United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Volume b
Public Awareness'fA 1071 Nun1.;
Washington DC 20460 'April 1979
&EPA JOURNAL
Energy and
the Environment
-------
The Search
for Clean
Energy
The potentials and prospects
of several types of energy
such as oil, gas, coal, wood and
tidal and solar power and their
impact on the environment are
reviewed in this issue of EPA
Journal.
Some of the environmental
aspects of nuclear power will be
reviewed in an article on EPA's
radiation program in a later
issue.
The importance of conser-
vation of energy is also stressed
in an interview by S. David
Freeman, chairman of the
Tennessee Valley Authority.
Commenting on what he
called "just a lot of loose talk
that somehow has painted in-
vestments in environmental pro-
tection as being inflationary and
non-productive," Freeman
notes:
"It's the unnecessary waste
of capital, the waste of gasoline,
that is causing us to pay these
enormous prices for new energy
sources and is inflating the
economy. And I think it must be
recognized that the strongest
weapon we have in the fight
against inflation is conserva-
tion."
In another article, the Council
on Environmental Quality re-
ports that it is possible for the
Nation to have a major expan-
sion of its economy by the Year
2 000 while using only 10 to 15
percent more energy than it
uses today.
By taking advantage of tech-
nology to make energy use more
efficient, the Council said, "the
United States can do well, in-
deed prosper, on much less
energy than has been commonly
supposed."
Solar power prospects are rising like the sun as seen here from B/ythe, Calif.
Deputy Administrator Blum
points out in a piece about re-
source conservation that the
equivalent of nearly 400,000
barrels of oil per day coutd be
recovered from our municipal
solid waste.
Administrator Costle warns
against "Saving Ourselves
Broke." He gives several ex-
amples of how the installation
of relatively inexpensive pollu-
tion controls on a timely basis
could have saved the public and
private companies enormous
costs later.
Another article relates the
efforts being made by EPA's
Region 8 Office covering the
Rocky Mountain area to avoid
sacrificing environmental
values to energy development.
Ruth Clusen, an Assistant
Secretary of Energy and for-
mer President of the League of
Women Voters, explains in an
interview the approach being
taken by the Department of
Energy to protect environmental
values.
Other articles include an ex-
planation of why using leaded
gas in cars designed for unlead-
ed gas is a bad idea and a report
on a major urban conference
slated for Detroit this month. D
-------
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Volume 5
Public Awareness (A-107) Number 4
Washington DC 20460 April 1 979
&EPA JOURNAL
Douglas M. Costle, Administrator
Joan Martin Nicholson, Director, Office of Public Awareness
Charles D. Pierce, Editor
Truman Temple, Associate Editor
John Heritage, Chris Perham, Assistant Editors
L'Tanya White, Staff Support
Articles
EPA is charged by Congress to
protect the Nation's land, air and
water systems. Under a mandate
of national environmental laws
focused on air and water quali-
ty, solid waste management and
the control of toxic substances,
pesticides, noise and radiation,
the Agency strives to formulate
and implement actions which
lead to a compatible balance be-
tween human activities and the
ability of natural systems to sup-
port and nurture life.
Saving Ourselves
Broke
Administrator Costle warns
about putting off needed en-
vironmental repairs.
Clean Energy
from the Tides 4
The ocean's tides at Passama-
quoddy Bay may be used for
power.
The Competing Demands
of the Three E's 6
Ruth Clusen, an Assistant
Secretary of Energy, gives her
A Great Adventure 8
A new movie shows innovative
ways to capture solar power.
City Care 10
A report from the Sierra Club
on a major urban conference.
Resource
Conservation 11
EPA Deputy Administrator
Blum explains how recovering
resources can save energy.
EPA's Energy
Research Program 12
A review by Steve Reznek of
the Agency's work in the
energy field.
A Future for the
Rockies
A report by John Heritage on
what an EPA Regional Office is
doing to cushion the energy
crunch.
TVA's New Look 17
An interview with David Free-
man on the fresh approach of
this pioneering agency.
Hidden Gas —
Another
Alternative
The availability of huge amounts
of natural gas from unconven-
tional sources is reviewed.
Wood-
A Growing Energy
Source
Cities, industries, and many
home owners are turning to
wood for fuel.
CEO. Urges Energy
Conservation 24
The Council on Environmental
Quality reports that growth is
possible even if energy demand
is curbed.
Toward a Solar
America
Denis Hays explains why
solar power is ready now.
The Oil Outlook 27
An article by Charles DiBona of
the American Petroleum Institute.
Coal —
The Key Fuel
Carl E. Bagge discusses the
prospects for coal.
A Government Solar
Report
A committee appointed at the
request of the President re-
views solar strategy.
The Hitch in
Switching
The disadvantages of using
leaded gas in new cars are
explained.
Departments
Almanac 31
Update 34
Nation 36
People 38
Letters to the Editor 39
News Briefs
Cover Photo: Power lines like this
one at The Dalles, Ore., carry
energy to cities and industries
across the Nation. By David
Falconer.
Photo credits: Jack Corn', Chessie
System, American Petroleum
Institute. Greig Cranna, Jane Russo,
Arrny Corps of Engineers, Nick
Karanikas, Ernest Bucci, Bob
Jones, Jr., Marc St. Gil*
' DocLimerica
Design Credits: Robert Flanagan.
Donna Kazamwsky and Ron Farrah.
The EPA Journal is published
monthly, with combined issues
July August and November-Decem-
ber, by the US, Environmental
Protection Agency. Use of funds for
printing this periodical has been
approved by the Director of the
Office of Management and Budget.
Views expressed by authors do not
necessarily reflect EPA policy. Con
tnbutions and inquiries should bu
addressed to the l.d:tor (A-107).
Waterside Mall, 401 M St., S.W.
Washington, DC 20460 No per
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-------
Environmentally Speaking
Saving
Ourselves
Broke
By Douglas M. Costle
EPA Administrator
; 16 pollution ol tiic .J;iiii-
in;iny fi:.hi:i nn
-;iiiiin;i|i;(l fisli weir;
banned
l-i
: is rare that I find television commercials
helpful in developing a perspective on
national problems. But recently I saw one
that does seem to apply to a current
national debate.
The screen shows us a mechanic grimly
surveying two cars. One has been brought
in to have its oil-filter changed, a routine bit
of maintenance which, not counting labor
charges, will run about four dollars. But the
other car has been brought in for a drastic
engine overhaul, at a cost of several hun-
dred dollars. The reason for the overhaul,
the mechanic informs us, is that the owner
failed to change his filter.
