
• Analytical reports on non-coal synthetic fuel pollutant emissions and
control technology assessment will be prepared for:
• Preliminary Environmental Assessment of a Hydrogen Economy
• Macro-Economic and Macro-Environmental Study of Biomass Fuel vs „ Coal
OUTPUTS FROM THE FIRST INCREMENT ($^00,000) Rank No. 23
9 Will extend pollution control technology testing to include Union
or Tosco II pilot plants in addition to those listed under the first
item in Description of Outputs for Lowest Budget.
OUTPUT FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($200,000) Rank No. 36
• Will provide evaluation of the environmental impacts of both the
Union Oil and Tosco II processes for oil sha]s.
^ Will produce a Manual of Practice on best available pollution control
technologies for the synthetic fuel (non-coal) industries. This will be
used by regulatory agencies to set standards and by individual companies
to design pollution control equipment.
51
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PROGRAM COMPONENT SUBCOMPONENT ACTIVITY
Energy/Environment Control Technology Energy Conservation Advanced Energy
& Advanced Energy Conversion
Technology Cycles
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 LOWEST LEVEL BUDGET
EPA $400,000
FIRST INCREMENT
0
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
$200,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Advanced power systems such as high temperature turbines, magnetohydrodynami.es,
fuel cells, etc. are more efficient than conventional systems. Every percent
increase in average efficiency of electric power generation results in large
reductions of pollutants generated per unit of power produced. In some respects,
then, these more efficient systems can L>e considered as pollution control alter-
natives to conventional systems. This program will assess the projected envir-
onmental impacts of advanced energy conversion technologies for electric power
generation and will assure the development and evaluation of control systems
for problem effluents from these technologies. This, in turn, will allow
pollution controls to be designed into advanced power systems from the start
and will allow realistic environmental regulations and standards to be formulated.
Using the results of this program, EPA, in cooperation with other agencies such
as ERDA, will not only be able to anticipate and provide for solution of envir-
onmental problems but will also, where predictions of efficiency and environ-
mental benefit warrant, encourage development and commercialization of the
more environmentally advantageous advanced power systems.
USE OF OUTPUTS
• Results will be used by Federal and State regulatory offices to establish
practical and environmentally acceptable standards and guidelines for the
developing advanced power cycle industry.
• Effluents identified as potentially toxic will be "flagged" for investigation
of health effects, need to control, inclusion in NSPS, etc.
• Results will be used by designers of advanced systems to identify effluents
for which new or improved controls must be developed. Models will be
utilized to predict effects on cycle efficiencies and outputs of adding
or changing pollutant control systems.
Companies and organizations using environmental assessment data from the advanced
cycle analyses as inputs for power plant designs, pollutant control system
research and development, and formulation of guidelines and regulations include:
1. US ERDA and their contractors.
2. US EPA regulatory and enforcement programs.
3. State and local environmental control agencies.
4. Commercial power plant and component designers and builders.
5. Privately owned electric utilities and TVA.
DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWEST BUDGET ($400,000) Rank No. 14
A major environmental assessment began 4/76 and is scheduled for completion 4/79.
This study requires incremental funding in FY78. Outputs from this assessment
will include:
52
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• Identification and quantification of projected gaseous, liquid, and solid
effluents from advanced energy conversion cycles that use coal or coal-
derived fuels.
• Evaluation of expected performance of pollution control systems known to be
applicable to these kinds of waste streams.
• Identification of pollutants for which new control systems need to be
developed or for which further research on environmental transport, fate,
or effects is needed.
• Comparisons of candidate cycles with regard to both efficiency and environ-
mental impact.
Involvement is also planned for FY78 in the planning and design of an ERDA
magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) component test facility at Butte, Montana, to:
• Provide, through the use of models, increased and more comprehensive
consideration of environmental effects of combustion and the generation
of trace elements or other toxic emissions.
OUTPUTS FROM THE FIRST INCREMENT ($0) Rank No. (None)
Same as minimum budget.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($200,000) Rank No. 39
• The effects of fuel droplet size and distribution on gas turbine combustor
emissions will be determined. This will contribute to the design of more
efficient turbines with lower emissions. Included will be a determination
of the effect of high fuel-bound nitrogen on NOX emissions when using coal-
derived liquid fuel. These outputs would lead to defensible emission standards
for these processes.
53
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PROGRAM COMPONENT SUBCOMPONENT ACTIVITY
Energy/Environmental Control Technology Energy Conservation & Advanced
Adv. Energy Technology Energy Systems
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-78 LOWEST LEVEL BUDGET
EPA (IERL-C1) $400,000
EPA (EMSL-LV) 100,000
TOTAL $500,000
FIRST INCREMENT
$200,000
100,000
TOTAL $300,000
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
$600,000
100,000
TOTAL $700,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Assure that our environment will be properly protected from pollution resulting
from the development and commercialization of geothermal and solar energy con-
version technologies. Environmental assessments of these conversion technologies
will be conducted to identify and characterize waste discharges, to predict their
potential environmental effects, and to define required control technologies.
These technologies will be developed and demonstrated where required and early
enough to be applied by the time of full-scale commercialization. Realistic
effluent and emission standards for these industries will be developed. In
addition, because of the expected minimum environmental impact of solar energy
systems, another purpose is to encourage the more rapid development and commer-
cialization of this technology as a means of conserving conventional fuels.
USE OF OUTPUTS
• Geothermal fluid characterization and gaseous waste emission data and evalu-
ation reports will be used by geothermal energy developers (both ERDA, DOI,
and others) to begin to develop appropriate environmental protection pro-
cedures and devices.
• Reports will be used to establish, by EPA and/or State and local air and
water pollution regulatory authorities, preliminary environmental standards,
control guidelines and discharge permits for the geothermal industry.
• Reports will provide baseline information to help define for regulators,
ERDA and the industry what new control techniques and processes need
development.
• Evaluation reports of gas (principally H2S) control technology will be used
for air pollution control agencies, the industry and ERDA to show attainable
emission levels; also input to EPA development of New Source Performance
Standards.
• Solar energy outputs will be provided to industrial and residential sectors
and ERDA to assist in fostering adoption of such technologies as pollution
control alternatives.
54
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWEST BUDGET ($500,000) Rank No. 9
• The pollutants and physical properties of geothermal fluids will be
characterized for various locations.
• The characteristics of geothermal gaseous waste emissions from liquid-
dominated resources and associated ranges of expected ecological effects will
be determined.
• A preliminary evaluation will be made of noncondensible gas control technology
that is applicable to the geothermal industry.
• Analysis will be made of the net environmental benefits from the replacement
of fossil fuels by solar energy.
• An evaluation of the use of solar energy in wastewater treatment will be
conducted.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($300,000) Rank No. 24
• Ground water in geothermal areas will be characterized prior to development of
geothermal resources providing a monitoring baseline for ground water pro-
tection to be used by agencies charged with protecting ground water quality.
• Chemistry of geothermal fluids upon loss of temperature and pressure and mix-
ing with ground water will be investigated, and will provide data for use in
the design of geothermal brine disposal wells. These data will be used by
industrial developers and Federal/State ground water protection agencies.
• Solar energy use will be demonstrated at an EPA facility to conserve con-
ventional fuels and to promote this technology to private and industrial
sectors as an environmentally attractive pollution control alternative.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($700,000) Rank No. 37
• Ecological changes and potential damage from mixing geothermal fluids with
surface waters will be established; data will be used to develop adequate
standards by EPA and the States for protection of surface waters.
• First phase efforts toward development of wastewater control technology will
coincide with conversion technology application; to be used by EPA to develop
effluent and emission standards, and by plant designers.
• Environmental assessment of ocean thermal energy conversion power generation
plants will be conducted; output will help to assure that adequate environ-
mental controls are developed; to be used by EPA, DOT, ERDA, States and
industrial developers; guidelines would eventually result.
55
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PROGRAM
COMPONENT
SUBCOMPONENT
ACTIVITY
Energy/Environment
Control Technology
Energy Conservation
,& Advanced Energy
Technology
Industrial
Energy
Conservation
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 LOWEST LEVEL BUDGET
EPA $400,000
TOTAL $400,000
FIRST INCREMENT
$300,000
TOTAL $300,000
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
$500,000
TOTAL $500,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
This program will assess the probable environmental benefits and consequences
of enforced and/or voluntary energy conservation in the United States. Particular
attention will be given to industrial energy conservation. The assessments will
describe waste discharges, environmental effects, and required controls resulting
from energy conservation techniques likely to be adopted within 5-10 years. The
program will emphasize environmental benefits of energy conservation through de-
creased and/or optimal usage of fuels and the recovery and utilization of currently-
wasted heat. In addition, the program will identify techniques that are more
energy efficient and environmentally beneficial. The program will assist in
demonstrating such techniques and encouraging their applications.
USE OF OUTPUTS
• Reports from a study of the environmental benefits of energy conservation for
selected Air Quality Control Regions will be used by EPA, State air quality
planners, permit authorities, and energy conservation planners to determine
whether environmental quality could be improved or whether pollution increments
resulting from industrial growth might be partially or totally compensated for
by the adoption of area-wide energy conservation methods.
• The reports from an assessment of waste heat utilization will be used in
assisting Federal, State and local energy and environmental agencies and
industrial planners in developing methods and technologies for recovery and
use of waste heat resulting in environmental and energy payoffs.
• The information developed from a demonstration of hyperfiltration will be
used by regulatory offices in the development and/or revision of Effluent
Guidelines to reduce pollution loadings in the textile dyeing and finishing
industry. The reports will be used by design engineers for the development
of water pollution control systems.
DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWEST BUDGET ($400,000)
Rank No. 15
• Identification and quantification of the impact of various degrees and types of
energy conservation activities on pollution discharges in typical Air Quality
Control Regions, including some in which ambient air quality standards are
being violated.
• Description and assessment of waste heat utilization potential in the industrial
sector and the environmental benefits of recovering and using such heat.
56
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• Demonstration of hyperfiltration as a pollution control process for the textile
dyeing and finishing industry with the ability to meet 1983 Effluent Guidelines
which simultaneously conserve energy.
OUTPUTS FROM THE FIRST INCREMENT ($300,000) Rank No. 28
• Detailed energy requirements for municipal and industrial pollution control
processes. Results would be used by design engineers in specifying the most
energy-effective and environmentally adequate methods.
• Assessment of the feasibility of recovering waste industrial hydrocarbons as
an energy source and simultaneous pollution control method; this alternative
can then be considered by design engineers and regulatory authorities.
OUTPUT FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($500,000) Rank No. 41
• Determination of trade-off between energy extraction from hot stack gases
and the adverse environmental effects of reduced plume temperatures; output
would be used by both regulatory authorities and design en-gineers.
• Assessment of the potential for environmental benefits from industrial process
use of energy conserving fluidized bed combustion; this output would be used
by process development engineers and regulatory officials.
• Analysis of pollutant type and emission levels from new energy-efficient
primary copper smelting processes; output would be used by EPA in developing
New Source Performance Standards.
57
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COMPONENT^ SUBCOMPONENT ACTIVITY
Energy/Environment Control Technology Energy Conservation & Wastes as Fuel
'Adv. Energy Technology
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-H97S LOWEST
EPA (pass-thru
EPA (MERL)
EPA (lERL-Ci)
TOTAL
LEVEL BUDGET
to Navy) $ 300,000
2,600,000
$2,900,000
FIRST INCREMENT
$ 200,000
325,000
675,000
TOTAL $1,200,000
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
$ 0
75,000
825,000
TOTAL $900,000
J3TATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The principal objective of the EPA vaste-as-fuel research program is to assure that
solid vaste will "be used effectively to help meet our energy needb in an environ-
mentally acceptable fashion. Recent environmental regulations are forcing some
communities to consider alternatives to land and ocean dumping of solid wastes.
Use of wastes as fuel minimizes the problems of disposing of solid wastes while
permitting recovery of energy and other material values. Use of wastes as fuels
presents an unusual set of environmental impacts arising from the diversity of
materials being processed. These problems will be addressed through developing
systems which provide cost-effective municipal/industrial/agricultural solid waste
management and simultaneous beneficial energy recovery with proper control of
undesirable air, water, and land pollution impacts.
USE OF OUTPUTS
• Federal (EPA), State and local environmental bodies having regulatory
(standards-setting and enforcement) responsibilities will use results to establish
practicable and environmentally acceptable standards and guidelines for the
developing waste-as-fuel industry.
• Municipalities, industries, and utilities and their consulting engineers and
equipment vendors will apply the results of this research in determining whether
and when to proceed with full-scale, broad applications of these technologies.
* Federal and State energy agencies (e.g., ERDA) will utilize program outputs:
• to help in establishing their own positions and priorities with regard
to waste-as-fuel technologies; and
• to encourage the transition from demonstration programs to full-scale
commercialization.
DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWEST BUDGET ($2,900,000)
Rank No. 7
The program will produce technological, economic, and environmental assessments of
several of the major waste-as-fuel processes under development. The R&D will
include the development and the environmental assessment, on a large scale, of at
least five different waste-as-supplementary fuel options (using industrial,
municipal, and agricultural wastes as the supplementary fuels). The research
will also produce bench-scale and pilot-plant scale data to enable generation of
various parametric technical and environmental analyses applicable to concurrently
developing waste pyrolysis processes.
58
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A nummary of the major outputs from the Lovest Level Program is:
• Feasibility studies for two new waste-as-fuel processes will be completed
(e.g., bench-scale R&D on an improved waste liquefaction process).
• Assessments of co-firing municipal solid waste, sewage sludge and several
industrial wastes with coal will be carried out; these technological assess-
ments will determine the environmental implications of these processes as well.
• EPA's waste-to-gasoline project with the Navy will be developed through the
pilot-plant scale.
• EPA's portable pyrolysis project for agricultural waste will be completed;
energy products include readily transportable fuel oil and char.
• Three additional commercial-scale waste-as-fuel technologies will be thoroughly
assessed via detailed environmental pollution characterizations (e.g., a
municipal waste co-firing with coal option or a hazardous industrial waste
pyrolysis option); third-party process evaluations (technical and economic) of
waste-as-fuel technologies will be completed.
• Several air and water pollution control devices will be developed and evaluated
at pilot-plant scale for their efficiencies in removing air and water pollutants
from waste-as-fuel processes; "air" devices will include, for example, high-
energy scrubbers for the capture of HC1 and incremental Hg and Pb emissions
coming from waste co-firing with coal operations.
OUTPUTS FROM THE FIRST INCREMENT ($1,200,000)Rank No. ~22
Funding of this increment will provide the following outputs in addition to the
outputs described for the lowest level program:
• A feasibility study of the multi-waste gasification/pyrolysis process will be
completed... a very promising alternative to waste co-combustion at existing
power plants will thus be evluated for the benefit of the utility and petroleum
refining industries.
• Bioconversion of waste materials to fuel (e.g., acid hydrolysis) will be evaluated
to assess its probable technical, economic and environmental feasibility; this
will provide the industrial chemicals and petrochemicals industries with informa-
tion on potential waste-derived feedstocks and fuel-extenders.
« Evaluations of several innovative techniques for preparation of waste-as-fuel
materials for conversion to energy (e.g., new shredding and classification
methods) will be produced; the entire waste-to-energy technological area will
benefit from this research.
• A fourth commercial-scale waste-as-fuel technology will be assessed providing
the data for New Source Performance Standards.
OUTPUT FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($900,000)Rank No. 35
Funding to this level will provide the following outputs in addition to those
previously mentioned:
» Pilot-plant scale testing of the multi-waste gasification concept will be
conducted; the concept involves the clean, centralized gasification/pyrolysis
of many different wastes (e.g., municipal refuse, sewage sludge, hazardous
industrial wastes/sludges, agricultural wastes, etc.) into three much-needed
energy products—fuel gas, fuel oil and char. Pilot development of this promis-
ing technology will benefit municipalities, industrial and agricultural opera-
tions having waste disposal problems, and the power and petroleum refining indus-
tries, as well as improve the outlook for solving our energy/environmental problem.
• The initial phase of a major effort on agricultural waste conversion to energy
will be completed, thereby benefiting those States with agricultural waste dis-
posal problems and dwindling energy supplies.
__
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HEALTH AND ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS
60
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1/31/77
ZBB Decision Activities-Health and Environmental Effects (Energy)
Ecological Effects (625A)
Aquatic Effects
Marine Effects
Terrestrial Effects
Reclamation/Revegetation
Environmental Transport Processes (625B)
Atmospheric Transport & Transformation
Weather Modification
Aquatic Transport
Marine Transport
Groundwater Transport
Monitoring (625C)
Air Monitoring
Water Monitoring
Groundwater Monitoring
Land Use Monitoring
Quality Assurance
Instrumentation (625D)
Air Instrumentation
Water Instrumentation
Remote Instrumentation
Health Effects (625F)
Hazardous Agent I.D.
Dose and Damage Indicators
Metabolism of Hazardous Agents
Evaluation of Hazards to Man
Damage/Repair/Recovery Processes
$,K
2102
4336
1332
677
1650
-
342
752
115
1555
779
300
450
1436
1051
952
191
1079
1888
1187
6031
1195
29400
75%
RANK
7
8
16
17
6
22
14
15
18
3
4
21
19
5
12
13
20
1
10
9
2
11
$,K
1000
1000
1000
500
1000
135
630
400
300
280
410
455
300
300
300
290
500
500
500
9800
100%
RANK
23
24
27
28
37
33
25
26
29
40
32
30
41
38
39
31
34
35
36
1
$,K
1000
1000
_
550
500
1000
800
500
700
500
250
500
750
750
1000
9800
25%
RANK
49
48
54
52
42
43
53
50
51
55
47
46
44
45
61
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ZBB DECISION ACTIVITY PRIORITY RANKING
HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS (ENERGY)
LOWER BUDGET
1. Hazardous Agent I.D.
2. Evaluation of Hazards to
3. Air Monitoring
4. Water Monitoring
5. Quality Assurance
6. Atmospheric Transport
7. Aquatic Effects
8. Marine Effects
9. Metabolism of Hazardous
10.Dose & Damage Indicators
11.Damage/Repair/Recovery
12.Air Instrumentation
13.Water Instrumentation
14.Aquatic Transport
15.Marine Transport
16.Terrestrial Effects
17.Reclamation/Revegetation
18.Groundwater Transport
19.Land Use Monitoring
20.Remote Instrumentation
21.Groundwater Monitoring
22.Weather Modification
Total
($xl,000)
1079 23.
Man 6031 24.
1555 25.
779 26.
1436 27.
1650 28.
2102 29.
4336 30.
Agents 1187 31.
1888 32.
1195 33.
1051 34.
952 35.
342 36.
752 37.
1332 38.
677 39.
115 40.
450 41.
191
300
FIRST INCREMENT
Aquatic Effects
Marine Effects
Aquatic Transport
Marine Transport
Terrestrial Effects
Reclamation Revegetation
Groundwater Transport
Land Use Monitoring
Remote Instrumentation
Groundwater Monitoring
Weather Modification
Dose & Damage Indicators
Metabolism of Hazardous Agents
Damage/Repair/Recovery
Atmospheric Transport
Air Instrumentation
Water Instrumentation
Water Monitoring
Quality Assurance
($xl,000)
1000
1000
630
400
1000
500
300
455
290
410
135
500
500
500
1000
300
300
280
300
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
ADDITIONAL INCREMENT
Air Monitoring
Water Monitoring
Evaluation of Hazards to
Damage/Repai r/Recovery
Metabolism of Hazardous
Agents
Dose & Damage Indicators
Marine Effects
Aquatic Effects
Air Instrumentation
Water Instrumentation
Groundwater Transport
Groundwater Monitoring
Atmospheric Transport
55. Hazardous Agent I.D.
($xl,000)
1000
800
Man 750
1000
750
500
1000
1000
700
500
500
500
550
250
29,400
9800
9800
62
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PROSRAM
Energy/Environment Processes and
Effects
SUBCOMPONENT
Ecological Effects
ACJIVITY
Aquatic Effects
£YrJ978_Mi
EPA
ERDA
FWS
TVA
USDA
1,450,000
100,000
550,000
"TOTAL
2,100,000
First Ipcrement
EPA
ERDA
FWS
TVA
USDA
180,000
200,000
350,000
270,000
EPA
ERDA
FWS
TVA
USDA
I
1,000,000
1
Addition al j£cj;_e£ie njt_
500,000
500,000
1,000,000
Aquatic organisms and ecosystems may be impacted by energy development activities
associated with nearly every phase of most fuel cycles. The purpose of this
activity is to determine the effects on aquatic organisms and resultant ecosystem
impacts at each stage of the energy fuel cycles (primarily coal and oil shale).
USE OF OUTPUTS
this activity is designed to provide the ecological information required in
making management and policy decisions concerning coal, oil, oil shale, and
geothermal development and facility siting decisions. The nature and
extent of organism and ecosystem responses to specific pollutants and combina-
tions of pollutants form the basis for establishing effluent discharge limita-
tions, requirements for control technology performance, as well as provide
necessary information for regulatory and enforcement actions. The consequences
of discontinuing this activity would be to preclude the timely availability of
adequate and accurate environmental impact information for consideration in coal,
oil shale and geothermal energy development policy and decision-making. There
would be a high probability of long-term contaminations of aquatic resources,
loss of fish and wildlife habitat, recreational resources and resultant economic
impacts. Excessive costs for retrofitting facilities and environmental clean-up
could be expected.
63
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR MINIMUM BUDGET ($2,100,000) • Rank No.
Specific outputs of this activity will include determination of the acute
and chronic toxicity of chemicals from coal and oil shale leachate, and
residues from conversion on freshwater organisms and ecosystems; impacts
on freshwater organisms and ecosystems from oil spills in arctic and
subarctic environments; determination of water quality needs and in-stream
flow requirements for fish and wildlife in the Upper Missouri and Upper
Colorado River Basins; and the development of biological indices of
pollution effects on aquatic ecosystems. Specific projects making up the
minimum budget program have been underway for three years and are scheduled
to be completed with FY-78 funds.
OUTPUTS t-'RQK FIRST INCREMENT ($1,000,000)
Development of techniques for predicting thermal impacts on
freshwater fish, shellfish and other organisms.
Development of management practices for restoring the surface
and subsurface hydrology of strip-mined areas.
Evaluation of oil spill effects on tundra and thaw ponds.
Assessment of pipeline construction effects on arctic aquatic
habitats.
Specific projects leading to these outputs have been underway for
three years and are scheduled for completion with FY-79 funds.
23
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($1,000,000) _Rank No.
49
- Assessment of resiliency or capacity for recovery of aquatic
ecosystems after cessation of pollutant input or ecological stress.
- Development of methodologies for predicting long-term shifts in
aquatic ecosystem structure, function, and diversity from continuing
acute and chronic organism stress.
These outputs represent relatively new areas of research and, if successful,
would provide an understanding of the permanency or transiency of ecosystem
changes caused by episodic stress and the ability^of ecosystems to recover
when stress das ceased. Projects of this type would require funding for
three to five years.
-------
. COMPONENT
Energy/Environment Processes and
Effects
SUBCOMPONENT
Ecological Effects
ACTIVITY
Marine Effects
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978
EPA
FWS
NOAA
NIEHS
ERDA
TOTAL
Minimum Budget
1,326,000
890,000
1,870,000
250,000
4,336,000
First
EPA
FWS
NOAA
NIEHS
ERDA
Increment
385,000
200,000
180,000
235,000
1,000,000
Additional
EPA
FWS
NOAA
NIEHS
ERDA
250,000
500,000
250,000
1,000,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The marine, estuarine, and coastal environments will be impacted by accelerated
domestic energy development activities associated with offshore oil and gas
exploration and production; deepwater ports; and expansion of associated coastal
support activities, refining capacity and coastal or offshore power plants.
The purpose of this activity is to determine the effects on marine, estuarine,
and coastal organisms and ecosystems of each stage (exploration, extraction,
processing, conversion, and utilization) of the energy source fuel cycles
(primarily petroleum).
USE OF OUTPUTS
This activity is designed to provide the ecological information required in
making management and policy decisions concerning offshore oil and gas develop-
ment; the siting of coastal support facilities, refineries, power generating
facilities, and deepwater ports. The nature and extent of organism and
ecosystem responses to specific pollutants and combinations of pollutants form
the basis for establishing effluent discharge limitations, requirements for
control technology performance, as well as provide necessary information for
regulatory and enforcement actions. For example, the current use of chlorine
and the use of other proposed oxidants as biocides tn power plant cooling
facilities and their possible adverse effects on marine and estuarine eco-
systems is highly significant to future decisions on expansion of power
generation facilities in coastal habitats
65
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DESCRIPTION 0:r OUTPUTS FOR MINIMUM BUDGET ($4,336,000) Rank No.
8
Specific outputs from this activity will include: marine, estuarine and coastal
environmental baselines including biological, physical, chemical, and geological
components and background concentrations of energy-related pollutants for
specific areas expected to be heavily impacted by energy development activities;
identification of acute and chronic toxicological responses of marine, estuarine,
and coastal organisms and ecosystems to petroleum hydrocarbons and their
derivatives, as well as bfocides and antifouling chemicals used in drilling
operations and cooling facilities; immediate and long-term non-pollutant effects
of energy development activities including physical and biological changes in
marine, estuarine and coastal ecosystems; and development and testing of
predictive models for evaluating pollutant and non-pollutant effects on marine,
estuarine, and coastal organisms and ecosystems. Specific projects making up the
minimum level program have Been, underway for three years and are scheduled for
-completion with FY-78 or FY-79 funds.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($1,000,000) _Ran_k No.
24 "
- Determination of the effects of petroleum and other energy-related
stresses on the rates and mechanics of nutrient regeneration by
coastal marine bottom communities.
- Determination of the effects of oil on reproduction and other
physiological functions of sea birds.
- Determination of mechanisms of cellular uptake of metals and
petroleum hydrocarbons by marine organisms.
- Completion pf ecological baseline for Santa Barbara oil lease area.
Specific projects leading to these outputs have been underway for
three years and are scheduled for completion with FY-78 funds.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($1,000,000) _Rank_No.
48
- Assessment of resiliency or capacity for recovery of marine,
estuarine, and coastal ecosystems after removal of pollutant
input or ecological stress.
- Development of-methodologies for predicting long-term shifts
in marine, estuarine, and coastal ecosystem structure, function
and diversity from continuing acute or chronic organism stress.
These outputs represent relatively new areas of research and, if successful,
would provide an understanding of the permanency or transiency of ecosystem
changes caused by episodic stress and th;e ability of ecosystems to recover
when stress has ceased. Projects of this type would require funding for
three to five years.
66
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.PROGRAM
F.ne rgy / En v i ronment
COMPON.ENT
Processes and
Effects
SUBCOMPONENT
ACTIVITY
Ecological Effects Terrestrial Effects
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
Hi Budcat
707,000
350,000
400,000
1,322,000
First Increment
EPA 583,000
FWS 350,000
TVA 65,000
1,000,000
Add it
Additional Increment
EPA
FWS
TVA
"TOTAL
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Increased reliance on domestic energy sources is resulting in increased
mining and combustion of coal. The purpose of this activity is to
determine what effects the combustion of coal in large power plants will
have on the surrounding terrestrial organisms and ecosystems primarily
via S02> NOX, CO, particulate, and oxidant emissions, and to determine
ecosystem requirements of economically important wildlife species.
USE OF OUTPUTS
The ability to predict immediate and long-term impacts of coal combustion
on the surrounding vegetation is required by regulatory and planning
groups in making facility siting decisions and in specifying requirements
for emissions control technology and air quality standards. The con-
sequences of discontinuing this action would be to sacrifice four years
of power plant "pre-operational" ambient air quality data which forms
the baseline for comparison of air quality after power plant operations
begin. Subtle changes in ecosystem structure, diversity and productivity
are likely to go undetected until the general deterioration of the
ecosystem is far advanced resulting in loss of wildlife habitat or use
for grazing or other agricultural purposes.
67
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR MINIMUM BUDGET ($1,322,000) • Rank No.
16
Information developed under this activity will include comparison of
ambient pollutant levels (before power plant operation begins) with
levels after a plant reaches full operation; immediate and long-term
dose/response relationships for crop species and native vegetation
exposed to single pollutants and combinations of pollutants released
by coal combustion. Metabolic and biochemical mechanisms and lethal
and chronic toxicity levels will be determined under structured field
and laboratory conditions. Biological indices of pollutant damage will
be developed. Predictive models will be developed for determining the
Impact of coal combustion on commercial and non-commercial species.
Specific projects being conducted under the minimum budget program have
been underway for four years in the Northern Great Plains and for three
years in the Southeastern and Southwestern U.S. These projects are
'scheduled for completion with FY-79 funds.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT (.$1,000,000) Rank No.
27
- Determine the effects of moisture, heat, and chemical releases
from mechanical draft cooling towers on surrounding vegetation
and soils.
- Determine how various coal development related activities,
particularly processing and population growth, will effect
wildlife.
- Determine lethal and chronic toxicity levels for terrestrial
organisms under actual field conditions.
These projects will be completed with FY-78 funds.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT Rank Mo.
68
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_PRpGRAM
Energy/Environment
COMPONENT
Processes and
Effects
SUBCOMPONENT
Ecological Effects
ACTIVITY
Reclamation/
Revegetation
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
JLJLri.978 MinitniiiTi Budget:
USDA 677,000
TVA
'TOTAL
677,000
First Increment
USDA
TVA
630,000
70,000
700,000
Additional Increment
Much of the coal and oil shale resources in the western states is subject
to surface or strip mining. Reclamation and revegetation in the arid west
poses problems not before encountered on a large scale. The purpose of this
activity is to develop field and laboratory procedures to characterize the
physical and chemical properties of overburden materials and the effects
of time on weathering, leaching and other changes in mine spoils, and to
provide guidelines for soil amendments,vpi ant species, and management
practices best suited to reclaiming and utilizing strip-mined areas under
arid conditions.
ys_E__of_oirrpijTS_
Information developed by this activity will be used by Federal, state and
local conservation, reclamation and environmental control agencies, as well
as the mining industry. The findings will influence the location of mining
sites and will result in guidelines and methodology for rehabilitation of
surface mined areas. The ability to successfully rehabilitate surface mined
areas will permit the fullest possible use of western coal and oil shale
resources without sacrificing the long-term economic, recreational or
aesthetic value of the land. The consequences of not continuing this
activity would be to preclude adequate restoration of surface mined lands
in the west; loss of wildlife habitat; water quality degradation extending
far beyond the disturbed surface areas and severely limit the future
utility of mined-out areas.
69
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR MINIMUM BUDGET ($677,000) :^:-; Rank'No.
The outputs of this activity include the development and validation of
models for predicting the effects of strip-mining and reclamation practices
on the quantity and quality of water leaving the area; determination of
the nutritional value of forages and other crops grown on reclaimed areas;
development of techniques for redepositing and stabilizing mine spoils in
a manner that will enhance both plant growth and water quality for associated
aquatic life; and identification of plant species and successions best suited
for revegetating mine spoils and strip-mined lands under water-short conditions,
Because these projects deal with plant growth characteristics and spoil
stabilization techniques, they are inherently long-term in mature. These
projects have been underway for three years and are scheduled to continue
through FY-79.
T1US FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($700.OOP) • Rank No.
28
- Determination of the rates of ecological recovery after initiation
of reclamation of toxic spoil left by surface coal mining.
- Development of methodologies for utilizing strip-mined lands for
production of speciality crops.
- Assess and model effects of previous mining methods, spoil characteristics
and reclamation on surface and sub-surface hydrology including water ;
quality. • ' ' • " ; '
- Expand existing "Resource Inventory, Information Management ': '
and Monitoring System" for collection, assimilation and analysis
of natural resource and pollution data related to coal extraction.
Because these projects deal with plant growth characteristics and spoil
stabilization techniques, they are inherently long-term in nature. These
projects have been underway for three years and are scheduled to continue
through FY-79.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT • - Rank No.
70
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PROGRAM
Energy/Environment
COMPONENT
Processes &
Effects Research
SUBCOMPONENT
Transport &
Fate "
ACTIVITY
Atmospheric Transport
and Transformation
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Lower Budaet
EPA 1,400,000
TVA 250,000
TOTAL 1,650,000
First Increment
EPA 1,000,000
1,000,000
Additional Increment
EPA 550,000
550,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Pollutants released to the atmosphere through fossil fuel combustion and their secondary
products produced in the atmosphere have been shown to have a direct impact on human
health, commercial and non-commercial crops, undesirable effects on aesthetics and
climate, and are suspected of effecting the radiation balance of the earth. The purpose
of this activity is to determine the atmospheric and meteorological conditions, chemical
and physical mechanisms, and transformation rates by which primary pollutants such as
sulfur and nitrogen oxides associated with coal, oil, and shale oil conversion and
utilization are converted in the atmosphere to secondary pollutants such as sulfates
and nitrates; and to develop and evaluate mathematical models for determining and
predicting the generation, transformation, transport and removal of secondary pollutants
and their precursors in plumes from coal, oil, and shale oil conversion, and utilization
in areas of both simple and complex terrain.
USE OF OUTPUTS
The models will be used to establish a quantitative, cause and effect relationship
between the distribution of secondary pollutants in a given area and the production of
primary emissions by a source or set of sources in a nearby or distant area. Because
atmospheric pollution is a regional as well as local phenomenon, such models are pre-
requisite to the development of a rational air pollution control strategy.
In the case of new facilities, such models are needed to determine the impact of the
choice of a particular site on areas hundreds of kilometers distant. Thus the pattern
of new energy development can be adjusted to minimize atmospheric impacts. In the case
of the second generation fossil fuel technologies, early identification of hazardous
secondary pollutants can be used to impact the design and control technology required
for a given process or even to assist in the choice between different technologies.
71
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWER BUDGET ($1.650,000) ' Rink 'No.._
. .-...-:,• 6
A predictive model will be developed for assessing the atmospheric trans-
formation, transport and dilution of sulfur and nitrogen compounds from coal and
oil-fired power plants based on extensive field studies.
An assessment will be made of the atmospheric transport and dilution of pollutants
from a large, single source in complex terrain for distances in the 0-100km and greater
ranges. This will be applicable to mine-mouth power plants, shale-o.il. conversion, and
coal gasification plants in various locales characteristic of the'Eastern U.S.
An assessment will be made of the atmospheric chemistry of pollutants from petroleum
complexes and their effects on oxidant transport. • ; ,
An assessment will be made of the atmospheric chemistry of emissions, both inorganic
and organic, from second generation fossil fuel technologies.
Predictive models will be applied to transformation and transport of emissions and
secondary pollutants from second generation fossil fuel conversion and utilization
facilities (coal gasification, liquefaction, etc.)
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($1,000,000) . Rank,No.
Identification of organic compounds formed in the atmosphere which are 37
derived from primary emissions from advanced fossil fuel combustion and .con-
version processes (coal gasification, oil shale processing, etc.*.
Systematic field studies at approximately six advanced fossil fuel combustion
and synthetic fuels pilot and demonstration plants will determine the- precursor chemical
constituents and range of .physical and meteorological conditions which lead to the
formation of hazardous organics in the atmosphere due to these technologies.' Th-1's is
to provide a basis for the control of such pollutants in commercial sized plants and
.to identify compounds and concentrations for which additional health related exposure
studies need to be done.
Baseline studies on current levels of hazardous organics in areas where new com-
bustion and synthetic fuels plants are planned. This is necessary now to document the
actual contribution of planned facilities to atmospheric levels of such hazardous organics
and is essential to future control decisions and potential standards development. At
present, no adequate data baseline exists for the types of organics which constitute
emissions from such energy technologies. Candidate study areas, are.in OKiq River Basin.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($550,000) •' 'Rank No.
Development .of a comprehensive complex terrain model which can be used for the •.54
accurate modeling of air pollution distribution and transport due to power plant ,and
fuel conversion plant emissions in areas with the geographical and meteor.ological
character of the mountainous areas of Western U.S. This model w.ill contain adjustments
for seasonal weather variations. It will be used in deriving the air quality, implications
of various new plant siting options and in determining the contribution to and extent of
impact on regional air quality for emissions from fossil fuel plants.
72
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PROGRAM
Energy/Environment
COMPONENT
Processes and
Effects
SUBCOMPONENT
ACTIVITY
Transport Processes Weather Modification
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Minimum Budget First Increment
Zero
'TOTAL
STATEMENT OF PURPOSi
EPA
ERDA
45,000
90,000
135,000
Additional Increment
Evaporative cooling towers are used as an alternative to once-through
cooling to eliminate thermal pollution of water. However, side effects
from cooling towers could result in adverse weather effects such as
atmospheric fogging, local road icing, and ground level deposition of
salt nuclei. The purpose of this activity is to determine the precursor
conditions for such effects and develop the ability to predict the nature
and extent of weather modification effects under various climatic and
geographic conditions.
USE OF OUTPUTS
The models will be used by regional and local planning and regulatory
groups in power plant siting as well as in policy decisions concerning
regional power parks. Discontinuing this activity would preclude the
ability to give proper consideration of weather modification effects
in power plant siting decisions and possibly result in nuisance condi-
tions in the areas adjacent to power plants.
73
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR MINIMUM BUDGET ($Zero) Rank No.
22
Under the constraints of a minimum budget, this activity would not
be funded.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($135,000) Rank No,
33
A working model and workbook for predicting weather modification
effects from cooling tower plumes and the interaction of cooling
tower and power plant plumes. The output will include an assess-
ment of longer range regional effects which might occur from
source intensification such as power parks.
This work will be completed with FY-78 funds.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT Rank No.
74
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PROGRAM
COMPONENT
Energy/Environment Processes and
Effects
SUBCOMPONENT
Transport Processes
ACTIVITY
Aquatic Transport
RrSOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1973
EPA
ERDA
TVA
'TOTAL
Minimum Budget
272,000
70,000
342,000
First Increment
EPA 430,000
ERDA
TVA 200,000
630,000
Additional Increment
As pollutants move through the environment, their physical, chemical, and
biological interactions often result in-their transformation to new
compounds which may be either a greater or lesser environmental threat
than the parent compound. The purpose of this activity is to determine
the origins, loads, transport pathways, transfer rates, and fates for
single pollutants and combinations of pollutants released to the aquatic
environment primarily from the coal, oil shale, and geothermal fuel cycles,
USE OF OUTPUTS
Knowledge of the environmental transport and transformation of pollutants
is essential to relating ecological effects to their cause, and for
establishing monitoring and surveillance programs. This information is
also basic to setting standards for point source control, and for develop-
ment of treatment.methods and evaluation of their effectiveness. Since
compounds often do not remain static in the environment, discontinuance
of this activity would impair the ability to understand many organism
and ecosystem effects, and to relate effects to proper causes.