As the mechanic expresses it, "The
choice is yours: you can pay me now ... or
you can pay me later."
That slogan does seem to me pertinent,
in one sense, to our current national argu-
ments about the impact of health, safety,
and environmental regulations on our econ-
omy. We are all concerned—justly so—
with the impact of inflation on capita!
investment, on jobs, on productivity, on the
value of our dollar at home, and on its
shrinking value abroad.
As you have no doubt noticed, however,
a frequent theme in this debate is that it's
time to trim our ambitious efforts in the
field of environmental, consumer, and other
health regulation.
Now, the argument goes, growth in GNP
is slowing down; industry should be spend-
ing its money on new machine tools, not
stack-scrubbers; and we have to liberate
free-enterprise from the crushing burden of
Federal regulations that add to cost without
any compensating benefit.
There is, as a matter of fact, some valid-
ity in these assertions. President Carter has
recognized the possibilities for waste in-
herent in Federal regulation, and has di-
rected agency heads to take a hard look at
their rules, both the ones that are on the
books now, and the ones proposed.
Moreover, in his inflation message last
October 24, the President announced crea-
tion of the Regulatory Council. The purpose
of this is to get Federal agencies together
in a single forum to explore instances in
which their regulatory efforts duplicate
those of other agencies. So far, 35 Federal
agencies are taking part in this effort to find
cost-effective approaches to common
regulatory problems.
As Chairman of this Council, I have a
ringside seat at its deliberations, and I can
tell you they are already making a
difference.
But no matter how much progress we
make, the fact remains that in a society as
intertwined as ours, characterized by a
technology as complex and massive as
ours, a substantial amount of regulation is
necessary. We have to protect health,
safety, and environmental integrity in situa-
tions where such protection exceeds the
jurisdiction or self-interest of any corpora-
tion. If, in the name of combating inflation,
we reduce or postpone governmental
control of potentially harmful activities
now, we may produce vastly greater costs
and inflation later.
Take, for example, the well-known case
of the Love Canal in Niagara Falls, N.Y.
Originally intended to provide hydroelectric
power for new homes in a "dream" com-
munity, this three-block-long ditch was
converted to a dumpsite in the 1920's.
After roughly 30 years of use, it was cov-
ered over by the Hooker Chemical Com-
EPAJOURNAL
-------
pany and sold to the city for a dollar. In the
late 1950's, as homes were built around
the site, a school was built on top of it.
So far. New York State has spent $23
million on cleaning up Love Canal. That
expense includes evacuating 239 families,
purchasing their homes, performing med-
ical tests on the former residents, installing
drainage pipes, and personnel costs for a
task force of State employees. Claims
against the chemical company are reported
to exceed $2 billion. Even these dollar-
sums exclude costs which we have no way
of measuring; the lifelong agony, for exam-
ple, to one girl born with a cleft palate, an
extra row of teeth, and slight mental
retardation.
Perhaps the most appalling fact of all is
this: had the proper government regulation
been in force at the time, it would have
cost Hooker Chemical a maximum of $4
million—that's in current, 1979 dollars—
to find, construct, and seal a secure, hazard-
ous waste facility. Instead, the public has
already spent $23 million, and the ultimate
cost to former Love Canal residents and to
the company is beyond credible calculation.
A few weeks ago, a trucker and his two
sons were convicted in Raleigh of dumping
PCB's along roadsides in North Carolina.
Handling that waste properly would have
cost about $100,000. Unless a simpler,
equally safe method can be devised, that
contaminated soil will have to be dug up
and shipped to a secure site, at a cost of
$2 to $12 million.
Similarly, an investment of about
$200,000 at the Life Sciences plant in
Hopewell, Virginia, would have made it
safe for the production of Kepone. The
owners' failure to make that expenditure
led to the contamination of workers, the
Hopewell water-treatment system, and the
James River. To date, known judgments
against Life Sciences total $1 2 million;
damages awarded workers claiming nerve
damage and sterility are unknown, because
some are still pending and others have
been settled out of court. EPA estimates
that it would cost $8 billion to clean up the
James—if that can be done, ever.
Each of these examples—and I could
cite a dozen others—presents us with a
case in which enormous social costs
stemmed from the lack of environmental
regulation, or from the violation of laws
that were in effect. And these cost compari-
sons do not even include the costs of the
damages—the damages that have actually
occurred to life, health, and property—that
occurred because we were penny-wise.
Now that economists have been asked to
look for figures, they are beginning to find
that health, safety, and environmental reg-
ulations have a sound economic base. To
place such benefits on a more human scale,
consider these examples cited by Dr.
Stewart Lee, Chairman of the Department
of Economics at Geneva College, in a Jan-
uary 31 letter to the New York Times:
• In the regulated products groups,
safety packaging requirements have pro-
duced a 40 percent drop in ingestion of
poisons by children over a four-year period.
There are children who would not be alive
today but for those regulations.
• Since the safety standard for cribs be-
came effective in 1974, crib deaths by
strangulation have fallen by half, and
injuries by 45 percent.
• According to the Genera! Accounting
Office, 28,000 lives were saved between
1966 and 1974 because of Federal motor
vehicles safety regulations. The same GAO
report showed that in one State where a
detailed analysis was conducted, there was
also a substantial reduction in the fre-
quency and severity of injuries. With auto
accidents the number one cause of para-
plegia in the United States, these figures
are significant.
Dr. Lee closes his letter by remarking,
"Government regulations are not all bad or
all good. We need to be selective if govern-
ment regulations are to benefit the general
public."
That seems to me a fair statement of the
case. We know there are regulations that
are outdated, and suspect that others
should not have been written in the first
place. We are trying to get both types off
the books, and to ensure that others justify
in benefits the costs that they impose—as
best we can make that judgment given our
current state of knowledge.
What we do not need, however, is a
regulatory witchhunt, for in the interest of
reducing costs today, we may create night-
mares for ourselves tomorrow—and have
to pay a much higher price to recover from
them. Out of a misguided sense of thrift,
we can "save" ourselves broke.
For decades, as an airline ad of some
years back expressed it, we have been a
"Go now, pay later" society. As an expres-
sion of the credit system, pure and simple,
this principle—based ultimately on faith in
ourselves—has not served us badly. But
when the principle is extended beyond the
purely fiscal realm to the broadly social—
when it becomes a state of mind—the
associated debt can guide us into national
bankruptcy. Little by little, year by year, we
can defer payment on our current obliga-
tions until—when the bill finally comes due
—we find we don't have enough assets to
pay it.