75
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR MINIMUM BUDGET ($342,000)
14
Outputs from this activity include development of simple aquatic system
models to predict the distribution and probable transport or degradative
pathways and life-times for specific pollutants common to several energy
fuel cycles, as well as pollutants specific to western coals. Emphasis
is on potentially carcinogenic compounds.
The transport, transformations, and fates of three to five specific
pollutants are determined annually at this minimum funding level. Work
has been underway for three years and these specific projects are scheduled
for completion with FY-78 funds.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT rtg-j? 000} Rank No.
, _____
- Determine formation rates of inorganics with acid formed from
strip mines.
- Develop mathematical models to predict water quality in streams
in acid mine areas.
- Determine transport, degradation products, and fate in aquatic
ecosystems of pollutants specific to oil shale development.
These projects are scheduled to be completed with FY-78 funds.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT Rank No.
76
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PROGRAM
Energy/Environment
COMPONENT
Processes and
Effects
SUBCOMPONENT
Transport Processes
ACTIVITY
Marine Transport
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Minimum Budget
EPA
NOAA
382,000
310,000
'TOTAL
752,000
First Increment
NOAA
100,000
100,000
Additional Increment
OF PURPOSE
As pollutants move through the environment, their physical, chemical,
and biological interactions often result in their transformation to new
compounds which may be either a greater or lesser environmental threat
than the original pollutant. The purpose of this activity is to determine
the origins, loads, transport pathways, transfer rates, and fates for
single pollutants and combinations of pollutants released to the marine,
estuarine, and coastal environments primarily from offshore oil and qas
development and associated coastal activities.
USE OF OUTPUTS
Knowledge of the environmental transport and transformation of pollutants
is essential for relating ecological effects to their cause, and for
establishing monitoring and surveillance programs. This information is
also basic for standards setting for point source control. Since
compounds often do not remain static in the environment, discontinuance
of this activity would impair the ability to understand many organism
and ecosystem effects, and to relate effects to proper causes.
77
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR MINIMUM BUDGET ($752,000) Rank No.
15
Outputs from this activity include development of ecosystem models of
the transport of petroleum hydrocarbons, organic and inorganic pollutants,
and metals in arctic, subarctic, and mid-latitude marine and estuarine
environments; determination of the correlation between results of
laboratory bioassay of system components and field study of bioaccumu-
lation, system dynamics, and routes to man for pollutants released from
offshore drilling, coastal refinery effluents, biocides and anti-fouling
chemicals, and direct oil spills.
While these specific projects will be completed with FY-78 and FY-79
funds, it is planned to verify laboratory results under experimental
ecosystem or actual field conditions during FY-79 and FY-80.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($100,000) Rank to.
26
- Extend capability for routine analyses of petroleum hydrocarbons
in the marine environment,
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT Rank No.
78
-------
PROGRAM
COMPONENT
SUBCOMPONENT
ACTIVITY
Energy/Environment Processes and Transport Processes Groundwater Transport
Effects
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION 3Y AGENCY
FY-1978 M In-: mum Budget
EPA
115,000
TOTAL
STATE;
115,000
First Increment
Additional Increment
EPA
400,000
400,000
EPA
500,000
500,000
OF PURPOSE
Groundwater resources can be contaminated by energy development
activities that disrupt aquifers bringing pollutants into direct
contact with the groundwater systems; through percolation of
pollutants from surface sources; and through interconnection
with polluted surface water sources. The purpose of this activity
is to assess the nature and amount of contaminants entering the
groundwater system from energy-related activities and to evaluate
existing models for predicting the spatial and temporal transport
and transformation of these contaminants in the subsurface.
USE OF OUTPUTS
Groundwater pollution can be directly measured only at relatively
few locations (wells, springs, etc.), groundwater flow and
pollutant transport models are therefore the basic tool for
determining the movement and dilution of pollutants in the sub-
surface. Numerous groundwater models exist. A state-of-the-art
assessment of existing capabilities will preclude future duplica-
tion of efforts, indicate where additional work is needed, and
provide an essential tool for assessing potential groundwater
problems associated with energy production. Establishment of the
relationship between overburden and spoil mineralogy and ground-
water pollution potential is necessary for proper reclamation
practices. Over 90% of the rural domestic water supply in the
United States is from groundwater. For all practical purposes,
once contaminated aquifers cannot be restored to their original
condition, natural flushing action may require centuries and pumping
techniques have proved inadequate. Prevention of contamination,
therefore, is the only viable method of groundwater quality protection.
79
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR MINIMUM BUDGET ($115,000) Rank No.
18
The output of this activity under minimum budget conditions would be
limited to completion of an evaluation of the relationship between
overburden and spoil mineralogy in western surface-mined areas and
the potential for groundwater contamination.
This project has been underway for two years and will be completed
in FY-78.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($400,000) Jtenkjto,
29
- Assessment of the potential for groundwater contamination from
in-situ oil shale retorting.
Little, if any, actual field work has been done in this area. A
three year project is planned with possible extension or early
termination depending upon the success of pilot or experimental
in-situ retorting efforts.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($500,000) Rank No,
52
- Assessment of the impacts on groundwater resources from strip-
mining of coal aquifers.
Because groundwater movement is extremely slow (feet per day to feet per
year), a three to five year project is planned. Outyear resources, however,
would be reduced to $100,000 to $150,000 per year once the initial monitoring
wells were installed.
80
-------
PROGRAM
Energy/Envi rtonment
COMPONENT
Processes &
Effects Research
SUBCOMPONENT
Measurement &
Monitoring
ACTIVITY
Air Monitoring
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Lower Budqet
EPA 1,075,000
NOAA 480,000
TOTAL i'555'000
First Increment
EPA 0
NOAA 0
0
Additional Increment
EPA 800,000
NOAA 200,000
1,000,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The Northern Great Plains and Rocky Mountain Provinces are projected within 10 years
to triple the regional power output from conventional power plants and to see large
scale demonstrations of coal and oil shale conversion, with commercial industrialization
to follow. Air pollution from these sources will alter air quality on a regional as well
as local basis. The excellent air quality in this region as a whole has made non-
significant deterioration of air quality an ongoing issue. Also, the classification
of air quality, areas in this region will have a significant impact on the existence
and growth of such energy industries in the region. However, an accurate regional
air quality baseline does not exist. Because an accurate knowledge of present air
quality is needed throughout this region for such policy judgments, this activity's
purpose is to establish such a baseline overview with special attention to the projected
pattern of development and to the meteorological influences which will determine the
areas of impact of new energy-related air pollation sources throughout the region.
USE OF OUTPUTS
The activity is designed to provide an accurate, consistent framework for regional
air quality information as it relates to the pattern of energy growth in that region.
This information is the bench mark for future decisions on non-significant deterioration
and on the limitation of area energy development in order to maintain a certain level of
air quality. This information provides a reference for future regulatory, regional
development, and siting decisions, especially in cases where the source is shown to
impact areas within a different jurisdiction.
81
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LQUER BUDGET ($1.555,000) Rank No.
3
Specific oiftputs of this activity will include the establishment of an accurate and
consistent long term air quality baseline for criteria and certain elemental pollutants
associated with the various energy technologies which exist or are to be developed
in this region; an overview of the areas of impact throughout the region associated
with both existing and projected sources (this using existing air quality and meteoro-
logical models); an assessment of where air quality information critical to policy
and siting decisions is lacking; an indication of where adverse impacts on critical
areas such as cities and national parks may be expected from air pollution due to
specific new sources; indication of the characteristics of long range transport of
potential pollution specific to the terrain and seasonally adjusted meteorology of
this region; initiation of fine particulate and sulfate measurements in this region,
involving sampling for sulfate at over 70 sites in 10 western states where no
sulfate data has been taken. All such sites are located in proximity to power
plants or to areas planned for fossil fuel combustion or conversion facilities.
Periodic wide area monitoring and long range plume sampling by aircraft is
an int.pgral part, .of this pffnyt.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT Rank No.
No first increment.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($1,000,000) Rank No.
42
Baseline monitoring and meteorological modeling study is aimed at providing valid
ambient baseline and initial trends data in air quality and at determining
character of regional transport phenomena for critical pollutants, sulfate and fine
particulate aerosol for regions of the Southeast and Midwestern U.S. where major
additions in fossil fuel power plants capacity is planned, this to make possible
the establishment of a relationship between regional air quality*degradation and
the construction of new fossil fuel plants, with a view toward altering siting
plans and documenting viable regional sulfate control options. This is needed
as a reference point from which to judge allowable air quality degradation and
the associated limit on regional fossil fuel emissions. Thts will entail the
initiation of sulfate and fine particulate sampling at up to 50 sites alonq
trajectories where assessment studies Pvave shown existing and especially-
planned fossil fuel facilities will tend to increase population exoosures
These areas have been Identified as having Inadequate or no sulfate database.
Candidate areas involve sites in the Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee region and
in the Texas, Oklahoma region.
82
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PROGRAM
Energy/Environment
COMPONENT
Processes &
Effects Research
SUBCOMPONENT
Msasurement and
•ybnitoring
ACTIVITY
Water Monitoring
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Lower Budqet
EPA 250,000
USGS 329,000
NOAA 200,000
TOTAL 779,000
. First Increment
USGS 280,000
280,000
Additional Increment
EPA 200,000
USGS 600,000
800,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
A number of key river basins in the Western and Eastern U.S. are projected within 10
years to be subject to major increase in strip mining, in some cases associated with
power plants or gasification plants. The Upper Colorado Basin harbors a potential wealth
of oil generated from shale. Additional power plants associated with intensified coal
production are also planned in both East and West. Developments will have significant
impacts on water quality through contamination and displacement of stream flow. An
adequate data base for water quality does not exist in these areas. The purpose of this
activity is to supplement the regional water quality network in these energy intensive
areas in order that actual rates of water quality degradation associated with such
developments can be ascertained. Based on this, decisions can be made on acceptable
levels of development.
In addition, on both coasts it is necessary to predict and track the path of oil pollution
from Outer Continental Shelf Development before marine pollution monitoring can be deployed.
Activity in model design is aimed at satisfying this need.
USE OF OUTPUTS
This activity is designed to provide an accurate, consistent framework for regional
water quality information as it relates to the pattern of energy development in that
region. This information will provide a reference against which future water quality
degradation can be measured and an accurate assessment of the allowable margin for
the region can be judged. This information will provide the basis for regional water
quality planning as well as for regulatory actions affecting the'above-noted energy
developments.
In the marine area this model will be used to predict points of impact of oil pollution
so that coastal protection and cleanup measures can be taken. It will also be used
for Outer Continental Shelf drilling site decisions.
83
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LQUER BUDGET ($779,000) Rank No.
Specific outputs of this activity will include the establishment of an accurate 4
and consistent long term water quality baseline data for pollutants associated with
specific developments with emphasis on western energy development; the development
of an overview--of the water quality baseline for the entire Upper Missouri
and Colorado Rivers with data manipulated to bring out significant trends which
can be correlated with energy development. This effort supports over 30 surface
water monitoring sites in key areas and the analyses of these and of other water
samples from on the order of 1,000 distinct sites. This in turn will be used
for future water quality planning, regional development and siting decisions.
The development of water quality monitoring guidelines for new technologies such
as oil shale,, coal gasification and liquefaction and associated pollutants. The
development and evaluation of long term, regional water quality trends associated
with regional energy development. In the marine area, a wind and current
computer model is being developed to predict the path 'and location of marine
oil pollution.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($280,000) Rank No.
40
Initiation of water monitoring and the acquisition of an accurate, consistent
water quality baseline data at key sites in areas of the Eastern J^alf of the U.S.
where additional coal mining development is planned, especially where associated
with planned coal combustion and conversion facilities. This will include areas
of Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee and involves investigations, sampling
and analysis at approximately 200 sites in these states. Evaluation of long
term water quality trends at sites associated with developments in these areas
will yield a relationship between the gradual degradation of water quality due
to coal mining related pollution from present mining sites, and also the
quantification of the degree of further degradation in water quality which
would be caused by additional coal development in these areas.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($800,000) Rank No.
Establishment of a comprehensive regional energy related water quality network 43
and acquisition of baseline data for major rivers and key tributaries along
which new coal mining, coal combustion and conversion activity are underway and
planned in the Midwestern and Southeastern U.S. This network will complement
specific site analyses and existing stations by providing direct, sensitive
measurements on a broad scale, regional basis for coal related pollutants in
areas both near and distant to sources. Evaluation of long term, wide-area
regional water quality trends associated with regional energy development will
yield a relationship between the gradual degradation of water quality due to
coal mining, combustion and conversion related pollution from existing and planned
coal related development. Without such a regional baseline geared to pollutants
from mining and from anticipated coal combustion conversion activity, there will
not be an accurate past reference point from which to measure the changes in water
quality when planned energy developments become operational in these regions.
84.
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PROGRAM
Energy/Environment
COMPONENT
Processes &
Effects Research
SUBCOMPONENT
Msasurement 5
MDnitoring
ACTIVITY
Groundwater
MDnitoring
RESOURCE
FY-1978 L
EPA
USGS
TOTAL
DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
ower Budaet
300,000
0
300,000
First Increment
EPA 50,000
USGS 360,000
410,000
Additional Increment
EPA 200,000
USGS 300,000
500,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Strip mining of coal and conversion of oil shale will have significant effects on the
availability and quality of groundwater, especially in the arid west. The purpose
of this activity is to ensure that an adequate methodology is available for monitoring
groundwater in these regions and to expand research studies of groundwater into areas
earmarked for development or which are under development. The ultimate purpose is
to provide the capability of detecting and measuring contamination of actual or
potential drinking water and groundwater used for agricultural activities.
USE OF OUTPUTS
This activity is designed to provide both developmental and regulatory organizations
with the methodology to accurately and consistently measure groundwater quality in
the geological setting of the coal and oil shale deposits noted above; the assessments
of baseline groundwater quality will provide a reference point from which future
degradation can be measured and upon which pollution control and development limitation
decisions can be based.
85
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWER BUDGET (300,000) Rank No,
21
Specific outputs of this activity include the development of a comprehensive,
area-wide groundwater monitoring methodology for oil shale and Northern Great
Plains mining areas; also the assessment of groundwater quality baselme in
several locales of the Western U.S. projected for coal or oil shale development.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT (410,000) Rank No.
32
This activity involves the testing of the groundwater monitoring methodology. In
addition, a wide ranging series of shallow aquifer sampling studies will be carried _
out in Western and Eastern coal mining areas where new developments are planned. This
is to document the character of present groundwater quality in key areas so that
subsequent studies of degradation will be possible.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT (500,000) Rank No.
53
This activity will involve extension of the area-wide deep groundwater monitoring
methodology to in-situ coal gasification demonstrations. This technology of its
nature presents a potentially major impact on groundwater quality. Actual research
monitoring will document area-wide effects during initial demonstrations of in-situ
coal gasification.
86
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PROGRAM
Energy/Environment
COMPONENT
Processes &
Effects Research
SUBCOMPONENT
Measurement &
Monitoring
ACTIVITY
Land Use
Monitoring
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Lower Budqet
EPA 225,000
NASA 225,000
TVA 0
TOTAL 450,000
First Increment
NASA 355,000
TVA 100,000
455,000
Additional Increment
None
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Planned strip raining of coal (east and west) and development, of oil shale will have
significant effect on local and regional water quality. Up to date information on
existing mining operations, drainage patterns, pollution control procedures, reclama-
tion procedures as well as baseline information on pre-development areas is needed for
regional planning and regulatory decisions at various levels. Overhead monitoring
of surface developments provides data with the perspective and the periodicity required
for information useful for regulatory purposes. The purpose of this activity is the
gathering and interpretation of such data for the regulatory process.
USE OF OUTPUTS
This activity is designed to provide the means for regular, economical and comprehensive
imagery coverage to Federal and state entities involved in energy development planning
and pollution control activities. Long term coverage is designed to provide documen-
tation and trend data on long term control and effects of mining pollution and on
reclamation.
87
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWER RUDGET (450.000) Rank No.
19
Specific outputs of this activity include the development of an automated technique
for the rapid gathering, analysis and interpretation of overhead data on_strip mines
in various type ecosystems; the establishment of a comprehensive annual imagery _
baseline which will document the progress of development and effectiveness of pollution
control and reclamation measures. Emphasis is on major new coal strip mines and on ,_.
expansion of existing mines in the western states, where the need for information on
new developments, on the condition of exisitng mining operations and on reclamation
activity is most critical for planning and regulatory decisions on water quality
degradation from mines and from solid waste disposal and thermal pollution at power .
plants,
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT (455,000) Rank No.
30
Extension of automated data interpretation techniques to parameters characteristic of
eastern and midwestern mining operations and ecosystems.
Expansion of overhead data gathering research monitoring to areas of the southeast
and midwest where major new mining and power plant activity is planned. This information
is needed to document the array of energy related sources which contribute to regional
water quality degradation and to despoiling potentially useful land.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT Rank No.
No additional increment
88
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PROGRAM
Energy/Envi rvonment
COMPONENT
Processes &
Effects Research
SUBCOMPONENT
Measurement &
MDnitoring
ACTIVITY
Measurements
Quality Assurance
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Lower Budqet
EPA 350,000
NBS 806, -000
NOAA 150,000
TVA 130,000
TOTAL 1,436,000
First Increment
EPA 200,000
NBS 100,000
300,000
Additional Increment
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
All environmental measurement programs, especially those involving networks with
numerous measurement locations and separate analytical laboratories, require standardized
sampling, measurement and analytical procedures or data will vary widely. Conclusions
based on such data will not be valid or defensible. The purpose of this activity is
to provide such procedures, reference evaluations and standard reference materials
to ensure validity of research monitoring activities in the program and to develop
standard materials fortpollutants from new technologies, for use in future measure-
ments programs associated with those technologies.
USE OF OUTPUTS
This activity is used to ensure the validity of all air and water monitoring projects
within the program subcomponent; also, standard reference materials are being developed
to be available for research and regulatory monitoring activities for various second
generation energy technologies. Emphasis is on new hazardous compounds and complexes
from these technologies.
89
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWER BUDGET ($1,436,000) Rank No.
o
'Specific outputs of this activity include establishment of standard procedures,
circulation of standard reference materials for pollutants, evaluation of analytical
laboratories,for air, water and marine research monitoring projects' in energy/
environment program; development of new standard reference materials for
pollutants associated with second generation fossil fuel technologies.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($300,000) Rank No.
Measurements quality assurance support for existing monitoring activities in the 41
Southeastern and Midwestern U.S.; thereby creating a minimum, consistent, accurate
regional baseline network where fossil fuel combustion and conversion plants are
planned; this will provide a basis for subsequent regional air quality degradation
studies. This support involves providing consistent sampling guidelines/instrumentation,
calibration using reference materials relatable to national standards, laboratory
cross-check analyses and evaluation of analytical laboratory performance. Without
such quality control, the results from different monitoring stations will vary widely
due to use of varying sampling and analysis methods among other factors. With
quality control an array of sampling stations can produce intercomparable data,
thereby producing an accurate air or water quality baseline over a broad region
instead of sets of unrelatable data. The array of stations can then be truely
classified as a regional network. This effort will involve1 EPA, TVA & USGS monitoring
activities in energy intensive areas of the regions noted. Also, national standard
reference materials needed for accurate calibration of instruments measuring organic water
pollutants associated with coal gasification will be produced.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT Rank No.
No additional increment
90
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PROGRAM
Energy/Envi rjonment
COMPONENT
Processes and
Effects Research
SUBCOMPONENT
Measurements
Monitoring
ACTIVITY
Air Instrumentation
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Lower Budoet
EPA 420,000
ERDA 315,000
NBS 75,000
NIOSH 241,000
TOTAL 1,051,000
First Increment
EPA 200,000
NIOSH 100,000
300,000
Additional Increment
EPA 300,000
ERDA 200,000
NBS 200,000
700,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
In the area of conventional energy technology which is planned for expansion, there
are a number of missing but key elements in measurement methodology for hazardous
ai.r pollutants. This is especially true for air pollutants formed in the atmosphere
from energy related emissions. In the area of new fossil fuel combustion and con-
version technologies there is a wide variety of pollutants for which ambient
measurement does not exist or is inadequate. This is especially true of potentially
hazardous organic vapors and aerosols. The purpose of this activity is to develop
these measurement methods and instruments. Because such methods developments
takes a number of years on the average, this activity is a pacing item for future
atmospheric and epidemiological studies involving ambient measurements.
USE OF OUTPUTS
The outputs of this activity are needed in order that adequate atmospheric transport
and transformation, epidemiological and baseline and trend monitoring studies can
be initiated. It is essential that such studies involve direct measurements of
specific energy related pollutants because inferred results are not adequate for
the development of energy related pollution control measures, strategies, and
compliance programs which will eventually be based on such studies. Adequate
and valid measurement methods and instrumentation are basic and key elements
which must precede accurate studies and valid pollution assessment control
strategies.
91
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWER BUDGET ($1,051.000) Rank No.
—p£
The output^ of this activity include development of methods for measuring
inorganic compounds from conventional and advanced energy technologies as
distinct from simple elemental analysis; the development of real-time
sulfur compound analyzers for airborne and ground-based studies;;the development
of mass/size distribution analyzer for airborne fine particulates and aerosols;
the development of high sensitivity automated sulfur compound analyzer fpr
handling hundreds of analyses per day; the development of a fibrous aerosol
monitor; the development of a pocket sized, programmable multi-pollutant
sampler for epidemiological studies, particularly in occupational environments.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($300,000) Rank No.
""""J ' ' *D d
1. The outputs associated with this activity are advanced sampling and
analytical methods for research studies to accurately identify and measure the
wide variety of organic vapors and aerosols associated with new Energy technologies
such as coal gasification and oil shale conversion at ambient air concentrations.
Emphasis will be placed on potentially hazardous compounds formed in the atmosphere;
this effort paces the level of sophistication which'is possible in performing
atmospheric transport and transformation studies associated with organics from -
these technologies.
2. A portable device for sampling multiple gases in occupational environments
associated with energy production and fuel processing facilities. This device
is geared to provide sensitive analyses of such gases at concentrations associated
with occupational rather than environmental settings.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($700,000) Rank No.
50
The development of advanced sampling and analytical standard reference
methods for operational compliance monitoring of energy related air
pollutants associated with expanding energy combustion and conversion
technologies. Such devices must be engineered for endurance, accuracy
of calibration in a limited range of sensitivity, as opposed to^research and
special study instruments whose development precedes operational devices.
Effort will involve inorganic and organic pollutants but would emphasize
potential hazardous organics or classes of organics for which present specific
measurement methodology is non-exis'tent.
92
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PROGRAM
Energy/Envi rjonment
COMPONENT
Processes and
Effects Research
SUBCOMPONENT
Measurements and
Monitoring
ACTIVITY
Water Instrumentation
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Lower
EPA
ERDA
NBS
NOAA
USGS
TOTAL
Budqet
160,000
112,000
300,000
380,000
952,000
First
EPA
ERDA
NBS
NOAA
USGS
Increment
220,000
80,000
300,000
Additional Increment
EPA
ERDA
NBS
NOAA
USGS
300,000
200,000
500,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
There is lack of sampling and analytical methods for measuring the multitude
of water pollutants and classes of effluents associated with the mining of
various types of coal in distinct locales (different compounds and sediment
chemistry) as well as from liquid waste and leaching from solid waste associated
with new coal combustion and conversion technologies and with oil shale processing.
The purpose of this activity is to provide such methods and instrumentation. Because
such methods development takes a number of years on the average, this activity is
a pacing item for future water measurements studies related to specific energy
related water pollutants and their effects.
USE OF OUTPUTS
The outputs of this activity are needed in order that adequate water transport
and transformation and baseline and trend studies can be initiated. It is
essential that such studies involve direct measurements of specific energy related
pollutants because inferred results are not adequate for development of energy
related pollution control measures, strategies and compliance programs which will
eventually be based on such studies. Adequate and valid measurement methods and
instrumentation are basic and key elements which must precede accurate and
valid pollution assessment and c^ ^ol strategies.
93
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOUER BUDGET ($952.000) Rank No.
the output* of this activity include the development of techniques for 13
analysis- of toxic metals in mine drainage; analytical techniques for
analyses of pollutants from liquid fuels from coal and oil shale;
comprehensive-report on low level, potentially hazardous contaminants from new
energy technologies; development of analytical laboratory methods for selected
contaminants from new technologies; the development of stream flow and gaging
equipment for measuring stream and sediment in areas characteristic of western
coal development; methods for analyzing toxic metals in sediments; and for
measuring petroleum compounds in high volume samples.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($300,000) Rank No.
39
. The outputs of this activity will be the development of a comprehensive
measurement methodology of associated sampling and analytical methods for
hazardous organics tn streams from new energy technologies. Emphasis will be
on compounds which are potentially carcinogenic with low level, long term
exposure. Furthermore, within these categories, organic compounds which
are not relatively volatile cannot be measured adequately by existing analytical-
techniques. Therefore, the exploration of new analytical procedures will be
involved in the development of such a comprehensive measurement methodology.
These methods will be used for sampling and analyzing streams and bodies of water
which will be subject to contamination, even at low levels, by new energy
technology demonstrations and commercializing.
. Sampling and analytical methods for crude oil contamination of marine and coastal
waters associated with Outer Continental Shelf drilling.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($500,000) Rank Nq.
The development of advanced sampling and analytical standard reference methods 51
for operational compliance monitoring of energy related water pollutants
associated with expanding coal and oil shale extraction and conversion technologies.
Unlike research equipment, such devices must be engineered to operate for prolonged
periods in a hostile (sludging, corrosion) environments; additional methods are
needed for sampling and analysis of leach materials from solid w,aste from various
advanced coal conversion technologies. Emphasis will be on potentially hazardous
organics or classes of organics for which present measurement methodology is
inadequate or non-existent.
94
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PROGRAM
Energy/Environment
COMPONENT
Processes and
Effects Research
SUBCOMPONENT
Measurement and
Monitoring
ACTIVITY
Remote Measurements
Instrumentation
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-19'78 Minimum Budget _
EPA
NASA
NOAA
125,000
66,000
'TOTAL
191,000
First Increment
EPA
NASA
NOAA
100,000
190,000
290,000
Additional Increment
OF PU RPOSE
Conventional chemical in-situ monitoring methods cannot provide complete measure-
ments of area-wide ambient pollutant distribution, nor can they adequately track
and measure atmospheric plume pollutant concentrations near the source under
varying meteorological conditions, nor are they adequate for atmospheric trans-
port and transformation studies of dispersed plumes at hundreds of kilometers
from the source. There is a need for instruments to measure energy-related air
pollutants in plume tracking and detection studies at short and long ranges, in
measuring vertical pollutant distributions and in three dimensional pollutant
mapping. The -purpose of this activity is to provide accurate, long path, remote
sensing instrumentation which will fill the measurement gaps in obtaining infor-
mation which is needed for energy-related pollutant assessment, control and
enforcement strategies.
.
Among the important near-term uses of such devices are those involving the unique
capability to completely and directly measure energy-related pollutant distribu-
tions within large volumes of air to extended altitudes; this coupled with the
ability to measure the movement and changing distribution of such pollutants from
specific and complex, combined plumes makes information from such devices
uniquely suited for pollution assessment in the development of local and regional
pollution control strategies, siting decisions and enforcement programs; in many
such cases, important advantages and economies are gained by combined use of
remote sensing and conventional devices; significantly increased capability
and overall economies are to be realized with such devices over current methods
for source monitoring and enforcement programs
95
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR MINIMUM BUDGET ($191,000) Rank No,
The major outputs of this activity are long-path light detection and ranging 20
devices based on laser light emitting systems. For the minimum budget:
. An aircraft-borne, down-looking device for measurement and tracking
of particulate and fine plumes at distances of hundreds of kilometers
from the source; for mapping in long-range transport studies.
. A single device for sensitive measurement of several gaseous pollutants
associated with fossil fuel plumes, including S02; for use as a multi-
purpose compliance monitoring and siting tool for plume transport
measurements at distances of several kilometers.
(290,000 ) JtenkJNo,
A long-path device for measurement of particulates due to power plant
combustion and differentiated from natural or industrial fugitive dust
at distances of up to 20 kilometers. This system will provide the initial
basic calibration data required in less expensive versions which will be
used for compliance monitoring of particulates. A compact, field prototype,
long-path monitor for stack monitoring of S02; to be field tested as an
enforcement device for S02 emission standard.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT Rank No.
96
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PROGRAM
Energy/Envi r^onment
COMPONENT
Health & Environ-
mental Effects
SUBCOMPONENT
Health
ACTIVITY
Identification of
Hazards Agents
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Lower Budget
EPA 416
ERDA 663
TOTAL 1 079
First Increment
0
0
0
Additional Increment
EPA 125
ERDA 125
250
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The objective of this activity is to identify hazardous materials associated
with increased use of existing and new energy technologies using biological
screening and testing systems to determine the presence of carcinogenic,
mutagenic, teratogenic, and physiologically and metabolically toxic agents.
Many of the agents which contaminate the products and non-economic residuals,
to which workers and the general population will be exposed, have yet to be
identified. It is not economically feasible to separate and test directly
the toxicity of each and every agent produced during the various operations
of a particular fuel cycle. The purpose of the present activity is to utilize
simple, inexpensive and reliable biological assay systems to detect the
presence of toxic components so as to reduce the number of expensive and
time-consuming studies required to develop the quantitative dose-response
relationships necessary for decisions regarding control systems development
and/or rulemaking activity.
USE OF OUTPUTS
The output of this activity will be used by health researchers to prioritize
the hazardous agents associated with energy technologies and design experiments
to ascertain quantitative dose-response relationships for the potentially
most hazardous substances. In addition, the data can be utilized by
developers of energy technologies in making decisions regarding process
modifications or improved pollution control systems. Failure to.approve
the activity will cause a reduction in the rate of obtaining data on
effects of energy-related agents. The consequences of such an action
would require commercializing new energy technologies with very large
uncertainties in the health impact data base.
97
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWER BUDGET ($1,079.000) Rank No.
The output, of this activity will be published in a series of reports 1
which will Indicate:
(1) The presence of known toxic materials associated with specific processes
in the coal based energy cycles (conventional and advanced) and energy
efficiency technologies (waste as fuel and building energy conservation)
to which humans can be exposed.
(2) The materials (compounds, mixtures, products, residuals, emissions, effluents,
etc.) associated with the aforementioned processes which require more
detailed examination of possible adverse biological effects in order to
resolve the question of need for control for such processes.
(3) The specific processes which apparently do not require additional study
of the biological effects of associated materials.
Emphasis in the lower budget program is upon those energy systems whose
prospects for commercialization appear to be near and intermediate term.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT($25Q,QOO) Rank No.
The output from the additional increment will allow early preliminary 55
estimates of the hazardous agents associated with energy technologies
with longer term prospects for commercialization.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT Rank No.
98
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PROGRAM
Energy/Environment
COMPONENT
Health & Environmental
Effects
SUBCOMPONENT
Health
ACTIVITY
Dose and Damage
Indicators
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Lower Budqet $K
EPA 445
ERDA 690
NIEHS 753
TOTAL 1888
First Increment
EPA
ERDA 200
NIEHS 200
500
Additional Increment
EPA 250
ERDA 125
NIEHS 125
500
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The objective of this activity is to develop more rapid and sensitive
biological methods to evaluate'dose and damage to man arising from exposure
to environmental agents.
The biological effects of hazardous agents on human population are dependent
upon the rate and duration of exposure and integrated dose to the targets
of concern (organs, tissues, cells, molecules, etc.). The purpose of this
activity is to develop-methods and techniques which can detect and quantify
early, sublethal, repairable changes in the targets of concern, which are
indicators of irrepairable damage and also to quantify the dose that gives
rise to the change detected.
USE OF OUTPUTS
The outputs will be used by health researchers to develop quantitative testing programs
which are less time-consuming, complex and costly to increase the rate and the pre-
cision of screening methods that are presently available. The outputs will also be
used to improve upon presently available diagnostic procedures so that early
diagnosis can be coupled to remedial therapy and improve the prognosis of affected
individuals. Failure to approve this activity will maintain the.rate of acquisition
of health effects data to the level limited by presently available screening
techniques. In addition, the capability to produce quantitative data will be severely
limited to macroscopic dosimetry and thus yielding information of questionable utility
for understanding the damage and repair processes. Failure to develop dosimetry
which is well related to repairable changes will limit detection of effects to
changes which cannot be repaired.
99
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWER BUDGET ($1.888,000) Rank No.
The outputs of this activity will be a number of improved methods for more
rapidly assaying the dose and accompanying damage to targets of concern for
carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, and physiologically and metabolically
toxic agents. Test systems under development and requiring validation cover
a variety of targets (micro-organisms, mammalian cells, plants, insects and
mammals) and a variety of end points; for example in the case of mutations -
point defects, chromosomal effects, DNA repair for a gamut of agents. In "
vivo methods include investigation of modification of behavioral response,
development of new test strains, and test organ grafts, modification of body
fluids, lipids and proteins, as well as evaluation of organ system dysfunction.
In vitro studies include evaluation of relative toxicity of specific cells
(alveolar macropage, lymphocyte, fibroblast, epithelial cells).
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($500,000) Rank No.
34
The output from the first increment will be the preliminary
development of a validated screening method which can yield
early indications of/sublethal repairable damage and which
can be used in conjunction with human studies (clinical and/or
epidemiological) e.g., detection of modification of learned
behavior.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($500,000) Rank No.
47
The additional increment will provide the data base necessary for the
development of tools which will permit an assessment of body burdens
(tissue levels) in man, -plants and animals.
100
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PROGRAM
COMPONENT
Energy/Environment Health & Environmental
Effects
SUBCOMPONENT
Health
ACTIVITY
Metabolism of
Hazardous Agents
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Lower Budget $K
EPA 440
ERDA 316
NIEHS 431
TOTAL 1187
First Increment
EPA 220
ERDA 100
NIEHS 180
500
Additional Increment
EPA 250
ERDA 250
NIEHS 250
750
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The objective of this activity is to determine the metabolism and fate of hazardous
agents associated with energy technologies. The purpose of obtaining information
on the rates of incorporation, routes of metabolism, products of metabolism, and
deposition and turnover of hazardous agents is to permit development of risk
assessment models, which specify tissues, organs, and/or functions at risk. In
addition, such information on toxification/detoxification mechanisms is required
in order to suggest alternative methods for modifying adverse impact of hazardous
agents by modification of the metabolism and fate of agents with specific physical
and chemical characteristics.
USE OF OUTPUTS
The outputs of this activity will be used by health researchers: (1) to improve the
estimates of exposure and exposure rates of tissue, organs, cells and molecules
of concern, and (2) to devise protective measures through modification of the
exposure or exposure rate subsequent to ingestion, inhalation, injection or
immersion. The data can also be used to design protective measures through
modification of the physical and/or chemical attributes of the agent or class
of agents which act against ingestion/inhalation or immersion modes of exposure.
Failure to approve the program will require the development of estimate of risks
to human health to be derived only from the macroscopic point of view. Such an
approach is extremely costly, especially for obtaining-information related to
long-term exposures and responses requiring long periods to manifest themselves.
In addition, the estimates of risk to human health based upon extrapolation of
animal experimentation will be of questionable.,value without assurance that
similarity of.the animal model to human metabolism transformation, deposition,
and toxification and detoxification has'been established
101
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWER BUDGET ($1.187,000) Rank No.
The outputs of this activity will be published in a series of reports which convey 9
how the various tissues under different initial conditions (stress, age, etc.)
handle a particular agent or class of agents for the various modes of exposure
(inhalation, ingestion, immersion).
The output of the lower budget program will be a series of reports dealing primarily
with pulmonary deposition clearance, translocation, and cellular distribution of
particulates, (trace elements and metallic oxides) and impact of joint action of
agents (NOX, SOX) on lung metabolism. Studies on ingestion (gastro-intestinal)
or placenta! barrier transfer rates of trace elements are addressed to a lesser
extent as is the inhalation route for hydrocarbons.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($500,000) Rank No.
The outputs from the first increment will be data necessary to model the manner ^5
and rate which organic vapors or organic materials adsorbed on inhaled particulates
having a variety of levels of solubility in body fluids are transformed and
transported to critical tissue components. This increment will also provide
an opportunity to develop a model of the manner in which energy related organics
(drinking water pollutants), are transformed and transported to critical tissue
components.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($750,000) Rank No.
The second increment will permit the development of models of transformation ^6
and transport for energy related organics (products and waste streams) which
interact through the immersion exposure route, e.g., skin painting, bathing,
etc.
.102
-------
PROGRAM
Energy/En vi rjonment
COMPONENT
Health & Environmental
Effects
SUBCOMPONENT
Health
ACTIVITY
Evaluation of
to Man
Hazards
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Lower Budaet $K
EPA 1507
ERDA 1106
NIEHS 1679
NIOSH 1739
TOTAL 6031
First Increment
Additional Increment
EPA 250
ERDA 250
NIEHS 125
NIOSH 125
750
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The objective of this program effort is to improve the capability to quantitatively
evaluate the short-term and long-term hazards to man of simultaneous exposure to a
multiplicity of stressors primarily associated with energy technologies at differing
levels and combinations for normal, susceptible and stressed population groups. The
purpose of such activity is to reduce the uncertainties in the estimates of the
quantitative dose-response relationships which are used to ascertain the need for
regulatory action and/or control systems development.
USE OF OUTPUTS
This information will be used in the cost/risk/benefit analysis of various
energy options to ascertain the need for regulatory action for all aspects
of each energy system from resource extraction to energy utilization.
Indications of the probable impacts on various population groups provide
the type of information required for development of a regulatory strategy.
This information will also be used to reevaluate and refine existing
regulatory requirements. In addition, such data are required and utilized
by the developers of energy technologies to modify processes and/or develop
improvements in pollution abatement and control techniques to meet
anticipated or prescribed regulations.