Our health, safety, and environmental
regulations have begun to reverse this proc-
ess. We are beginning to redress our past
profligacy in treating our air, water, and
land as goods without limit. We have made
a start toward cleaning up the dirt and
damage caused by a generation-long vaca-
tion financed only by an I.O.U. drawn on
the future.
That future has arrived. That I.O.U. has
been presented. The vacation is over.
I will do my best, as head of EPA and the
Regulatory Council, to make sure that every
regulation pays its own way in terms of
avoiding risk and providing benefit.
But I will also do my best to prevent a
short-sighted, uninformed, intellectually
anemic alarm over the immediate costs of
regulation from reversing the repair work
we have begun on our national home. As the
man says, the choice is up to us: we can pay
for that work now ... or we can pay for it
later.
We have made the right choice. Let's pay
now. D
APRIL 1979
-------
Clean Energy
from
the Tides
By Truman Temple
The ever-rising cost of fuel around the
globe has prompted the United States,
along with several other countries, to take
a renewed look at a very old and reliable
source of energy: the ocean's tides.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has
launched a three-year study of how to
generate electricity from the giant tides at
Passamaquoddy Bay in the Bay of Fundy
at the northeast corner of Maine. The
S3 million study, which has the backing of
Senator Edmund Muskie (D-Maine), has
revived a dream of tidal-generated elec-
tricity dating back nearly six decades in
the State. At the same time, the Canadian
government is showing increased interest
in developing power from its own side of
the Bay of Fundy. An obvious advantage
of tidal plants over fossil fuel stations,
of course, is that they generate no air
pollution.
The French already are demonstrating
that a full scale, commercial tidal plant is
feasible. Their 240,000 kilowatt facility on
the Ranee River in Brittany near St. Malo
not only has been successfully generating
electricity for n dozen years, but its unique
machinery has been remarkably free of the
wear-and-tear expected in salt water
conditions.
Other countries also investing in tidal
power plants include the Soviet Union,
which has built a 400-kilowatt experimental
plant at Kislaya Inlet on the Barents Sea
north of Murmansk, and the People's Re-
public of China, which has planned or built
some 122 very small tidal plants with a
total capacity of about 7,600 kilowatts,
according to a report by the Energy Re-
search and Development Administration.
Exploiting the force of the tides for com-
mercial purposes actually is a very old
practice. As long ago as 1066 A.D. an in-
genious businessman in Dover, England
built and operated a crude tidal mill to grind
grain. Similar mills were constructed in
France and Spain in the Middle Ages, and
an enterprising Yankee, Cnptain William
Traske, was recorded as operating a "tydo
Truman Temple is Associate Editor of
EPA Journal.
mill" to grind corn near the mouth of the
North River in Saiem, Mass., in 1640.
The idea for harnessing the powerful
tides of Fundy to generate electricity
emerged in 1919 when a Boston engineer
named Dexter P. Cooper, who vacationed
on CampobeHo Island, drew up a plan to
convert the energy using dams and sluice-
ways. His idea attracted immediate atten-
tion since the Bay of Fundy has the greatest
tidal range in the world, rising as much as
53 feet twice a day. Franklin Roosevelt was
a friend of Cooper's and backed the idea,
persuading the General Electric Company
to make a preliminary survey.
In the 1930's President Roosevelt al-
located $7 million to begin development of
the project in nearby Cobscook Bay, an arm
of the Bay of Fundy. Some engineering sur-
veys were made, roads and a model village
constructed, but the work fell victim to
economy measures in Congress.
However, the idea refused to die. Con-
gress in 1956 called for an International
Joint Commission study of a U.S.-Canada
Passamaquoddy project, and it was sub-
mitted in 1961. President Kennedy asked
the Interior Department to review it, and in
1963 the Department found the idea fea-
sible and recommended a combined tidal
and conventional river hydroelectric pro-
ject. (Since tides can only generate power
intermittently, engineers generally envision
feeding the power into a grid or other
steady power arrangement on a supple-
mentary basis.) Again the idea ran into
economic objections since large coal or oif
burning power stations still could do the
job cheaper.
But then came the Arab oil crisis of the
early 1970's and the seemingly endless
series of petroleum price hikes by OPEC,
Suddenly the arguments against tidal
electricity didn't seem so powerful.
As one Canadian official put it, "Tidal
power is as nearly inflation proof as any-
thing can be."
Although the Canadians have blown as
hot and cold on the idea as Congress during
the past forty years, they now have begun
taking it seriously again. The Tidal Power
Review Board has recommended consider-
ation of a huge 1,085,000 kilowatt tidal
plant in the Cumberland Basin of Nova
Scotia, a northern arm of Fundy, to be built
at an estimated cost of about $3 billion.
Developments in the Middle East are
exerting a powerful influence on the whole
subject. An ERDA study has estimated that
total fuel savings for the Cobscook Bay
tidal power facility would be equivalent
over a 50 year period to about 48 million
barrels of oil.
In the meantime, engineers have the
successful, working commercial tidal
power facility in France where they can
gather valuable data on costs and other
matters. Specialists from all over the world
have studied the Ranee River project. One
of its outstanding features, a bulb-shaped
generator and pump that can operate with
the water flowing in either direction, is be-
ing considered for use in this country.
Some 200,000 persons visit Ranee every
year and the site has become a tourist at-
traction as well as a useful component in
the country's power grid.
Although there are various designs and
arrangements, the Ranee project basically
uses both incoming and outgoing tides to
spin blades and thereby generate power
from a dam. In addition, extra water is
pumped above the dam so that electric
power can be generated for a longer period
on the outgoing tide.
EPAJOURNAL
-------
The Ranee project gives oft no smoke, no
sulfur oxides, no soot. The air around it is
clean. The water has no problem with
thermal pollution. Maintenance is minimal.
Even the profile of the dam is low, com-
pared to the Western dams in the United
States that soar up to 700 feet.
Those are the kind of environmental
benefits on the plus side of the ledger. On
the minus side, some observers worry
about how Passamaquoddy might disrupt
marine fife off the coast of Maine. There
are no final answers to that yet, but so far
the French have not found Ranee to be a
serious impediment to marine ecology. In
any event, part of the Corps of Engineers
study now under way at 'Quoddy', by Con-
gressional order will focus on the environ-
mental impact of a tidal power plant
there. Q
Maine Tidal Power
Project
At high tide waters would flow
in the direction of the arrows on
this map, through filling gates
and power houses and then into
Passamaquoddy Bay and back
into the sea.