103
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWER BUDGET ($6,031,000) Rank No.
The'output of this activity will be published in a series of reports which 2
convey the quantitative dose-effect relationships for energy-related stressors,
both singly and in combination, and for early and late effects. Such outputs
will include the development of improved models and concepts for extra-
polation of the results of short-term exposures to estimate long-term
(life-time) effects and for extrapolation of the data developed from
animal experimentation to estimate the hazards to man. The outputs will
include reports concerning human health studies (clinical, epidemiological)
as well as animal toxicology studies. Emphasis is on dose-response relation-
ships for adverse pulmonary effects (dysfunction, carcinogenesis) for air
pollutants from increased coal combustion and near-term energy conservation
technologies.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT Rank No.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($750,000) Rank No.
44
The output from the additional increment will provide preliminary estimates
of dose-response relationships for the ingestion exposure route (primarily
drinking) for waterborne energy-related hydrocarbons and Inorganics related
to advanced fossil fuel technology development. Biological endpoints
receiving special attention will be carcinogenesis and teratogenesis.
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PROGRAM
COMPONENT
Energy/Environment Health & Environmental
Effects
SUBCOMPONENT
Health
ACTIVITY
Damage, Repair, Recovery
Processes
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Lower Budqet $K
ERDA
NIEHS 445
NIOSH 750
TOTAL 1195
First
ERDA
NIEHS
NIOSH
Increment
225
275
500
Additional Increment
ERDA 400
NIEHS 300
NIOSH 300
1000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The objective of this activity is to determine the processes of damage, repair,
recovery, protection and amelioration in biological systems: which have been
exposed to hazardous agents associated with energy technologies. The purpose
of the studies of the nature of damage process at the molecular, macromolecular
and cellular levels and the mechanisms of repair and/or recovery processes is
to obtain information necessary to design specific remedial or protective
measures for both the general and occupational population groups. Such infor-
mation is also required to improve risk estimates by permitting more reliable
extrapolation of data obtained from experiments with cellular or animal models.
USE OF OUTPUTS
The outputs will be used to reduce the uncertainties in their estimates of health
risks of low level chronic exposure to energy-related agents individually and in
combination. They will also provide information which will permit design and
implementation of remedial procedures in the event of inadvertent exposure, e.g.,
removal of agents, cell replacement, etc. The outputs will be used by industrial
hygienist to incorporate specific work practices and countermea.sures for the energy-
related industries. Failure to approve this activity will reduce the capability to
protect from inadvertent exposures, and will require the use of data obtained from
expensive and time-consuming experiments for estimates of hazards without any
improvement in the reliability of extrapolation of the data. The occupational
population groups (unions) may very well be unwilling to engage in the development
and commercialization of new~ energy tec&nologtes where the health risks have such
high uncertainty unless interim work practices and countermeasures are provided.
105
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWER BUDGET ($1.195.000) Rank No.
The output pf the lower budget program will be published in a series of reports H
depicting how lesions are induced and repaired at the subcellular level of
organization in biological systems for various energy-related agents, classes
of agents, and their transformed products; and how such lesions are related
to damage at higher levels of tissue organization. The outputs will also include
work practices, documents and recommendations for engineering control counter-
measures to protect the worker specific to energy technologies until sufficient
data are available for occupational standards. The primary biological systems
under investigation are the pulmonary, the hematopoetic and the immune defense
systems. Results from preliminary industrial hygiene surveys for coal com-
bustion, facilities amphibole production, and shale oil production will also
be delivered.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($500,000) Rank No.
The outputs from the first increment will include industrial hygiene surveys 36
for coal gasification and coal liquefaction facilities, the generation of
a "criteria" document for recirculation of air and recommended work practices
documents for .advanced fossil fuel production facilities.
Improved models regarding damage and recovery processes in the respiratory
and immune systems will be developed.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($1,000,000) Rank No.
The outputs from the additional element will be improved models of damage 45
and repair processes occurring in biological molecules, most notably
DNA, and amelioration procedures, e.g. utilization of chelating agents
to remove the toxic agents from critical tissues.
106
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PROGRAM INTEGRATION
107
-------
ZZB DECISION ACTIVITIES - PROGRAM INTEGRATION
_ 75% _ 100% _ 125%
$1,000 RANK $1,000 RANK $1,000 RANK
(42)
Integrated Technology Assessment 2,750 1 410 3 1,100 5
Technical Support 1,527 _ 2 _ 800 _ 4 _ '
4,277 1,210 1,100
108
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PROGRAM
Errergy/Envi r,onment
COMPONENT
Program Integration
SUBCOMPONENT ACTIVITY
Integrated Technology Assessment
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Lower Budqet
$2,750,000
TOTAL $2,750,000
First Increment
$410,000
$410,000
Additional Increment
$1,100,000
$1,100,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The Integrated Technology Assessment program provides analysis of the environmental
economic and social consequences of energy supply and use alternatives. These studies
use the results of the environmental/energy program in evaluating trade-offs of energy
production and pollution control alternatives. The program's aim is to synthesize
research results to clarify the implications of energy and environment strategies on
a regional and national basis. The three policy areas include the environmental
consequences of alternative energy technologies or systems, the relative trade-offs
among alternative environmental regulatory strategies and the trade-offs between
economic consequences and environmental impacts.
USE OF OUTPUTS
The users of the results of integrated assessments are the Nation's energy
policy makers. Because energy decisions are diversified throughout the private and
public sectors, each assessment is designed to provide analysis to those interested
in specific issues. The regional studies are germane to indivisual energy firms,
local governments (i.e. municipal and county), state governments and federal resource
managers (i.e. land managers, leasing officials, etc.). The national studies provide
information to Federal agencies concerened in energy decisions. These include EPA
FEA, ERDA and DOI. The national studies also provide information and analysis to
such private organizations as the Edison Electric Institutem the Electric Power
Research Institute and the National Coal Association. Specific EPA users of energy
policy analysis are the air and water regulatory functions.
109
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWER BUDGET ($2,750,000) Rank No.
1
1) Complete regional assessments: western (1978), Appalachian (1980) and
Ohio basin (1980)
2) Complete national assessments: electric utility (1978), advanced coal
systems (1979), oil import (1980).
3) Maintain interagency program schedules.
The lower budget will allow only a simple definition of issues and issue
analysis. A follow-on effort to incorporate user comments and perform reanalysis
will be curtailed.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($410,000) Rank No.
1) Complete regional assessments: western (1978) 3
Appalachian (1979), Ohio basin (1979).
2) Complete national assessments: electric utility (1978), advanced
coal systems (1979), oil imports (1980).
3) Expand scope of electric utility assessment to include (1) mining,
processing and transportation, (2) water consumption and quality
and (3) fluidized bed combustion.
4) Maintain interagency program schedule.
The first increment will be used to speed the completion of two regional
studies and the advance coal system assessments. The electric utility study
will be expanded to include all parts of the coal processing system and water
use questions.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($1,100,000) Rank No.
1) Complete regional assessments: western (1978), 5
Appalachian (1979), Ohio basin (1979).
2) Complete national assessments: electric utility (1978),
advance coal system (1979), oil imports (1979).
3) Expand efforts to incorporate comments on regional and national
studies to define issues for reanalysis, e.g. coal transportation
and sulfur regulations, water consuption and "beneficial consump-
tive use."
4) Initiate an additional regional ITA study of either the Northeast
or the Gulf Coast.
5) Expand interagancy integrated assessment prograa to include a forum
for review and evalution of modeling techniques and data sources.
The resources of the second increment allow the integrated assessment program to
assure the effective communication of the results of analysis and to re-evaluate speci-
p.110 fic questions raised by users. A part of this process would include a mechanism for com-
paring and evaluating energy policy models and data basis use by all Federal agencies.
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PROGRAM
COMPONENT
SUBCOMPONENT
Energy/Environment Program Integration
ACTIVITY
Technical Support
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 Lower Budaet
$1,527,000
TOTAL $1,527,000
First Increment
$800,000
$800,000
Additional Increment
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The purpose of this program is three-fold. First, it provides the entire 17-agency,
$100 million per year Interagency Program with standard management information support.
Second, it produces quick-response studies under extreme tirte constraints as input into
major program plan and policy activities. Third, it provides an extensive information
transfer function to assure that the technical information and expertise generated by
the Interagency Energy/Environment R&D Program is available in usable form to energy
decision-makers and the interested public.
Decisions affecting the Nation's energy future are now and will continue to be made by
a wide variety of private and local, state and Federal organizations. The technical
support activity is designed to help assure that the technical expertise and information
generated by the Interagency Energy/Environment Research program is available to energy
decision makers and other interested persons. In addition, the activities sponsored with
these resources help to bring information on the status of energy programs and policies
to environmental researchers and research planners.
USE OF OUTPUTS
There are three types of output from this program: IVtenagement information, special policy
studies and executive reports. The management information is used to monitor projects,
report on exceptions, track milestones, and assure program continuity. The special policy
studies are used to help plan resource allocations with regard to state-of-the-art energy
issues and associated developing environmental concerns. The executive reports are used
to inform private and public decision makers, on the salient alternatives associated with
technological, regional,.-economic and social energy/environment and industry/environment
developments.
The first two types of output (management information and policy studies are used mainly
by EPA and Interagency Program research managers and planners. The third (executive re-
ports) are used by a full spectrum of individuals from research managers to the concerned
public. In addition to these major types of output, the program employs several other
mechanisms, ranging from cooperative, regionally oriented R&D projects to development of
scientific data for regulatory functions, to provision of expert witness testimony and tne
conduct of conferences and seminars. Users of these forms of information transfer include
the representatives of the 17 agencies in the program, federal regional officals, state
officials and private individuals interested in Federal energy- and industry-related
activities. Ill
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUTS FOR LOWER BUDGET ($1,527,000) Rank No. 2
'Conduct a major review of the Interagency Program. The review will involve all of
the research managers from the 17 Federal agencies and will produce a documented
set of major achievements, corrections and new initiatives for the Interagency
Program.
Publish several management information reports which will comprise a compendium
of research project, resource allocation and milestone status reports.
Publish six executive summary reports on energy related environmental R&D topics.
Produce six special policy-level reports for in-house resource planning and
interagency program use.
Support energy/environment information transfer with two EPA regions.
Produce three special policy-level reports for in-house resource planning and
Interagency Program use.
OUTPUTS FROM FIRST INCREMENT ($800,000) Rank No. 4
Produce four executive summary reports on energy/environment and energy-related
environmental R&D topics.
Produce documentation, on project-by-project level, of entire FY-1977 Interagency
Program. Provide the same for the entire industrial program.
Support energy/environment R&D information transfer with two EPA regions.
OUTPUTS FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT Rank No.
No additional increment.
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SECTION III - CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE REVIEW
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STAFF DRAFT ANALYSIS
ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS OF THE
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY: A Pilot Test of Zero-
Base Budgeting in a Legislative Framework
Volume I
Analysis
Prepared by
Edward H. Rastatter
Natural Resources and Commerce Division
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE
THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES
March 1977
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PREFACE
This report, on a pilot test of the application of zero-"based
Budgeting (ZBB) in a legislative framework, vas prepared at the
request of the staff of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The
test, on the energy/environmental programs of the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), is one of four pilot tests "being performed
on aspects of the fiscal year 1978 "budget, two for the Senate Appro-
priations Committee and two for the House Appropriations Committee,
all with staff support "by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
In keeping with 'the mandate of the Congressional Budget Office
to provide objective, nonpartisan analysis of budget issues, this
report contains no policy recommendations. The budget options
presented in this report do not represent policies advocated by the
Congressional Budget Office. They are simply alternatives chosen to
illustrate the broad range of options available to the Congress.
The report was prepared by Edward H. Rastatter of CBO's Natural
Resources and Commerce Division, with important contributions by
Richard M. Dowd, under the direction of Nicolai Timenes, Jr.
The report could not have been prepared, nor the exercise con-
ducted, without the wholehearted cooperation of EPA staff, notably
Dr. Stephen J. Gage, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Energy, Minerals
and Industry Research. However, EPA has not reviewed this report and
thus is not responsible for its contents.
For ease of handling, the appendices to this paper are in a
separate volume.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOLUME I
Preface 115
Contents
Summary
Chapter I: Background 121
Request 121
Zero-Base Budgeting 121
Why This Account? 1£3
Chapter II: The EPA Energy R&D Account 125
Origins 125
King - Muir - Gage Reports 126
Translation Into "Decision Packages" 126
Ranking of Decision Packages 127
Chapter III: Budget Strategies Which Employ EPA Priorities 129
$10 million Reduction from the 1978 Budget Request 130
$10 million Addition to the 1978 Budget Request 133
Chapter IV: Strategies Which Override EPA Priorities 135
Moderate Reordering of Priorities 136
Fundamental Reordering of Priorities 138
Chapter V: Lessons Learned From the Pilot Test 141
(continued)
116
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How this Experiment Differs from Other Recent , ,,
Federal ZBB Experiments
Benefits -,-o
Design of the Text , , ,
Effect 145
Process 146
Applicability of Results ,,_
VOLUME II - APPENDICES 149
Appendix A. List of Sub-Tasks 151
Appendix B. A Sample Decision Package 153
Appendix C. Specific Outputs Foregone from a Reduction 156
of up to $10 million
Appendix D. Specific Outputs Produced from an Increase 165
of up to $10 million
Appendix E. Specific Outputs Foregone From a Reduction of 170
$i| million for Health and Ecological Effects
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SUMMARY
Zero-base budgeting (ZBB) is a budgeting system which forces the
scrutiny of all budget dollars requested — not just the increase over
the previous year's level. It does this by, first, breaking down
agency programs into specific activities and relatively small funding
increments, and then forcing successively higher levels of management
to rank these "decision packages" in the order of their importance.
Decision makers can then set overall budget levels with an informed
judgment that they are adding funds for the highest priority tasks and
cutting out relatively low priority ones.
The ZBB technique was applied experimentally to the energy-
related environmental research and development account of the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in response to a request
of the Senate Appropriation Committee. The information and insights
surfaced in this experiment enabled the development of a number of
alternative strategies the Committee may wish to examine vis-a-vis
the President's 1978 budget request. The five alternative strategies
fall into two broad categories - two which alter the 1978 request
by plus and minus $10 million using the EPA priorities; and three
which alter the request by overriding the EPA priorities with
moderate or fundamental changes in priorities as seen by the Committee.
Budget Strategies using EPA priorities but alternative budget levels.
A reduction of $10 million from the 1978 Request, although affecting
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many of the funded activities, would focus on two general areas. For
control technology it would substantially reduce efforts in assessing
and developing environmental methods to deal with new energy technology
(waste, synthetic fuels, and geothermal sources). For health and eco-
logical effects much of the reduction would be for efforts designed to
improve knowledge of the causes, quantities and impacts of hazardous
organic compounds.
An increase of $10 million over the 1978 request work would increase
the efforts in control technology toward new technology at the commercial
scale and,in the Health and Ecological effects area, it would increase
national pollutant data and interpretive results of emissions upon am-
bient levels and human health.
Budget Strategies which override EPA priorities.
Adding back the $^- million reprogrammed from control technology in
the 1978 Request would increase and accelerate efforts toward understand-
ing some of the newer technology both for generating energy from coal
and for controlling pollutants from coal combustion.
A reduction of $4 million for Health and Ecological Effects would
mean foregoing the same outputs as those under the strategy of reducing
the budget overall by $10 million. This would result in a reduction in1
effects designed to improve knowledge of the causes, quantities, and
impacts of hazardous organic compounds and,in addition, foregoing develop-
ment of a validated screening method for early indication of sub-lethal
effects and development of a model for predicting weather effects as a
result of cooling tower plumes.
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Adding $5 million specifically earmarked for the long-term
research widely considered -under-represented in the EPA program would
increase efforts on the long term health effects of energy sources,
baseline air quality information, and the characterization of emissions
from fluidized combustion. In the control technology area, efforts in
coal cleaning would be increased.
Lessons learned from the ZBB experiment.
There were clearly benefits from the experiment, both to the
agency in forcing it to examine its program for the outputs produced,
the interactions among them, and their relative priorities; and to
CBO for the better understanding of the account that it engendered.
The experiment's usefulness to the Committee only it can judge.
However, the experiment was extremely time-consuming, and the
"success" of any wider-scale ZBB effort would be heavily influenced
by the account(s) involved and by the cooperation of the agency,
which is,in turn, a strong function of what it perceived the results
were on its appropriation level. Finally, in order to be well-done,
a wider-scale ZBB effort may require production of far more detail
than could be usefully perused by the Committee.
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CHAPTER I BACKGROUND
REQUEST
In November 1976 CBO was approached informally by staff
members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, about the possi-
bility of performing an experiment vith "zero-base budgeting"
(ZBB). In spite of the publicity surrounding ZBB and its apparently
growing popularity for use in the business community and in 12-15
state governments, attempts to implement ZBB at the federal level
have been limited to an abortive attempt in the Department of
Agriculture in the early 1960s. (Not that analytical attempts to
examine the "base" of the federal expenditures have not been under-
taken: the planning-programming budgeting system (PPBS) of the
1960s and management by objectives (MBO) of the early 1970s are
examples of government-wide efforts.)
ZERO-BASE BUDGETING
ZBB is a budgeting system which forces the scrutiny of all
budget dollars requested, not just the increase over the previous
year's budget level (which, under traditional budgeting, is implicitly
treated as inviolable).
The ZBB procedure used in this experiment follows generally
that outlined in Peter Pyhrr, Zero-Ease Budgeting; however, some of
Pyhrr's analytical trappings were not included (benefit cost comparisons,
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alternatives, etc.) because we did not believe they COU-LO. be
performed credibly in time for this exercise to be useful..
The tvo steps to ZBB are (a) development of "decision -packages"
and (b) ranking them by priority.
• Decision packages, developed by lower-level managers» are
meant to identify discrete activities which will produce specific
outputs, at various levels of funding. For example, activity A, if
funded at a base level of $100,000, will enable monitoring of, say
seven pollutants in three rivers; an additional $25,000-will fund
monitoring of two additional rivers, while a further -$15,000 will
fund monitoring of still two more rivers. Each of these'three
funding increments for activity A constitutes a "decision package".
After each of the agency's activities is broken down dnto
similar decision packages, higher levels of management "rank" the
packages in order of importance. In this way base level packages
are forced to compete for scarce dollars with higher-level incre-
ments, since the agency may well consider high funding levels for
certain activities more important than even base level funding for
others. Thus, the end product of the ZBB exercise is a menu of
specific outputs in decreasing order of priority. Its usefulness in
this particular experiment is that the Committee can not only see
what outputs result from the President's Request, but also the out-
puts which would be added or foregone by appropriation of more or
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less than the request. An additional feature is that oversight
committees will have a specific list of outputs to be compared with
actual performance in later time periods.
WHY THIS ACCOUNT?
After extensive discussion, the EPA Energy Research and
Development account was chosen for the experiment for several
reasons. The account is relatively discretionary both in nature
and level of effort, compared to say, Enforcement. Agency officials
were eager to participate in order to raise the level of debate
in the Congress over appropriation levels. Finally, a major reason
was that the account was easily broken down into fairly discrete
activities or tasks which could be "costed out" at various levels
of effort.
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CHAPTER II THE EPA R&D ACCOUNT
ORIGINS
The history of this account is relatively recent and coherent.
In June, 1973, the President directed the Chairman of the Atomic
Energy Commission to prepare recommendations for an integrated
energy research and development program for the Nation. The Chairman
enlisted the assistance of an interagency task force and, in
December 1973, completed and forwarded her recommendations in a
report "The Nation's Energy Future". That report formed the basis
for a number of budgetary and program decisions regarding technologies
for energy production, conversion, and use.
In the process of preparing their recommendations, it became
clear to the task force that there would be an additional requirement
for research to identify the environmental effects of the new tech-
nologies, and to develop techniques for mitigating those effects. As
a result, funds were included in EPA's fiscal year 1975 budget request
for such purposes, and the Office of Management and Budget and the
Council on Environmental Quality established two interagency working
groups to analyse environmental R&D requirements and to recommend how
Federal funds requested through EPA should be allocated.
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KING-MUIR AND GAGE REPORTS
The activities addressed by this report stem from those included
in the recommendations contained in those task force reports,
commonly referred to as the King-Muir Reportl/ and the Gage report.2_/
These reports were developed by key representatives of more than a
dozen federal agencies, departments, and laboratories, all involved
in energy-related environmental research. One of the major purposes
of the reports was to determine whether serious gaps existed in the
overall Federal Energy/Environmental R&D Program. By performing a
cross-cut review of the entire program it was possible to identify
such gaps, to determine areas where adequate support was available
for national energy goals, and to locate target areas for funding
via the special EPA energy appropriation._3/
TRANSLATION INTO "DECISION PACKAGES"
The activities recommended in King-Muir-Gage were translated,
by EPA staff, into a series of 39 discrete sub-tasks (attached as.
Appendix A) for which EPA either serves as the funding agent for an
interagency effort or performs the task itself.
I/ Report of the Interagency Working Group on Health and Environ-
mental Effects of Energy Use.
2_/ Final Report of the Interagency Working Group on Environmental
Control Technology for Energy Systems.
3_/ Beginning with fiscal year 1977, energy R&D activities were
merged with other R&D into a single R&D account.
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Funding increments for each sub-task were determined (by
EPA staff). "Base level" is the minimum level ("critical mass")
below which the particular task might as well not be funded; if
such a level could not be identified, it was set at approximately
25 percent less that the fiscal year 1978 Budget Request. The
"first increment" above the base level is that amount necessary to
bring the total up to the 1978 Request.k/ The "additional increment"
is what the agency would like to see appropriated in the absence of
budget constraints, but with the total of all "additional increments"
constrained to sum to not more than 25 percent more than the 1978
request. Appendix B contains an example of the write-up of a
decision package. The full set of decision packages, totalling
some 87 pages at 2 to k pages per sub-task, is not included in
this report.
RANKING OF DECISION PACKAGES
It is important that all ranking of decision packages be done
by the agency itself, unless expertise exists elsewhere to overrule
(some of) the agency's priorities. In this experiment, EPA initially
agreed to rank its decision packages in three separate rankings:
one set of priorities for Health and Environmental Effects, one set
for Environmental Control Technology and another for Program Inte-
gration. EPA felt it was unable to develop one larger set of
JV President Ford's request. Details of President Carter's
recommendations were not available in time to be examined in this
report.
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priorities by combining all the decision packages of the three.
However, the EPA staff were able to do so for a critical subset of
decision packages in the range of $10 million above and $10 million
below the 1978 request.
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CHAPTER III BUDGET STRATEGIES USING EPA PRIORITIES
In the EPA 1978 budget request, the Congress is being asked to
appropriate a specific amount for energy R&D, $96,^27,000. The
justification materials contain some narrative information concerning
what was accomplished with the 1976 appropriation, what studies and
projects are currently being supported with the 1977 appropriation,
and what studies and projects will be begun, continued, and/or com-
pleted with the 1978 amount requested. Following the usual budget
format, the material does not stress a sense of agency or national
priorities, nor (is) any notion of what projects will be cut back or
expanded if a different amount is appropriated. The Appropriation
Committee can ask EPA witnesses, of course, what actions the agency
will take in such a situation, but there is ordinarily no formal
mechanism for developing answers in advance. Consequently, any
changes the Committee makes to the appropriation request will, of
necessity, be developed largely in the absence of formal recommenda-
tions from the agency or the agency's evaluation of the consequences.
A principal use of prioritized decision packages in the ZBB
framework is to permit higher management levels (in this instance
the Appropriations Committee) to examine the budget level proposed
for the program under review in light of the competition for bud-
getary resources from other, different programs. In particular,
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ZBB is designed to elicit information on what would be sacri-
ficed or gained, in terms of substantive accomplishment, at
different levels of funding. To illustrate this use of ZBB,
two alternative budgets are developed, one at $10 million less
than the President has requested, and one at $10 million more.
Note that, in showing outputs added or foregone, the priority
ranking established by the agency is assumed. Changes to those
priorities are considered in the next chapter,
$10 million reduction from the 1978 Budget Request.
The Committee may decide that the appropriation should be
less than the request. Table 1 below shows how, using EPA priorities,
reductions of up to $10 million from the request would be distributed
among the activities carried out in the energy R&D account. Appendix
C contains a detailed list of the specific outputs which would be
foregone in the event of such reductions.
The results of a $10 million reduction would be to cut about
$5-6 million from the control technology program, about $3.2 million
from the Health and Ecological Effects program, and about $1,2
million from Program Integration.
Outputs that would be foregone in control technology would
include: accelerating the environmental assessment of processes for
high BTU synthetic gas from coal and evaluation of associated treatment
methods; performing feasibility studies of several alternatives to
convert solid waste into fuel; expanding a pilot demonstration on
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TABLE 1. DISTRIBUTION OF REDUCTIONS UP TO $10M FROM 1978 REQUEST
Program
Program Activity Component
Incremental
a/ Amount ($K)
Cumulative
Budget ($M)
Metabolism of Hazardous
Agents
Waste-as-fuel
Synthetic fuel (shale)
Advanced Energy Systems
Damage/Repair/Recovery
Atmospheric Transport
and Transformation
Integrated Technology
Assessment
Waste and Water
Pollution Control
Air Instrumentation
Water Instrumentation
Water Monitoring
Technical Support
Synthetic fuel (coal)
Oil and Gas Extraction
Industrial Energy
Conservation
Quality Assurence
HE
CT
CT
CT
HE
HE
PI
CT
HE
HE
HE
PI
CT
CT
CT
HE
1978
500
1,200
hOO
300
500
1,000
UlO
1,133
300
300
280
800
1,788
500
300
300
Budget Request
86.1H6
86,916
88,116
88,516
88,816
89,316
90,316
90,726
91,859
92,159
92,>*59
92,739
93,539
95,327
95,827
96,127
96,^27
a/ HE = Health and Environmental Effects; CT = Control Technology;
PI = Program Integration
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disposing of fluergas desulfurization wastes and additional pilots
on cooling water systems; adding one more pilot plant for shale oil
pollution control; developing and evaluating- several methods to-
avoid and clean up oil spills; developing baseline data on the disposal
of geothermal fluids; and associated ground water and integrating
several energy conservation and pollution control methods.
The outputs foregone in health and ecological effects would • . ;
include: adding an additional six field studies to determine the
causes of hazardous atmospheric organics from advanced fossil fuel
facilities and base'.line studies on the levels- of hazardous organics
in one region; gathering data on the paths by which inhaled organics
are transmitted to critical tissues and modelling how ingested
organics are transmitted to critical tissues; performing industrial
hygiene surveys and developing exposure criteria for coal gasification
and liquefaction pollutants; developing new methods for measuring •
hazardous organic compounds in the air and in water .in an industrial
environment, and for determining crude oil contamination in coastal
and marine waters; adding. 200 water monitoring sites for baseline
data in the Eastern U.S.; and providing standards and guidelines for
monitoring in the Southwest and Midwest regions.
Outputs foregone in Program Integration would include:
accelerating two regional studies and expanding- the electric
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industry study to include all parts of the coal system; and
providing for dissemination and documentation of many of the
results of the program for fiscal 1977-
The total reduction, although covering many of the programs,
would focus on two general areas. For control technologies
it would substantially reduce efforts in assessing and devel-
oping environmental methods to deal with new energy technology
(waste, synthetic fuels, and geothermal sources). For health
and ecological effects much of the reduction would be for efforts
designed to improve knowledge of the causes ,quantities, and im-
pacts of hazardous organic compounds.
$10 Million Addition to the.1.9.7.8 Budget Request
Conversely, the Committee may decide that the 1978 request
for this account is insufficient believing that, with the great
rush to accelerate supplies of energy from new and existing
sources, additional funds should be appropriated to monitor and abate
the environmental consequences. Table 2 shows how, using EPA
priorities, additional funds of up to $10 million would be applied.
Appendix D contains a detailed list of the specific outputs which
could be produced by EPA in the event of such additions.
The results of such an addition would be to-add about $5.2
million to control technology efforts and about $^.T to health
and ecological effects and integrated assessments. The outputs
that would be obtained from control technology would accelerate
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TABLE 2. DISTRIBUTION OF ADDITIONS UP TO $10M. to 1978 REQUEST
Program Incremental
Program Activity Component a/ Amount ( $K)
Fluidized Bed Combustion
Air Monitoring
Water Monitoring
Integrated Technology
Assessment
Flue Gas Desulfurization
Coal Cleaning
Evaluation of Hazards
to Man
Damage/Repair/Reaovery
Nitrous Oxide Control
CT '
HE
HE
PI
CT
CT
HE
HE
CT
1978 Budget
Request
7lit -o
1,000
800
1,100
1,631
1,353
750
1,000
1,500
Cumulative
Budget ($K)
96,1+27
;ss'., 97,11+1
98,1^1
- 98,9^1
: 100, OUl
101,672
103,025
103,775
10^,775
106,275
a,/ HE = Health and Environmental Effects; CT = Control Technology;
PI = Program Integration
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development of controls for various pollutants Including direct
sulfur removal from stacks, coal cleaning and modification of
combustion methods as well as to assess the costs azid benefits of
various specific flue gas desulfurization devices and to develop
alternatives to slurry pond disposal. In the health and ecologi-
cal effects area the output would include an increase in air moni-
toring sites near potential energy facilities; gathering water
quality baseline data in additional regions (Midwest and South-
western) ; an assessment of the impact of energy facilities on
regional water quality; preliminary dose-response data for the
impact of water-borne hydrocarbons upon human health; and im-
proved models depicting the impact of pollutants on specific
biological molecules such as DNA, along with repair processes.
The Integrated Technology Assessment outputs would include
accelerating by one year a national assessment of oil imports,
initiating a regional assessment (Northeast or Gulf Coast) and
evaluating and disseminating results of various models and
assessments. Thus the control technology work would increase
the efforts toward new technologies at the commercial scale and
the Health and Ecological effects would increase national
pollutant data and interpretive results of emissions upon
ambient levels and human health.
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CHAPTER IV STRATEGIES WHICH OVERRIDE; EPA PRIORITIES
While the above budget strategies build on possible changes
to the level of the President's request for the environmental
R&D program using EPA priorities, the Congress may wish to over-
ride those priorities and specify its own. One of the features
of ZBB is that outputs and objectives should be sufficiently
specified by lower level experts that successively higher levels
of decision-makers may re-rank decision packages on the basis of
good information but a better understanding of overall national
priorities. Such strategies, several of which are outlined below,
could go to the mix, as well as the level, of this program.
Moderate reordering of priorities. A number of strategies are
available which would alter the relative budget amounts devoted
to control technology and health and environmental effects, but
would accept the stated EPA priorities within those categories.
The 1978 request reflects an added $4 million for health
and environmental effects as requested by EPA, but financed,
in effect, by a cut of that amount for control technology. As
an example of reordering of priorities, the committee might add
back that cut, resulting in a total level just over $100 mil-
lion and the following additional outputs: J/
I/ See Appendix D for the specific outputs associated with
these sub-tasks.
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$ 714,000 Fluidized Bed Combustion
$1,631,000 Flue Gas Desulfurization
$1,353.000 Physical/Chemical Coal Cleaning
The outputs added for control technology would be those
C.T's added in the strategy sketched out earlier of increasing
the total budget by $10 million. These would increase and
accelerate efforts toward understanding some of the newer
technologies both for generating energy from coal and for
controlling pollutants from coal combustion.
As another example, Health and Ecological Effects might
be reduced by $4 million. This strategy could stand by itself
or be used in conjunction with the previous strategy (the latter
would essentially reflect and reaffirm not only the 1977 budget
level but also the relative distribution of funds between control
technology and health and ecological effects as originally re-
quested by EPA). Under this strategy, the following outputs would
be foregone: 2J
$ 300,000 Quality Assurance
$ 280,000 Water Monitoring
$ 300,000 Water Instrumentation
$ 300,000 Air Instrumentation
$1,000,000 Atmospheric•Transport
$ 500,000 Damage/Repair, Recovery Processes
$ 500,000 Metabolishm of Hazardous Agents
$ 500,000 Dose and Damage Indicators
$ 135,000 Weather Modification
21 See Appendix E for a list of the specific outputs forgone
from this reduction.
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The outputs foregone in this strategy would include those
for Health and Ecological Effects in the strategy of reducing
the budget over all by $10 million. This would result in a
reduction in efforts designed to improve knowledge of the causes,
quantities, and impacts of hazardous organic compounds; to develop
a validated screening method for early indication of sub-lethal
effects, and to develop a model for predicting weather effects
as a result of cooling tower plumes.
Fundamental reordering of priorities. Virtually unlimited
possibilities exist, of course, for a Congressional reordering
of priorities among all the decision packages. One illustrative
strategy is outlined here. Some critics of EPA feel that the
R&D budget is treated as an emergency source of cash for financing
responses to unanticipated crises such as that involving- Keporie.
Others feel strongly that EPA is devoting too small a proportion
of its budget to truly long-term research projects. As the Office
of Technology Assessment says in a recent report: 3/
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in
presenting to Congress for the first time a 5-year
Plan for Environmental Research and Development
activities, has taken an important step toward ex-
panding the public dialog necessary to identify
and establish national environmental goals. Short-
"A review of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Environmental Research Outlook: Fiscal Year 1976
through 1980", August 1976, p. 1.
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comings in the initial EPA R&D Plan serve notice of
potential issues which must be resolved if EPA is to
continue to effectively and authoritatively perform
its mission of protecting environmental quality for
both present and future generations. Foremost among
the shortcomings in the R&D Plan is EPA'S failure to
indicate a commitment to long-range research and, as
a corollary, an excessive focus on short-term R&D
issues related directly to the enforcement and or
achievement of EPA's current regulations. According-
ly, the Plan emphasizes the development and demonstra-
tion of control technologies. In many cases, however,
the large problems involve social, economic, and insti-
tutional patterns .which not only impede technical solu-
tions but which require nontechnical approaches. To
develop effective overall environmental management
strategies will require more systematic and sustained
socioeconomic research efforts than those specified
in the Plan. An added R&D emphasis on long-range
environmental concerns and a more responsive role to
its line responsibility as coordinator of Federal
enviornmental R&D would do much to enhance EPA's
effectiveness and credibility.
One strategy which would address these concerns would be to
appropriate an amount exceeding the request by, say, $5 million
and earmarking it for such essentially long-term sub-tasks as: J4/
$ 800,000 Evaluation of Hazards to Man
$1,000,000 Damage/Repaid/Recovery Processes
$ 71^,000 Fluidized Bed Combustion
$1,353,000 Coal Cleaning
$1,000,000 Air Monitoring
By earmarking an additional $5 million for long-term research,
somewhat more than half would go to health and ecological effects,
and the rest to control technology. The Health and Ecological
effects program would provide funds for making preliminary esti-
jl/ See Appendix D for the specific outputs associated
with these sub-tasks.
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mates of the dose-response relationship for vater*-borne hydro-
carbons, developing improved models of damage and repair
processes in biological molecules such as DNA, and for a major
increase in the number of air monitoring sites in areas where
new energy facilities are probable.
In control technology the increased -outputs would speed
the gathering of data on pollution control for fluidized bed .
combustion, develop alternatives to slurry pond disposal, and
to combine coal cleaning and flue gas desulfurizatlon. These
outputs would thus increase efforts on long-term health effects
of energy sources, baseline air quality information, and expand
the effects for two likely fossil fuel preparation methods, coal
cleaning and fluidized beds.
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CHAPTER V LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE PILOT TEST
Several observations about the application of zero-base
budgeting in the legislative process emerge from this experience.
HOW THIS EXPERIMENT DIFFERS FROM OTHER RECENT FEDERAL
ZBB EXPERIMENTS
Three other ZBB experiments at the federal level have been
undertaken recently, one under the sponsorship of the Senate
Appropriations Committee and two under the sponsorship of the
House Appropriations Committee. Table 3 compares the approach of
the different experiments on a number of points. As Table 3 shovs,
the EPA experiment was somewhat closer to the formal ZBB technique
than the others. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) was
not quite as close in approach because the agency did not rank its
decision packages, but the experiment comprised the entire agency
whereas the EPA experiment applied to a relatively small portion of
the agency's budget.I/
As the NASA experiment progressed, it became apparent that a
formal ZBB review would be difficult to accomplish. As a result,
the experiment now takes the form of an attempt to provide a
detailed breakdown of what is being done in its Research and Program
!_/ CPSC believed its "programs were too interrelated" and that
there was "no management information system" which would support
such ranking.
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TABLE 3. COMPARISON OF ZBB EXPERIMENTS
EPA CPSC NASA HUD
Sponsor
% of agency budget involved
ZBB concepts used:
alternative "budget
levels employed for
individual program
components
decision packages
developed
decision packages
ranked
benefit-cost analyses
developed
alternative budget
strategies developed
Senate House House Senate
5.2 100.0 22.7 0.3
yes yes
no
yes yes no
yes no
no no
yes no
no
no
no
no
no
no
no
no
142
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Management (R&PM) account. In part, this situation arises because
of the close relationship of NASA's R&PM and R&D accounts and the
importance of the ongoing shuttle to both. Although detailed jus-
tification is proTided for new starts, no alternative budget levels
or relative priorities are developed.
The HUD experiment ran into early data problems; consequently,
any further analytical work will be outside the ZBB, framework.
Benefits
There clearly were a number of benefits, to a variety of
participants in the process. EPA acknowledges that the pilot test
forced the agency to consider seriously what the outputs of its
energy R&D activities are, how they interact, and what relative
priorities it attaches to them. We believe this conclusion was
strongly influenced by, and influenced, the very positive attitude
EPA brought to the experiment.
CBO probably learned more about the program than it could
or would have from standard budget justification material, because
the presentation of ZBB decision packages provided information which
led almost automatically to a series of fundamental questions relating
to the underlying design of the program.
Whether the results will prove useful to the Committee only
it can judge; however, there clearly has been created a new flow
of information which could markedly alter the shape of the debate
over the appropriations for this account.
These results were not achieved without cost.
143
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Design of the Test
The legislative environment at the Federal level differs
markedly from the executive environment at the State level, and
this difference requires almost a fundamental redefinition of
zero-base budgeting if the needs of the Committees are to be met.