Low tide leaves these wharves
jutting far out cf the watc
Lubec. Me
fall of the tides in tli -
someday provide o!>
energy for New Enci
Shrouded in fog in the back-
ground is I
APRIL 1979
-------
The
Competing
Demands of
theThree Es
An interview with Ruth
C. Clusen
Assistant Secretary for
Environment, U.S.
Department of Energy
Rittli (.'. C/uscn is no stranger to
the environmental field. Before
assuming office as Assistant
Secretary for Environment in
the U.S. Department of Energy,
she was President of the League
of Women Voters 1974-78, and
from 1966-74 served the
I uaituc in ninny other capacities
including chairperson of its
Environmental Quality
Committee.
In a recent speech, you
mentioned that the De-
partment of Energy in the
last fiscal year has spent
about $300 million for
environmental controls.
Could you describe what
that included?
We spend money on demon-
stration and research to find
ways to mitigate various envi-
ronmental problems.
The largest proportion of it
is for research to see if, either
in the governmental world or in
industry, any kind of controls
exist. Sometimes this is hard-
ware, which can be put onto a
process to make it less harmful.
Some good examples are cata-
lytic converters on cars and
precipitators on smokestacks.
We're dealing now with some
very new technologies.
With the turn back to coal, for
instance, we're experimenting
with fluidtzed bed combustion,
which would, of course, pro-
duce energy. But also it is a
process that is environmentally
more benign than combustion
methods generally in use.
Are there any other
examples?
We have to look at every pos-
sible kind of new technology
that's down the road, almost no
matter how far, and try to
assess it. I know that many of
the things we look at are also
being looked at by EPA and by
our research and development
people at the same time.
We have an interest now in
oil shale, because of the poten-
tial it offers for energy. We also
know that it has considerable
environmental probiems. So
we're looking at questions such
as: Are there different ways to
do the job? Are there any proc-
ess changes? Is there hardware
which could be developed? Are
there certain kinds of safe-
guards that would make it pos-
sible for it to be less environ-
mentally harmful?
We are looking very hard, as
is EPA, at the emissions from
diesel engines, because diesels
offer a great possibility for fuel
conservation. But we also know
that there are some real prob-
lems about what comes out of
the tailpipe.
You served a number of
years with the EPA Tech-
nical Advisory Group on
Wastewater Treatment,
did you not?
Yes. At the time I first started,
it was the management group
on construction grants for water
projects. And when I left, it had
metamorphosed into an EPA
overall kind of management
group.
Was that experience
helpful to you as back-
ground for your present
duties, such as under-
standing the oil shale
environmental problems?
Yes, I think so. Water has been
the field of the environment
about which I have learned the
most over the years, and with
which I have had the most direct
contact. I think the involvement
with EPA's technical advisory
group gave me a rather lengthy
experience in dealing with engi-
neers, their terminology, and
their ways of working. And it
gave me a great appreciation,
too, for the difficulties in apply-
ing the regulations which we—
I was then in the outside world
—were sometimes so eager to
have adopted.
Water is a part of our energy
problems, as you say in refer-
ence to oil shale. Oil shale has
other problems. But the basic
one is water.
How is the process going
to create pollution?
There's the possibility of
leaching into the ground water
supply. And also of course
there's always the possibility,
if it's near an aquifer, of drilling
into the aquifer during opera-
tions. It has some other
problems also.
You've commented that
the average American
citizen uses about twice
as much energy as the
average Briton, and three
times as much as the
average Frenchman, and
up to 100 times as much
as a resident of a de-
veloping nation. Are there
any ways we can, as
Americans, help to reduce
this waste of fuel, and
can you describe the en-
vironmental implications?
The Department of Energy has
again asked people to engage in
voluntary conservation because
we feel under some pressure
from the conditions in Iran, and
the shutoff of oil from there.
We must constantly reiterate
the possibilities of voluntary
conservation.
I think that we have to be
reminded every winter about
fuel conservation because we're
very forgetful of it. As everyone
knows, the driving season
lasted a long time last year
because of climate conditions
in a lot of the country, and this
gave us some problems in
regard to gasoline.
It's all the usual things: turn-
ing down the thermostat, driv-
ing at 55, the need to carpool,
and many other measures that
we're just extremely forgetful
about. It's impossible not to
notice the very wasteful way in
which we leave buildings
lighted at night. You can see it
any part of the country, but
probably more so in
Washington.
We have not really even
scratched the surface as far as
voluntary conservation is con-
cerned. And it seems to have
kind of a ripple effect. When it's
very cold, for example, people
sense there may be a fuel short-
age and they make a real effort.
But we are not a Nation that is
inclined to be conservative from
the standpoint of energy,
whereas this is an ethic that
many Europeans grew up with.
EPAJOURNAL
-------
The Department of Energy
has to prepare an environ-
mental impact statement
in connection with its
second national energy
plan, which is probably
occupying most of your
thoughts these days.
It sounded like an enorm-
ous task. Do you think
you can do a comprehen-
sive statement at this
time?
I think we can. Indeed, I think
we must. We have been at it for
some months, doing pieces of
it, as far as various technologies
are concerned.
Can you give a broad
brush description of what
general topics this plan is
going to deal with?
Of course, you must understand
that any of these things can
change, because as the fuel
situation and the international
situation shift, that can alter the
format.
Possibly there will be pro-
posed, for instance, such things
as oil shale tax credits; and we
are doing an environmental
impact statement on that.
We know that there's interest
on the part of the Administra-
tion in pressing further and
stronger use of solar energy in
every conceivable way. We
think that there are hopeful
trends in some of the other new
technologies, like improved
ways of recovering oil and gas
from the ground and similar
processes.
There will be, I think, about a
half a dozen of those kinds of
things, which are not new, but
which we think need a larger
push. There has not been suffi-
cient comprehension of our
interest in them in the past.
It will make references to these
things I've mentioned.
There also will be continued
emphasis on conservation.
EPA recently proposed
some hazardous sub-
stances regulations. Has
your office had any input
into that or into any other
regulations that EPA is
working with?
We have an ongoing relation-
ship, in fact, with EPA through
this office at the staff level, and
at my level too, on any number
of subjects, including many
kinds of regulations. The Office
of Environment at DOE and
EPA are really joined, to a major
degree, in the same mission.
We have a great deal in com-
mon. We worked closely, in the
process of the public comment
period, on such matters as the
strip mining regulations. We
have worked on new source
performance standards, to the
extent possible.