In this test, the zero-base concepts outlined by Pyhrr were taken
as a conceptual framework or point of departure to be tailored :
to the particular requirements of the EPA' energy R&D account, and
not as dogma to be followed slavishly.
An important initial consideration is the selection of the
account to be zero-based. The energy portion of the EPA R&D account
seemed a reasonable choice, being a reasonably homogeneous program
which can be considered in isolation. And yet the program does not
stand alone; it is driven in large part by decisions on the energy-
producing technologies chosen for support in research programs of
other agencies, notably ERDA; and, moneys from this account are
passed through to other agencies to support work which is closely
related to their mission. Rare is the Federal program which serves
only one objective or constituency; yet there is at least an
implicit assumption in ZBB that the objectives underlying a program
to be zero-based can be uniquely defined.
The level of aggregation is very important to the success of
the zero-base effort. A first decision on level of aggregation is
implied by the choice of the account to be zero-based. (Had one
144
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chosen all of EPA, all EPA R&D, or just Control Technology, the
exercise would have looked quite different). Once that decision
has been made, however, the decision on sub-tasks is important. In
the present instance, 39 sub-tasks were identified, and decision
packages developed at three levels of funding for each. That level
itself is a compromise, which seemed to work reasonably well. However,
its utility will be determined in part by the amount of time the
Committee can allocate to review of this account. If the Committee
has little time, then a relatively high level of aggregation would be
appropriate. On the other hand, applications of ZBB at the State
level are based on decision packages of extreme detail—far more
detailed than any examined in this test. The level of detail clearly
influences the effort involved as well as the insight gained from
the exercise.
Effort
We have no estimate of the resources that were devoted to this
pilot test; however, they were considerable. They represented extra
time and work, in parallel with (and calling on the same resources as)
preparation of standard budget justification materials; moreover,
the agency was "feeling its way". Subsequent attempts would pre-
sumably proceed more smoothly, assuming the agency-remained as
enthusiastic, but we suspect that enthusiasm in telling its story
would be closely tied to what the agency believed the probable
results on the appropriation level to be; the first reduction might
quickly dampen enthusiasm .
145
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CBO participation is clearly limited to the pilot test phase
"by the extent of resources available to CBO, which is a small office.
It would not be possible for CBO to prepare, oversee, or even review
in detail a large number of ZBB submissions.
An important question is the resources available to the
Appropriations Committee to review the ZBB submissions. Despite
considerable effort, we know of no way to simplify or summarize ZBB
materials in such a way that they can be dealt with quickly. A
careful study of the documentation—including at least some of the
more critical decision package writeups themselves—will reward the
diligent reader with new insights. But that study is not easy. And
there is nothing more frustrating to a bureaucrat than to labor
overtime to produce a report which will not be read.
Process
This report has been prepared by CBO, at the specific request
of the Appropriations Committee staff. That fact gives us some pause.
CBO does not, in general, consider itself qualified to suggest
alterations of priorities in matters of programmatic detail. Indeed,
ZBB requires that such priorities be recommended by lower levels of
management, and altered only by successively higher levels. CBO,
of course, is required by law to be non-partisan, and thus cannot
make recommendations on program content or level. Also, the decision
packages themselves should be published,along with.any.summary.
146
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Finally, there is the question of the posture of the
executive branch. This exercise was not cleared explicitly by the
highest levels of EPA or by the Office of Management and Budget,
as might be required for a more formal submission by the agency.
As a result, this report is neither fish nor fovl, representing,
rather, a joint staff effort. A question which must be addressed
in the implementation is the willingness of the executive branch
to, in effect, provide options —as well as a recommendation—to
the Congress. There has, in the past, been no formal mechanism for
providing such options; but, of course, the various Committees
usually become aware of agency desires by other means.
Applicability of Results
How well would the results of this exercise predict the
results of ZBB as applied in general? Comparison of the results of
this exercise with those of the other pilot tests prompts several
conclusions.
First, it is difficult to generalize from an experiment—
which is known by the participants to be a test and therefore
prompts extraordinary performance—to a routine application. Certainly,
agency enthusiasm could wane and level of management involvement
could decline. Second, any application is sensitive to the account
selected for zero-basing. These results would have little relevance
to programs which deliver routine services, or which consist of a
single research target, such as a space shuttle or the liquid metal
fast breeder reactor.
147
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Finally, the sheer mass of documentation and level of
programmatic scrutiny involved in agency-wide and government-wide
application of ZBB would alter the climate in ways which can only
be conjectured at this stage.
These observations are preliminary, and based on the single
pilot test reported here. CBO is considering a comprehensive
report on the four pilot tests which should be able to draw some
further generalizations.
148
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STAFF DRAFT ANALYSIS
ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS OF THE
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY: A Pilot Test of Zero-
Base Budgeting in a Legislative Framework
Volume II
Appendices
Prepared by
Edward H. Rastatter
Natural Resources and Commerce Division
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE
THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES
March 1977
149
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOLUME II
' • .• . •' '
Appendix A. List of Sub-Tasks
Appendix B. A Sample Decision Package >. 153
4^
Appendix C. Specific Outputs Foregone from a Reduction 155
of up to $10 million
Appendix D. Specific Outputs Produced from an Increase 155
• of up to $10 million '•'•• ->£&.„•,$;"•_.."'.'''•-'-. ±~-'/-
Appendix E. Specific Outputs Foregone From a Reduction of 179
$U million'for Health and Ecological Effects
150
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APPENDIX A LIST OF SUB-TASKS
HEALTH AND ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS:
Ecological Effects
Aquatic Effects
Marine Effects
Terrestrial Effects
Reclamation/Revegetation
Environmental Transport Processes
Atmospheric Transport and Transformation
Weather Modification
Aquatic Transport
Marine Transport
Groundwater Transport
Monitoring
Air Monitoring
Water Monitoring
Groundwater Monitoring
Surface Monitoring
Quality Assurance
Instrumentation
Air Instrumentation
Water Instrumentation
Remote Instrumentation
Health Effects
Hazardous Agent I.D.
Dose and Damage Indicators
Metabolism of Hazardous Agents
Evaluation of Hazards to Man
Damage/Repair/Recovery Processes
151
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CONTROL TECHNOLOGY:
Energy Resource Extraction
Solid Fuel
Oil and Gas
Physical/Chemical Coal Cleaning
Flue Gas Cleaning
FGD
NOX Control Technology
Fine Particulate and Hazardous Materials Control
Waste and Water Pollution Control (including Thermal)
Direct Combustion
Fluidized Bed Combustion
Advanced Oil Processing
Advanced Technologies
Synthetic Fuels (coal)
Synthetic Fuels (non-coal)
Waste as Fuel
Advanced Power Cycles
Advanced Energy Systems
Industrial Energy Conservation
PROGRAM INTEGRATION:
Integrated Technology Assessment
Technical Support
152
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APPENDIX B A SAMPLE DECISION PACKAGE
153
-------
PROGRAM COMPONENT SUBCOMPONENT ACTIVITY
Energy/Environment Control Technology Fuel Processing Synthetic Fuels/
Non-Coal
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION BY AGENCY
FY-1978 LOWEST LEVEL BUDGET
EPA (IERL-CI) $1,110,000
TOTAL $1,110,000
FIRST INCREMENT
$1*00,000
TOTAL $UOO,000
ADDITIONAL 'INCREMENT
$200,000
TOTAL $200,000
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Various non-coal based synthetic fuel processes are under development. The
environmental and health effects of producing and utilizing synthetic fuels
from oil shale, bionass, etc., are not thoroughly understood. This activity
will identify the probable environmental effects of such processes and then
develop and demonstrate pollution control technology to allow appropriate
environmental standards to be written, adequate pollution control methods
to be specified, and commercialization of synthetic fuel processes to proceed
at a maximum rate. The program will also develop the necessary methodology
and technical data base on processes to assist regulatory authorities in
monitoring emerging energy commercialization activities. The program will
facilitate development of environmental protection technology, concurrent
with process development, to accelerate commercialization.
USE OF OUTPUTS
Research results will be utilized by:
• Industries and utilities in developing design and operational specifica-
tions for utilization of synthetic fuels.
• Equipment designers and manufacturers in developing equipment to control
pollution from production of synthetic fuels.
o Federal, State and local authorities in setting standards and developing.
guidelines for production and utilization of synthetic fuels from non-
coal sources.
154
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DESCRIPTION OF OUTPUT:'. FOR LOWKfJT BUDOL-iT ($1,130,000) Rank No. 8
• Pollution control methods and devices will be tested on pilot-scale
retorting of oil shale at:
• Paraho (Anvil Points, Colorado) - surface retorting
• ERDA or Occidental - in-situ retorting
• An assessment of the best available control technologies for the emerging
oil shale industry will be completed.
• An Analytical Methods Manual for expected pollutants from the syn-fuel
industry will be prepared.
« Analytical reports on non-coal synthetic fuel pollutant emissions and
control technology assessment will be prepared for:
• Preliminary Environmental Assessment of a Hydrogen Economy
• Macro-Economic and Macro-Environmental Study of Biornc^s Fue] vs , Coal
OUTPUTS FPOM THE FIRST INCREMENT ($UOO,000) Rank No. 23
& Will extend pollution control technology testing tc include Union
or Tosco II pilot plants in addition to those listed under the first
item in Description of Outputs for Lowest Budget.
OUTPUT FROM ADDITIONAL INCREMENT ($200,000) Rank No. 36
• Will provide evaluation of the environmental impacts of both the
Union Oil and Tosco II processes for oil shale.
^ Will produce a Manual of Practice on best available pollution control
technologies for the synthetic fuel (non-coal) industries. This will be
used by regulatory agencies to set standards and by individual companies
to design pollution control equipment.
155
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APPENDIX C SPECIFIC OUTPUTS FOREGONE FROM $10 MILLION REDUCTION
TO 1978 REQUEST
Appendix C can be used in the following manner: The increment
for the first sub-task listed below (Metabolism of Hazardous Agents),
would be the last to be cut out in the event of a $10 million reduction
in the EPA energy R & D account, using the agency's priorities. The
resulting budget level would be $86,1*16,000. Conversely, in the event
of any reduction up to $10 million, the increment for the last sub-task
listed below (Quality Assurance) would be the first to be cut out. For
any budget level in between the requested amount and $86,^16,000, the
reader may find the particular level under "Cumulative Budget", and all
outputs from that item to the end of the list would be foregone.
156
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SUB-TASK: Incremental Cumulative
Outputs Amount ($000) Budget ($000.) .
Metabolism of Hazardous Agents 500 86,1+16
o Data necessary to model the manner and rate which organic
vapors or organic materials absorbed on inhaled particu-
lates, having a variety of levels of solubility in body
fluids are transformed and transported to critical tissue
components .
o Develop a model of the manner in which energy related
organics (drinking water pollutants) are transformed and
transported to critical tissue components,
Wastes - as - fuel 1,200 86,916
o A feasibility study of the multir-waste gasification/pyrolysis
process will be completed. ., .a very promising alternative to
waste co-combustion at existing power plants will thus be
evaluated for the benefit of the utility and petroleum refin-
ing industries.
o Bioconversion of waste materials to fuel (e.g., acid hy-
drolysis) will be evaluated to assess its probable technical,
economic and environmental feasibility; this will provide
the industrial chemicals and petrochemicals industries with
information on potential waste-derived feedstocks and fuel-
extenders.
o Evaluations of several innovative techniques for preparation
of waste-as-fuel materials for conversion to energy (e.g.,
new shredding and classification methods) will be produced;
the entire waste-to-energy technological area will benefit
from this research.
o A fourth commercial-scale waste-as-fuel technology will be
assessed providing the data for New Source Performance
Standards .
Synthetic Fuel (Shale) hOO 88,ll6
o Will extend pollution control technology testing to include
Union or Tosco II pilot plants in addition to the Anvil
Points, Colorado and ERDA or Occidental Sites tested at
a lower budget level.
157
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SUB-TASK:
Outputs
Advanced Energy Systems
Incremental
Amount ($000)
300
Cumulative
Budget ($000)
88,516
Ground water in geothermal areas will Toe characterized
prior to development of geothermal resources providing
a monitoring baseline for ground water protection to
"be used by agencies charged with protecting ground
water quality.
Chemistry of geothermal fluids upon loss of temperature
and pressure and mixing with ground water will be in-
vestigated, and will provide data for use in the design
of geothermal brine disposal wells. These data will be
used by industrial developers and Federal/State ground
water protection agencies.
Solar energy use will be demonstrated at an EPA facility
to conserve conventional fuels and to promote this tech-
nology to private and industrial sectors as an environ-
mentally attractive pollution control alternative.
Damage/Repair/Recovery Processes
500
88,816
o Industrial hygiene surveys for coal gasification and
coal liquefaction facilities.
o Generation of a "criteria" document for recirculation
of air.
o Recommended work practices documents for advanced fossil
fuel production facilities.
o Improved models regarding damage and recovery processes
in the respiratory and immune systems.
Atmospheric Transport and Transformation
1,000
"89,316
Identification of organic compounds formed in the
atmosphere which are derived from primary emissions
from advanced fossil fuel combustion and conversion
processes (coal gasification, oil shale processing, etc.)
Systematic field studies at approximately six advanced
fossil fuel combustion and synthetic fuels pilot and
demonstration plants will determine the precursor chem-
ical constituents and range of physical and meteorologi-
cal conditions which lead to the formation of hazardous
organics in the atmosphere due to these technologies.
158
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SUB-TASK: Incremental Cumulative
Outputs Amount ($000) Budget ($000)
This is to provide a basis for the control of such
pollutants in commercial sized plants and to identify
compounds and concentrations for which additional
health related exposure studies need to be done.
o Baseline studies on current levels of hazardous organics
in areas where new combustion and synthetic fuels plants
are planned. This is necessary now to document the
actual contribution of planned facilities to atmospheric
levels of such hazardous organics and is essential to
future control decisions and potential standards develop-
ment. At present, no adequate data baseline exists for
the types of organics which constitute emissions from
such energy technologies. Candidate study areas are in
Ohio River Basin.
Integrated Technology Assessment UOO 90,316
o Complete regional assessments: Western (1978),
Appalachian (1979), 'Ohio basin (1979).
o Complete national assessments: electric utility (1978),
advanced coal systems (1979), oil imports (1980).
o Expand scope of electric utility assessment to include
(l) mining, processing and transportation, (2) water
consumption and quality, and (3) fluidized bed combus-
tion.
o Maintain interagency program schedule.
The funding increment will be used to speed the completion of two
regional studies and the advance coal system assessments. The electric
utility study will be expanded to include all parts of the coal process-
ing system and water use questions.
Waste and Water Pollution Control 1,133 90,726
o Development of a porous dike intake structure for
cooling systems will be initiated to reduce fish en-
trapment and entrainment of larvae and post-larvae,
reducing the environmental impact of cooling systems
(co-funded program). (25 percent)*
*Figure in parenthesis indicates percent completion of project with
projected funding.
159
-------
SUB-TASK: Incremental Cumulative
Outputs Amount ($000) Budget ($000.)
o Studies of waste heat utilization in future systems
will be initiated to reduce environmental effects of
thermal discharges and promote energy conservation.
(25 percent)
o Pilot demonstration of FGD waste disposal in a coal
mine will be expanded to include a comparison of the
environmental effects and economics of untreated
versus chemically treated wastes (co-funded program).
(65 percent)
o Pilot demonstration of advanced techniques for de-
watering FGD wastes to reduce the volume of wastes
generated will be completed.
(100 percent)
o Case studies of site-specific factors to evolve a
design approach for disposal of flue gas cleaning
wastes will be initiated so that the best disposal
method for a specific plant can be selected.
(20 percent)
o Pilot demonstration of water recycle/reuse techniques
will be expanded to include the examination of addi-
tional options so that closer to optimum integrated
water use arrangement can be determined.
(65 percent)
o Pilot demonstration of alternatives to chlorination
for cooling system biofouling control will be expand-
ed to two techniques (rather than a single approach);
this should enhance the opportunity for establishment
of several options.
(20 percent)
o Evaluation of ammonia as an intermediate fluid in the
cooling circuit in a dry cooling tower will be ini-
tiated to enhance the use of dry cooling systems in
water-scarce areas (co-funded program).
(30 percent)
Air Instrumentation 300'. 91,859
o Advanced sampling and analytical methods for research
studies to accurately identify and measure the wide
variety of organic vapors and aerosols associated with
new energy technologies such as coal gasification and
oil shale conversion at ambient air concentrations.
160
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SUB-TASK: Incremental Cumulative
Outputs Amount ($000) Budget ($000)
Emphasis will be placed on potentially hazardous
compounds formed in the atmosphere; this effort
paces the level of sophistication which is possible
in performing atmospheric transport and transforma-
tion studies associated with organics from these
technologies.
o A portable device for sampling multiple gases in
occupational environments associated with energy
production and fuel processing facilities. This
device is geared to provide sensitive analyses of
such gases at concentrations associated with oc-
cupational rather than environmental settings.
Water Instrumentation 300 92,159
o A comprehensive measurement methodology of associated
sampling and analytical methods for hazardous organics
in streams from new energy technologies. Emphasis
will be on compounds which are potentially carcino-
genic with low level, long term exposure. Furthermore,
within these categories, organic compounds which are
not relatively volatile cannot be measured adequately
by existing analytical techniques. Therefore, the
exploration of new analytical procedures will be in-
volved in the development of such a comprehensive
measurement methodology. These methods will be used
for sampling and analyzing streams and bodies of water
which will be subject to contamination, even at low
levels, by new energy technology demonstrations and
commerciali zing.
o Sampling and analytical methods for crude oil contamina-
tion of marine and coastal waters associated with Outer
Continental Shelf drilling.
Water Monitoring 280 92,^59
o Initiation of water monitoring and the acquisition of
an accurate, consistent water quality baseline data at
key sites in areas of the Eastern half of the U. S.,
where additional coal mining development is planned,
especially where associated with planned coal combus-
tion and conversion facilities. This will include areas
of Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee and involves
investigations, sampling and analysis at approximately
200 sites in these states. Evaluation of long term water
161
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SUB-TASK: Incremental Cumulative
Outputs Amount ($000) Budget ($000)
quality trends at sites associated with developments
in these areas will yield a relationship between the
gradual degradation of water quality due to coal min-
ing related pollution from present mining sites, and
also the quantification of the degree of further de-
gradation in water quality which would be caused by
additional coal development in these areas.
Technical Support 800 92,739
"o Produce four executive summary reports on energy/en-
vironment and energy-related environmental R&D topics.
o Produce documentation, on project-by-project level,
of entire fiscal year 1977 Interagency Program. Pro-
vide the same for the entire industrial program.
o Support energy/environment R&D information transfer
with two EPA regions.
Synthetic Fuel (Coal) 1,788 93,539
o Increase Environmental Assessment Program for High
BTU Gasification Process (will bring project to 25
percent completion). The incremental output will
be used by regulatory agencies to address the new
technologies, by environmental effects groups to
determine differences from older technology and by
development groups to ascertain the relative advan-
tages or disadvantages of the technology and its
merit of pursuit.
o Initiate New Control Evaluation, Development for
Gas Treatment (bring to 10 percent completion). The
incremental output will be used by EPA to have controls
available for attainment or improvement of ambient air
quality, by EPA to protect the public health and wel-
fare, by industry to seed their development of needed
controls, and by regulatory agencies as options; e.g.,
tradeoffs on prevention of significant deterioration.
o Initiate New Control Evaluation/Development for Water
and Solids Waste Treatment (brings to 10 percent com-
pletion). The incremental output will be used by
regulatory agencies to establish more cost effective
alternatives, by health and ecological groups especially
in long term and water effects.