We have some working
groups and staff relationships
on the matter of toxic and
hazardous wastes. And I think
it would be almost impossible
to name an area in which there
is an energy involvement that a
day has gone by without some-
one here being in contact with
somebody over there at EPA.
It's a continuing working ar-
rangement. We are, for
instance, in the process now of
developing together a fact book
on diesel emissions because we
both have the same data, the
same information.
In the case of new source
performance standards— be-
fore we held the last round of
hearings through my office on
that—we worked with EPA,
and together developed the
paper that was the data base
for those hearings. So it's a
constant relationship.
EPA and DOE have quite
different missions and
because of that, it oc-
curred to us you might
have a little friction—a
little problem. Is that
true?
We recognize and respect the
fact that the agencies have dif-
ferent missions. However, the
mission of the Office of Environ-
ment, within the Department of
Energy, is to balance the com-
peting demands of the Three
E's—energy, the economy, and
the environment. But while the
mission of DOE is to develop
energy, the mission of the
Office of Environment, which is
clearly stated in the energy
organization, is to do this in
the least harmful way, environ-
mentally, and indeed to see
that the technologies which
we use are not only not harmful,
but enhance the environment.
So I think that if there are
conflicts between DOE and
EPA, I'm not a party to them,
because my relationship with
them is entirely a cooperative
one. Once in a while, we cannot
go as far on something, because
we are forced by the nature of
the role of this office to balance
economic and energy demands
as well. But we're generally
moving in the same direction.
How does it feel to be on
the other side of the
fence now?
It's a very interesting experi-
ence. I've been an outside
activist for most of my adult
life, and now I'm on the inside.
And my relationship with out-
side groups now is rather
interesting, too. They're still
my friends. I have invited a
broad range of groups to meet-
ings with me and to see me on
a regutar basis, and tried to
involve them to the fullest
extent of public participation
in the decision-making pro-
cess. I think that one's per-
ceptions are quite different
when you're inside, but I have
not forgotten the things that I
thought about and wondered
about when I was outside of
government. And to some
extent I think this has been
helpful. I'm still close enough
to not being in government to
know the kinds of things that
outsiders want to know—to
know that we in government
are sometimes viewed as in-
credibly slow, unresponsive,
and apathetic, unconcerned at
times. And to the extent that I
can, I try to remedy this by
being as open and frank as
possible with outside groups
about what the situation is, to
the degree that their concerns
can be taken into consideration
realistically.
On the other hand, I have
been surprised and pleased by
the fact that I have found so
many really good, competent,
hardworking people in the
Office of Environment. I've
been extremely pleased with
the professional expertise and
the dedication of the staff, and
the hard-work ethic which cer-
tainly abounds here.
I certainly arn getting a
better understanding of govern-
ment, and of the fact that it is
not always so easy over here,
and that there are sometimes
things which you cannot con-
trol. But on the other hand, I
want to keep the perception
that public participation is
important, a necessity, and
that I must always operate in
the most open and accessible
way possible.
Do you think the Nation
can manage its energy
problems, and still con-
tinue its present commit-
ment to environmental
controls?
I think we have to. I don't think
that the people in this country
want to turn back the clock 20
years to when we first began
to have some glimmerings that
we had environmental prob-
lems. I think there may be
degrees of it. I can see how
there might have to be a tem-
porary pullback in some cases.
But I have not seen any indica-
tion that people want just to
throw over environmental
controls and go back to being
the wasteful kind of society we
were in that respect.
In fact, there have been
several recent polls bearing
that out. Just last fall, I saw
one from Harris, for instance,
which clearly pointed out that
Americans have not turned
their backs on environmental
concerns, in spite of the eco-
nomic crunch and in spite of
energy problems.
I think it's going to cost us
more, both economically and
in lifestyle, to do both, but it
can be done with a will. And
fortunately, at this point, I
think we're still proving that
not only do we want to stay
where we are from an environ-
mental point of view, but thanks
to your Agency also, there are
signs that we may even be
moving ahead, n
APRIL 1979
-------
A Great Adventure
' ' {^ olar Energy—The Great
^5 Adventure" is the title
of a new film about ways to
capture the most powerful
source of energy available.
The movie about solar power
was produced by the Consumer
Affairs Office in the Department
of Energy. EPA's Office of Public
Awareness, which recognized
the pollution abatement poten-
tial in the types of small-scale,
solar-related technologies
shown in the film, is a co-spon-
sor of the motion picture and is
contributing $1 5,000 for the
production and distribution.
Another co-sponsor is the
Defense Department's Defense
Civil Preparedness Agency,
which views decentralized
energy systems as a way to
help protect our society against
disruption by major natural or
man-caused disasters.
Narrator for the film is Eddie
Albert, stage, motion picture,
and television actor. In the
movie, Albert talks about eight
individuals who are using in-
novative approaches to capture
solar energy. He introduces
these pioneers and then they
display and explain their indi-
vidual projects.
These eight innovators
selected by the Department
of Energy for the movie were
among more than 3,000 par-
ticipants in public hearings
nationwide last year. The hear-
ings were part of the Domestic
Policy Review of solar energy
options called for on Sun Day,
1978, by President Carter.
A variety of solar-using tech-
niques are shown in this film by
the solar pioneers who live in
locations across the country.
The solar innovators and
their projects are:
Valerie Pope, The Community
Development Corporation, San
Bernardino, Calif. Helped in
part by State and Federal funds,
Ms. Pope directs a minority
community-based effort to
"bring solar power to the
people" and, in so doing, sig-
nificantly reduce their utility
bills. Local people do it them-
selves, from the design and
construction of solar collectors
to the actual installation of the
systems in housing for low-
income and handicapped
citizens.
Bjorn Lunde, Micro-environ-
ment Research Group, Seattle,
Wash. This group of young
men and women is concentrat-
ing on projects to educate chil-
dren and young adults about
energy alternatives. Working in
their spare time and without
Federal funding, the group
is renovating a 200-foot barge,
called the "Heli-Arc," into a
small-scale solar technologies
demonstration facility.
Ted Finch, The Energy Task
Force, New York City. This is
an energy self-help project
operating in the heart of the
metropolis, by and for low-
income minority groups and
individuals. Solar collectors,
windmills, organic gardens on
vacant lots in the midst of
burned-out buildings—ail are
part of this drive by center-city
residents to survive economi-
cally in the face of ever-increas-
ing energy costs. The project
has been supported, in part, by
both municipal and Federal
funds.
Gardiner Greene, Dynergy,
Inc., Laconia, N.H. A successful
businessman in other ventures,
Mr. Greene has turned his
talents to the commercial de-
velopment of a vertical-axis
windmill. His wind turbines
can generate electricity, pump
water, and produce heat.
Ted Landers, The New Life
Farm, Inc., Drury, Mo. Landers,
an engineer from an urban back-
ground, now directs the activi-
ties of a rural community-
based, non-profit research and
educational group. The New
Life Farm, assisted by a Federal
grant from the Community
Services Administration, spon-
sors projects wherein home-
owners and farmers learn by
doing. They build and install
passive solar heating systems,
biomass digesters for methane
gas production, windmills, and
other energy projects. Located
in the rolling foothills of the
Missouri Ozarks, the New Life
Farm offers a method of energy
self-sufficiency for the people
of the region.
Rudy Gunnerman, Woodex,
Inc., Eugene, Ore. Gunnerman
set up his profitable business
where the largest supply of raw
materials in his area (forest
wastes) could readily be ob-
tained. The concentrated wood
pellets made by the firm burn
cleaner than coal. Gunnerman
estimates that, if most of the
forest wastes in the U.S. could
be harvested and processed
for fuel, the energy equivalent
would surpass that represented
by all the oil now being import-
ed into the country.
Jim Piper, Piper Hydro Solar
Systems, Anaheim, Calif. In-
ventor of a hydronics solar
system for water and space
heating. Piper has produced,
without government assistance,
a sophisticated and commer-
cially viable technology which
is being used with good results
around the U.S. and in a number
of foreign countries. The hy-
dronics system is hot water
partially heated by solar energy.
Peter Sardagna, San Diego
Federal Savings and Loan As-
sociation, Calif. A Vice Presi-
dent of this major financial
institution, Sardagna is an
expert in the financing of solar-
related energy technologies.
He is concerned about public
apathy toward the solar alter-
native, but sees hope for the
future in better public educa-
tion, the inevitable rise in prices
for unsubsidized fossil and
nuclear fuels, and in top-quality
solar energy equipment that
works dependably.
The movie was released Jan.
24 as part of a special event at
the home of Energy Secretary
James Schlesinger. The event
was sponsored by Mrs. Rachel
Schlesinger, working with ACT
79, a coalition of appropriate
technology and environmental
groups. ("Appropriate tech-
nology" is decentralized, often
labor intensive, and is afford-
able for those who will use it.
It also encourages self reliance.)
To produce the picture with-
in its stringent time table, two
film crews worked simultane-
ously across the country, with
locations from New Hampshire
to San Diego, Calif. Editing
called for a blending of footage
from both the East and the West
Coasts, with the final version
featuring elaborate sun sequen-
ces and special effects. D
(Prints of "Solar Energy—
The Great Adventure" will be
for sale at $ 162.50 per copy.
through the National Audio-
visual Center, GSA Reference
Section—FF, Washington, D.C.
20409 (phone: 301-763-1896).
Free loan copies will be avail-
able through the Energy Film
Library, U. S. Department of
Energy, P. O. Box 62, Oak
Ridge, Tenn. 37830 (phone:
615-483-8611,ext. 34161).)
EPAJOURNAL
-------
Wind.
Sun and
City
/\ group of designers and educators is
^* finding a way to produce clean,
cheaper energy while upgrading some
rundown New York City neighborhoods. It
is called urban appropriate technology.
This approach is bringing nature to the
city in new ways, using the rooftops and
upper parts of buildings to tap solar and
wind power. The aim is to produce more
affordable housing through reduced energy
operating costs.
Why the inner city, hard hit by poverty
and decay? "Urban poor people are in the
greatest need," says Ted Finch, wind and
solar energy designer with the group, the
Energy Task Force. "They already spend
over 25 percent of their income on energy."
Cut this big bil! for energy, and urban
housing becomes more affordable, Finch
points out. Make housing more affordable,
and there is a better chance for more liv-
able, workable urban neighborhoods.
This Task Force strategy serves two key
national aims: Cheaper energy relying more
on renewable sources; and a decent envi-
ronment protecting both natural resources
and the quality of human life.
The Energy Task Force works through
technical advice and education, serving
mostly self-help housing cooperatives. The
Task Force is made up of 11 full-time and
three part-time architects, engineers, edu-
cators, outreach and management person-
nel. The cooperatives are made up of in-
dividuals working to gain housing shares
through "sweat equity," the work they put
into the project.
The three-year old Task Force won wide
recognition in November, 1976, when a
wind generator it designed was challenged
by the area electric utility, Consolidated
Edison, on grounds it would create a num-
ber of potential problems. The utility later
reversed its position. The Task Force's
work is included in a recent film, "Solar
Energy—The Great Adventure."
An apartment building at 519 East 11th
Street in the Bronx is an example of the
group's approach. A solar hot water system
has been installed. A wind energy conver-
sion system supplies household electric
energy needs. The building has been
weatherized with insulation, caulking,
and storm windows, an energy conserva-
tion step to reduce operating expenses.
Full-scale weatherization installed at an
apartment building on East Fourth Street is
projected to bring 60-70 percent savings
over normal fuel oil bills. Finch says.
The energy specialist believes these
technologies are "appropriate" to inner
cities as they try to restore themselves.
The energy systems are decentralized,
relying on fuel sources at the site—sun and
wind—and encouraging a sense of neigh-
borhood, house by house, block by block.
They are labor-intensive, providing jobs
where they are desperately needed. They
pollute less than large energy systems
burning nonrenewable fuels. They provide
an alternative to fuels such as gas, coal,
oil, and nuclear.
Such measures are "very supportive of
a more humane and controllable urban en-
vironment, and New York City's strength is
in its communities," says Finch.
The Task Force has been serving about
10 community self-help groups at any one
time, without charge. Finch says. The
energy group is making "outreach" educa-
tional presentations to groups all around
New York City, and has distributed more
than 10,000 manuals on Task Force work,
Finch says.
The overall goal. Finch adds, is "to
create some viable demonstration and
education programs here in New York.
People can take the ramifications and im-
plications. We're not going to other cities
to set up programs."
The Task Force is "visionary," Finch
said. But "I'd like to think we're trying to
make our dreams more pragmatic." As
examples, he says the Task Force in its
three years has moved to more cost-effec-
tive wind demonstration systems and to
simple solar air heaters 3 to 4 times more
cost effective than the group's first solar
hot water heating system.