162
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SUB-TASK Incremental Cumulative
Outputs Amount ($000) Budget ($000)
o Initiate New Control Evaluation/Development for
Product/By-Product Treatment (brings to 10 percent
completion). The incremental output will be used
by regulatory agencies, by industry to allow utili-
zation of otherwise unacceptable materials, by
industry as seed to indicate the benefits of private
process control development, and by ERDA for decision
making by evaluation of marketability of by-products
which would affect the main product's competiveness.
Oil and Gas Extraction 500 95,327
o An environmentally acceptable pollution control
method for the treatment of oily waste discharges
from offshore oil and gas production facilities will
be selected, evaluated and demonstrated to the proto-
type scale. This treatment system will be used by
the petroleum industry on existing and new production
facilities to meet the best available technology ef-
fluent guideline requirements.
o Initial evaluations of alternative oil spill prevention
techniques for tank farms will be completed. These
techniques will be used by the petroleum industry to
meet the Oil Spill Prevention Regulation requirements.
o Five commercial oil spill cleanup systems will be
evaluated at OHMSETT. Information from this evaluation
will be used by individuals responsible for oil spill
response in determining equipment needs.
o Approximately ten chemical systems for shoreline protec-
tion and restoration will be evaluated. These systems
will be used by those responsible for oil spill cleanup
in responding to spill incidents.
Industrial Energy Conservation 300 95 5827
o Determination of trade-off between energy extraction
from hot stack gases and the adverse environmental
effects of reduced plume temperatures; output would be
used by both regulatory authorities and design engineers.
o Assessment of the potential for environmental benefits
from industrial process use of energy conserving fluid-
ized bed combustion; this output would be used by
process development engineers and regulatory officials.
163
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SUB-TASK Incremental Cumulative
Outputs Amount ($000) Budget ($000)
o Analysis of pollutant type and emission levels from
new energy-efficient primary copper smelting procedures;
output would be used "by EPA in developing New Source
Performance Standards.
Quality Assurance 300 96,127
o Measurements quality assurance support for existing monitoring
activities in the Southeastern and Midwestern United States;
thereby creating a minimum, consistent, accurate regional
baseline network where fossil fuel combustion and conversion
plants are planned; this will provide a basis for subsequent
regional air quality degradation studies. This support in-
volves providing consistent sampling guidelines, instrumen-
tation, calibration using reference materials relatable to
national standards, laboratory cross-check analyses and
evaluation of analytical laboratory performance. Without
such quality control, the results from different monitoring
stations will vary widely due to use of varying sampling and
analysis metnods among other factors. With quality control
an array of sampling stations can produce intercomparable
data, thereby producing an accurate air or water quality
baseline over a broad region instead of sets of unrelatable
data. The array of stations can then be truly classified as
a regional network. This effort will involve EPA, TVA and
USGS monitoring activities in energy intensive areas of the
regions noted.
o National standard reference materials needed for accurate
calibration of instruments measuring organic water
pollutants associated with coal gasification.
164
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APPENDIX D SPECIFIC OUTPUTS PRODUCED FROM $10 MILLION ADDITION
TO 1978 REQUEST
Appendix D can be used in the following manner: if an additional
amount over the 1978 request is appropriated for the EPA energy R & D
account, the first $71^,000 would "be applied to an expanded effort in
the first sub-task listed below (Fluidized Bed Combustion). The outputs
listed for the increment for that sub-task would be produced. If a full
$10 million were added, the last sub-task listed (Nitrous Oxide Control)
would be expanded. For any addition to the request up to $10 million,
the reader may find the particular resulting budget level under "Cumu-
lative Budget", and all outputs for the corresponding sub-task, and
those preceding it, would be produced.
165
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SUB-TASK:
Outputs
Fluidized Bed Combustion
Incremental
Amount ($000)
Cumulative
Budget ($000)
97,1^1
Accelerate Environmental Assessment of Atmospheric FBC
Systems. Results will "be used by IERL to compare (on an
accelerated basis) comprehensive emissions data with health/
ecological effects goals, thus identifying the environmental
impact of the process and control needs. Results will also
expand the data base needed by the program offices .for
standards setting.
Accelerate Control Technology Development of Atmospheric
FBC Systems. Will accelerate acquisition of data needed by:
EPA program offices in developing standards; EPA enforcement
personnel in enforcing standards; ERDA in assessing the
combustion technology that they are developing; and users/
process developers/control technology suppliers in industry.
Air Monitoring
1,000
98,11*1
Baseline monitoring and meteorological modeling study is aimed
at providing valid ambient baseline and initial trends data in
air quality and at determining character of regional transport
phenomena for critical pollutants, sulfate and fine particulate
aerosol for regions of the Southeast and Midwestern U.S. where
major additions in fossil fuel power plants capacity is planned,
this is to make possible the establishment of a relationship
between regional air quality degradation and the construction
of new fossil fuel plants, with a view toward altering siting
plans and documenting viable regional sulfate control options.
This is needed as a reference point from which to judge allow-
able air quality degradation and the associated limit on regional
fossil fuel emissions. This will entail the initiation of
sulfate and fine particulate sampling at up to 50 sites along
trajectories where assessment studies have shown existing and
especially planned fossil fuel facilities will tend to increase
population exposures. These areas have been identified as having
inadequate or no sulfate data base. Candidate areas involve sites
in the Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee region and in the Texas,
Oklahoma region.
Water Monitoring
800
98,9^1
Establishment of a comprehensive regional energy related water
quality network and acquisition of baseline data for major rivers
and key tributaries along which new coal mining, coal combustion
and conversion activity are underway and planned in the Midwestern
166
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SUB-TASK: Incremental Cumulative
Outputs Amount ($000) Budget ($000)
and Southeastern U.S. This network will complement specific
site analyses and existing stations by providing direct,
sensitive measurements on a broad scale, regional basis for
coal related pollutants in areas both near and distant to
sources.
o Evaluation of long term, wide-area regional water quality
trends associated with regional energy development will
yield a relationship between the gradual degradation of
water quality due to coal mining, combustion and conversion
related pollution from existing and planned coal related
development. Without such a regional baseline geared to
pollutants from mining and from anticipated coal cpmbustion
conversion activity, there will not be an accurate past
reference point from which to measure the changes in water
quality when planned energy developments become operational
in these regions.
Integrated Technology Assessment 1,100 100,0^1
o Complete regional assessments: western (1978), Appalachian
(1979), Ohio basin (1979).
o Complete national assessments: electric utility (1978),
advance coal system (1979)5 oil imports (1979)-
o Expand efforts to incorporate comments on regional and
national studies to define issues for reanalysis, e.g.
coal transportation and sulfur regulations, water consumption
and "beneficial consumptive use."
o Initiate an additional regional ITA study of either the
Northeast or the Gulf Coast.
o Expand interagency integrated assessment program to include a
forum for review and evaluation of modeling techniques and data
sources.
The resources of the second increment allow the integrated assessment
program to assure the effective communication of the results of analysis
and to re-evaluate specific questions raised by users. A part of this
process would include a mechanism for comparing and evaluating energy
policy models and data basis use by all Federal agencies.
Flue Gas Desulfurization 1,631 101,672
o An assessment of the capital/operating costs associated with
primary regenerable and non-regenerable systems for a variety
of industrial boiler sizes and types will be performed. The
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SUB-TASKS: Incremental Cumulative
Outputs Amount ($000) Budget ($000)
assessment along with presently available FGD industrial
boiler data will be employed to determine data deficiencies
and will provide information for setting of SC>2 standards
for industrial boilers. (100$)
o A demonstration of combined coal cleaning and FGD technologies
for control of sulfur dioxide (SOg) form a utility power plant
will be performed. These technologies, in combination, may
enable most cost-effective and applicable regulatory and
compliance strategies for meeting SC>2 standards. (The package
is cost shared between FGD and coal cleaning and will complete
100 percent of Phase I of a four-phase program.
Coal Cleaning ' 1,353 103,025
o Initiate Combined FGD/Physical Coal Cleaning Demonstration
(brings project to 20% completion). This demonstration would
impact on regulatory and utilities groups defining an integrated
technology which would improve control and reduce control costs.
ERDA and FEA would be interested in the potential for utiliza-
tion of the Eastern high sulfur coal reserves for power genera-
tion.
- Evaluation of technical advantages
- Evaluation of superior economics
- Determination of environmental effects
o Develop Alternatives to Slurry Pond Disposal (brings project
to 50% completion). Information from these studies would be
used by EPA regulatory and water planning group to define
programs and environmental effects. Technology would be useful
to the coal industry as a means of increased recovery of coal
and elimination of the slurry pond problem.
- Elimination of slurry pond usage
- Elimination of pond run-off/toxic discharge problems
- Elimination of hazards of dam failures
- Convert slurry discharge into solid discharge; reduction
of leakage
- Increase recovery of usable coal
Evaluation of Hazards to Man 750 103,775
o Provide preliminary estimates of dose-response relationships
for the ingestion exposure route (primarily drinking) for
waterborne energy-related hydrocarbons and inorganics related
to advanced fossil fuel technology development. Biological
endpoints receiving special attention will be carcinogenesis
and teratogenesis.
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SUB-TASK: Incremental Cumulative
Outputs Amount ($000) Budget ($000)
Damage/Repair/Recovery Processes 1,000 10^,775
o Improved models of damage and repair processes occurring in
biological molecules, most notably DNA, and amelioration
procedures, e.g. utilization of chelating agents to remove
the toxic agents from critical tissues.
Nitrous Oxide Control 1,500 106,275
o Expand Development of Combustion Control Technology for
Utility and Large Industrial Boilers
- perform long term tests of the effect of CM on corrosion
for 3 types of NSPS utility boilers, quantifying corrosion
rates with respect to the type and degree of CM.
- data firmly supports EPA's OAQPS revised ino standards
development
- results identify for EPA, utilities and equipment manu-
facturers any potential problems associated with use
of CM technology (20% completion)
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APPENDIX E SPECIFIC OUTPUTS FOREGONE FROM A REDUCTION OF
$4 MILLION FOR HEALTH AND ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS
SUB-TASK Incremental
Outputs Amount ($000)
Quality Assurance 300
Measurements quality assurance support for existing monitor-
ing activities in the Southeastern and Midwestern United States;
thereby creating a minimum, consistent, accurate regional baseline
network where fossil fuel combustion and conversion plants are
planned; this will provide a basis for subsequent regional air
quality degradation studies. This support involves providing
consistent sampling guidelines, instrumentation, calibration using
reference materials relatable to national standards, laboratory
cross-check analyses and evaluation of analytical laboratory per-
formance. Without such quality control, the results from different
monitoring stations will vary widely due to use of varying sam-
pling and analysis methods among other factors. With quality control
an array of sampling stations can produce intercomparable data,
thereby producing an accurate air or water quality baseline over
a broad region instead of sets of unrelatable data. The array of
stations can then be truly classified as a regional network.
This effort will involve EPA, TVA and USGS monitoring activities
in energy intensive areas of the regions noted.
o National standard reference materials needed for
accurate calibration of instruments measuring
organic water pollutants associated with coal
gasification.
Water Monitoring 280
o Initiation of water monitoring and the acquisition
of an accurate, consistent water quality baseline
data at key sites in areas of the Eastern half of
the U.S., where additional coal mining development
is planned, especially where associated with planned
coal combustion and conversion facilities. This
will include areas of Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky and
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Tennessee and involves investigations, sampling and
analysis at approximateky 200 sites in these states.
Evaluation of long-term water quality trends at sites
associated with developments in these areas will yield
a relationahip between the gradual degradation of water
quality due to coal mining related pollution from pres-
ent mining sites, and also the quantification of the
degree of further degradation in water quality which
would be caused by additional coal development in these
areas.
SUB-TASK Incremental
Outputs Amount ($000)
Water Instrumentation 300
A comprehensive measurement methodology of associated
sampling and analytical methods for hazardous organics
in streams from new energy technologies. Emphasis will
be on compounds which are potentially carcinogenic with
low level, long-term exposure. Furthermore, within
these categories, organic compounds which are not
relatively volatile cannot be measured adequately by
existing analytical techniques. Therefore; the explor-
ation of new analytical procedures will be involved in
the development of such a comprehensive measurement meth-
odology. These methods will be used for sampling and
analyzing streams and bodies of water which will be
subject to contamination, even at low levels, by new
energy technology demonstrations and commercializing.
Sampling and analytical methods for crude oil contamina-
tion of marine and coastal waters associated with Outer
Continental Shelf drilling.
Air Instrumentation 300
o Advanced sampling and analytical methods for research
studies to accurately identify and measure the wide
variety of organic vapors and aerosols associated with
new energy technologies such as coal gasification and
oil shale conversion at ambient air concentrations.
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Initiate New Control Evaluation/Development for
Product/By-Product Treatment (brings to 10 per-
cent completion). The incremental output will be
used by regulatory agencies, by industry to allow
utilization of otherwise unacceptable materials, by
industry as seed to indicate the benefits of private
process control development, and by ERDA for decision
making by evaluation of marketability of by-products
which would affect the main product's competiveness.
SUB-TASK Incremental
Outputs Amount ($000)
Atmospheric Transport and Transformation 1,000
o Identification of organic compounds formed in the
atmosphere which are derived from primary emissions
from advanced fossil fuel combustion and conversion
processes (coal gasification, oil shale processing,
etc.).
o Systematic field studies at approximately six advanced
fossil fuel combustion and synthetic fuels pilot and
demonstration plants will determine the precursor chem-
ical constituents and range of physical and meteorologi-
cal conditions which lead to the formation of hazardous
organics in the atmosphere due to these tehnologies.
This is to provide a basis for the control of such pollut-
ants in commercial sized plants and to identify compounds
and concentrations for which additional health related
exposure studies need to be done.
o Baseline studies on current levels of hazardous organics
in areas where new combustion and synthetic fuels plants
are planned. This is necessary now to document the actual
contribution of planned facilities to atmospheric levels
of such hazardous organics and is essential to future
control decisions and potential standards development.
At present, no adequate data baseline exists for the
types of organics which constitute emissions from such
energy technologies. Candidate study areas are in Ohio
River Basin.
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SUB-TASK Incremental
Outputs Amount ($000)
Damage/Repair/Recovery Processes 500
o Industrial hygiene surveys for coal gasification and
coal liquefaction facilities.
o Generation of a "criteria" document for recirculation
of air.
o Recommended work practices documents for advanced fossil
fuel production facilities.
o Improved models regarding damage and recovery processes
in the respiratory and immune systems.
Metabolism of Hazardous Agents 500
o Data necessary to model the manner and rate which organic
vapors or organic materials absorbed on inhaled particu-
lates, having a variety or levels of solubility in body
fluids are transformed and transported to critical tissue
components.
o Develop a model of the manner in which energy related
organics (drinking water pollutants) are transformed
and transported to critical tissue components.
Dose and Damage Indicators 500,000
o Preliminary development of a validated screening method
which can yield early indications of sublethal repairable
damage and which can be used in conjunction with human
studies (clinicl and/or epidemiological) e.g., detection
of modification of learned behavior.
Weather'Modification 135,000
o A working model and workbook for predicting weather modifi-
cation effects from cooling tower plumes and the interaction
of cooling tower and power plant plumes. The output will
include an assessment of longer range regional effects which
might occur from source intensification such as power parks.
This work will be completed with fiscal year 1978 funds.
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SECTION IV - OEMI PRIORITY OF PROGRAM INCREMENTS
WITHIN THE RANGE OF PLUS AND MINUS
$10 MILLION
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RELATIVE PRIORITY OF PROGRAM INCREMENTS WITHIN THE
RANGE OF PLUS AND MINUS $10 MILLION FROM THE
$96.4 MILLION PROGRAM
Priority Ranking 1st Increment ($M)
Priority Ranking 2nd Increment
($M)
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
0
P
3 SHE
22CT
23CT
24CT
36HE
37HE
3PI
25CT
3 SHE
39HE
40HE
4PI
26CT
27CT
28CT
41HE
Metab. of Haz. Agents
Was te-as-Fuel
Syn. Fuel (Shale)
Adv. Eng. Sys.
Damage/Repair
Atmos. Transport
Int. Tech. Asses.
Waste & Water
Air Instr.
Water Instr.
Water Mon.
Tech. Support
Syn. Fuel (Coal)
Oil & Gas Ext.
Ind. Conserv.
Qual. Assur.
.5
1.2
.4
.3
.5
1.0
•4
1.1
.3
.3
.3
.8
1.8
.5
.3
.3
Q 29CT Fluid Bed .7
R 42HE Air Mon. 1.0
S 43HE Wat. Mon. 1.0
T 5PI Int. Tech. Ass. 1.1
U 30CT Flue Gas Desulf. 1.6
V 31CT Coal Clean 1.4
W 44HE Hazards to Man .8
X 45HE Damage/Repair 1.0
Y 32CT NOX Control 1-5
1 f\ A
ID. U
10.0
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SECTION III - PROBLEM DEFINITION OR LONG-TERM RESEARCH
PRIORITIES WITHIN THE RANGE OF PLUS AND
MINUS $10 MILLION
176
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ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT SUBPROGRAM DECISION ACTIVITY
CROSS RANKING
Control Technology
+tir)M
First Increment
Budget $96. 4M
_
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RELATIVE PRIORITY OF PROGRAM INCREMENTS WITHIN THE
RANGE OF PLUS AND MINUS $10 MILLION FROM THE
$96.4 MILLION PROGRAM STRESSING LONG-TERM
PROBLEM DEFINITION RESEARCH
Priority Ranking 1st Increment
($M)
Priority Ranking 2nd Increment
($M)
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
0
P
35HE
36HE
37HE
24CT
23CT
26CT
3PI
22CT
25CT
27CT
28CT
4PI
38HE
39HE
40HE
41HE
Metab. of Haz. Agents
Damage/Repair
Atmos. Transport
Adv . Eng . Sys .
Syn. Fuel (Shale)
Syn. Fuel (Coal)
Int. Tech. Asses.
Waste-as-Fuel
Waste & Water
Oil & Gas Extraction
Ind. Conserv.
Tech. Support
Air Instr.
Water Instr.
Water Mon.
Qual . Assur .
.5
.5
1.0
.3
.4
1.8
.4
1.2
1.1
.5
.3
.8
.3
.3
.3
.3
Q 44HE Hazards to Man
R 45HE Damage/Repair
S 29CT Fluid Bed
T 31CT Coal Clean
U 42HE Air Mon.
V 43HE Wat. Mon.
W 5PI Int. Tech. Asses.
X 32CT NO Control
x
Y 30CT Flue Gas Desulf.
.8
1.0
.7
1.4
1.0
1.0
1.1
1.5
1.6
Io7o
10.3
NOTE: This ranking differs from the preceding ranking in that long-term
problem definition research is more given priority over research
designed primarily to meet short-term legislated mandates.
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