The group has been largely supported by
a $320,000 grant from the Community Ser-
vices Administration over the past two
years. But with cutbacks in the Federal
agency's energy budget, the Task Force's
survival chances are threatened. Finch
says. The group is now trying to launch
such projects as the first commercial urban
wind energy generating system in the
country. D
APRIL 1979
-------
City
Care
The Sierra Club will join the National
Urban League, the Urban Environment
Conference and Foundation and several
Federal agencies in sponsoring "City Care,"
a major national conference on the urban
environment to be held in Detroit, April 8
through 11, 1979. Other environmental
organizations are also being asked to join
the list of cosponsors. From 800 to 1000
grass-roots environmental and urban acti-
vists will gather to formulate a battle plan
and to forge a new alliance—the first
stages of an active campaign against urban
pollution.
In sponsoring this conference, the Sierra
Club is not setting out in a new or unfamil-
iar direction. Environmentalists have long
been active in such issues, and the Club's
goals will remain environmental—green
areas, clean air, clean water, safe energy,
proper land use. The traditional supporters
of conservation will not be enough for the
large, but necessary task of making our
cities livable. Environmentalists need
new allies, new friends. The Sierra Club
will seek the active cooperation of city
residents, labor unions, businesses, and
minorities.
This new, even unique, coalition shares
broad goals. But different members will
undoubtedly use their expertise and in-
volvement in different ways, and some dis-
agreements may be inevitable. As Vernon
Jordan, president of the National Urban
League, put it, "There may be situations
where blacks and whites violently disagree,
but if the air isn't pure, it may not make any
difference." The Sierra Club will stress, in
its own efforts, the preservation and im-
provement of the environment.
In a way, wilderness issues are also in-
volved in this urban environmental con-
ference. Arguments against wilderness
preservation are often presented in terms of
adverse effects on cities. For instance,
some timber companies argue that estab-
lishing wilderness area deprives the Nation
of lumber needed to create housing and
construction jobs in cities. But by approach-
ing urban problems directly, we will be
better able to protect wilderness. Wilder-
(EPA, the Department of the Interior, the
Department of Agriculture, the Department
of Housing and Urban Development and
several urban, labor, and environmental
groups are sponsoring a major conference
on the urban environment at the Radisson-
Cadillac Hotel in Detroit this month. The
following article was excerpted from a story
about the meeting, which appeared in the
Sierra Club's magazine, Sierra. It reflects
the effort being made to forge an alliance
between environmentalists and urban
interests.)
ness needs an urban constituency; this
conference may help to expand it. Even
now, virtually all the votes in Congress for
Alaska and wilderness are cast by repre-
sentatives from cities.
"City Care" will be a working, practical
conference—more of a town meeting than
a series of speeches by high officials. The
stars of the conference will be the grass-
roots activists; the purpose is to enable
local environmentalists from all over the
Nation to develop coalitions with other
groups involved in urban matters.
"City Care" will focus on specifics on
success stories and local victories. Par-
ticipants wil! pool their tactics and re-
sources in what could become a national
network for urban activists. To accomplish
this, the conference will feature an unusual
format. Each person will be assigned to a
core group of approximately 30 members
for the duration. Each group will reflect
diverse issue and regional affiliations. As
"melting pots," they will facilitate individ-
ual interaction, often a difficult task at a
large conference.
During the conference each participant
may attend five workshops, divided into
two broad categories. Some will deal with
the individual's relationship to the immedi-
ate neighborhood and community. Other
workshops will deal with the interaction
between the individual and the overall city
and region.
The skills required for problem-solving
on these two levels—neighborhood and
region—differ markedly. The neighbor-
hood/community workshops will be held
in Detroit neighborhoods, where brief walk-
ing tours and structured field meetings will
show participants the actual results of
grass-roots action.
Each workshop will examine three as-
pects of specific issues: a general overview
of the "what" and "why" of the subject
area; successful and unsuccessful efforts
that have been made to solve specific prob-
lems; and ways to acquire the skills, con-
tacts and resources needed for solving
these problems.
The following topics have been tenta-
tively proposed for workshops.
• How to accomplish neighborhood revita-
lization and environmental improvement
without displacement
• Community recycling of vacant lands:
urban gardening, forestry, and neighbor-
hood parks
• Fostering neighborhood environmental
jobs and the economy
• Preventing environmental disease
through community health care
• New neighborhoods in urban areas
• How to safeguard health in the workplace
and in the home
• Using pollution control legislation to
protect health
• The sanitation crisis: energy, health, and
jobs
• Healthy, affordable energy supplies for
cities
• Maintaining vital urban services to pro-
mote development
• Who owns the parks? Matching facilities
planning, access, and transportation with
recreational needs
• Regional migration and balancing na-
tional development
• Urban reinvestment and bringing people
downtown
• Improving urban environments through
zoning.
Last year, at the Sierra Club's annual
banquet, EPA Deputy Administrator (and
former Sierra Club activist) Barbara Blum
told Club leaders, "It's time to recognize
that there in no place to hide. It's time for
all urban residents, inner-city and subur-
ban, to acknowledge that they share a com-
mon destiny. And it's time for the environ-
mental movement to forge a new urban
vision and make a sustained commitment to
create a healthy urban environment." D
10
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Resource
Conser-
vation
By Barbara Blum
EPA Deputy
Administrator
Excerpts from remarks by
Deputy Administrator Blum at
the Brookings Institution in
Washington, D.C., Jan. 17.
\A/e know that our cities
*• consume a dispropor-
tionate share of the world's re-
sources and at the same time
create a disproportionate share
of solid waste which we bury at
higher and higher economic and
environmental costs.
Yet we recover only one per-
cent of the energy potential of
municipal solid waste. Denmark
recovers sixty percent. We
ought to bear in mind that our
energy recovery potential from
our municipal solid waste is
equivalent to 400,000 barrels
of oil per day or one-third the
present flow of the Alaskan
pipeline.
Currently, the national tab for
municipal solid waste collection
and disposal is running in ex-
' cess of $6 billion a year. And
as we are also becoming pain-
fully aware this cost is far from
the end of what is only a small
part of our national waste
problem.
As recently as 1 974, EPA
warned of the potential con-
tamination of underground
drinking water supplies from
municipal disposal practices.
Then we had few cases to
report. But by last August, in-
cidents of ground water con-
tamination had been reported in
nearly all States.
In American cities solid waste
disposal has become the num-
ber one political battleground
and an increasingly contentious
budget item.
In looking at different urban
societies, I have been forced to
question whether or not our own
American institutional separa-
tion of urban energy generation
by public utilities and of waste
disposal by municipalities still
makes economic or social
sense.
In Denmark and in the
Netherlands integration of mu-
nicipal resource recovery with
municipal power generation has
created about 50% more energy
efficiency than we have in the
United States.
There is another low-cost
option that will facilitate the
transition to resource recovery
in this country. That is to make
grants to competing municipali-
ties to help them figure out how
to switch from solid waste dis-
posal to resource recovery in
the way best suited to their
individual community needs.
As you may know, EPA, as
one part of its contribution to
the President's National Urban
Policy, requested and received
from Congress $1 5 million for
Fiscal Year 1 979 for about 40
such competitive grants. Two
hundred applications have been
received from communities
both large and small in every
part of the country. We have
requested a similar level of
funding for Fiscal Year 1980
and 1981.
The 40 or so resource re-
covery planning grants that
EPA will award this year will
allow a variety of municipalities
to really think through the insti-
tutional and market relation-
ships necessary for success.
In addition, these pioneer sys-
tems will provide detailed mod-
els for hundreds of other munic-
ipalities to follow. And as the
Resource Conservation and Re-
covery Act mandates, EPA will
continue to disseminate infor-
mation on what works under
what kind of circumstances.
These planning grants are es-
sential. While cities may well be
eager to make the transition
from disposal to resource re-
covery before they can justify
making capital expenditures,
they have to first figure out how
to overcome the technical,
marketing, financial, legal, and
organizational barriers. Ad-
dressing these critical factors
requires significant front-end
funding. To date, because of the
long lead times involved before
payoff, few cities have com-
mitted the funds necessary to
carry out this process. There-
fore, typically, cities have either
failed to implement recovery
alternatives or have had unfav-
orable results from inadequate
planning. For many medium
sized cities, where resource re-
covery is likely to have a strong
future, initial investments of
$200,000 to 8400,000 are often
required before an adequate
plan can be developed.
EPA has been building up the
expertise to help this process
along.
EPA has demonstration
plants in Franklin, Ohio; in St.
Louis; in Baltimore, and in San
Diego. They have substantially
increased our knowledge of var-
ious combinations of materials
and energy recovery systems.
These, and other commercial
systems, have proved that re-
covery of energy and materials
is not incompatible. Source
separation and mechanical ma-
terials recovery methods can
enhance the economic viability
of an energy recovery system.
We see no competition be-
tween energy and materials re-
covery. EPA funding of demon-
stration resource recovery
plants has, I think, enhanced
the prospective success rates of
conversion to municipal re-
source recovery. So, of course,
has the research and develop-
ment work being done by Rocco
Petrone at the National Center
for Resource Recovery.
Almost a century and a hatf
ago, the greatest student of
American democracy, Alexis de
Tocqueville, foresaw that our
problem would become one not
of lacking material means but
rather moral force, stability, and
skill in managing our resources.
In my opinion, resource con-
servation is a strategy worth
pursuing because it is a strategy
of moraf force, stability, and
skill.
Resource conservation is no
longer a "why". It's a "how",
"how much", "where", and
"how soon". And by moving
toward a balanced materials
policy, we can improve the qual-
ity of life both for ourselves
and for our children. D
APRIL 1979
1 1
-------
EPA's
Energy Research
Program
By Steven R. Reznek
For two decades, EPA and its predeces-
sor agencies played a major role in
regulating pollution from energy related
activities. Late in 1974, the Agency ac-
quired a challenging new responsibility—
coordination of the $100 million per year
Federal Interagency Energy Environment
R&D Program.
The Interagency Program mobilizes the
collective expertise of more than a dozen
Federal agencies, including the Depart-
ments of Energy; Health, Education and
Welfare; Agriculture; Interior; Commerce,
and the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The Program cooperates with privately
funded institutions, such as the Electric
Power Research Institute, to assure that
resources are used effectively.
The Interagency Program was conceived
in 1 974 as a result of the recommendations
of two major studies commissioned by the
White House Office of Management and
Budget. A staff of less than two dozen per-
sons under the guidance of Stephen J.
Gage, now Assistant Administrator for the
Office of Research and Development
(ORD), planned and coordinated a $137
million program consisting of more than
500 separate research projects. This plan-
ning laid the foundation for today's pro-
gram, under the direction of the Deputy
Assistant Administrator for ORD's Office
of Energy, Minerals, and Industry.
In iate 1977, EPA was charged with the
additional role of conducting the "Section
11" Public Hearing Review of the Nation's
non-nuclear energy R&D efforts. Named
after Section 11 of the Federal Non-Nuclear
Energy R&D Act of 1974 (PL93-577).
In carrying out the Section 11 process,
EPA conducts continuing technical reviews
of all Federal non-nuclear R&D efforts to
assure adequate attention to energy con-
servation and the environmental conse-
qences of emerging energy technologies.
Public participation in this process is
Reznek is EPA 's Acting Deputy Assistant
Administrator for Energy, Minerals and
Industry Research.
encouraged through an annual hearing
where a wide spectrum of interested par-
ties—industry, environmental, public in-
terest, and private citizen—is welcome to
testify and offer advice to Federal energy
research policy makers.
EPA's Energy Environment Role
In the past five years, EPA has invested
more than half a billion dollars in energy-
related environmental R&D covering a
broad range of activities. During this pe-
riod, our energy research philosophy has
remained constant, seeking to accomplish
four tasks: First, provide adequate data
concerning the health and ecological im-
pacts of energy-related pollutants; Second,
develop, test, and improve control technol-
ogies; Third, anticipate future health and
ecological issues; Fourth, effectively com-
municate the research results.
Providing Scientific Data
The most vital task of any research program
associated with a regulatory agency is to
provide a solid scientific foundation upon
which to develop and enforce regulations.
Although EPA's research program covers a
wide range of energy-related pollutants
and their resulting impacts on air and
water, we will focus here on sulfur and
nitrogen pollutants in the air and highlight
EPA's accomplishments.
Sulfates—Where They Come From
As much as two-thirds of the sulfur oxides
released to the atmosphere are from the
combustion of fossil fuel (mainly coal) in
utility and industrial boilers. Over the East-
ern portion of the United States sulfates
account for 30 to 50 percent of the fine
aerosol mass in the atmosphere.
Although these facts seem to imply a
connection between combustion and sul-
fates, until recently no explicit relationship
had been proven. Few sulfates are emitted
directly from power plants. Instead, the
most common sulfur compound in the ex-
haust gas, sulfur dioxide, is transformed
into sulfate through a series of complicated
reactions including photochemical oxida-
tion. These reactions are influenced by a
variety of atmospheric conditions such as
ambient air turbulence, relative humidity,
the presence of other pollutants to catalyze
the conversion of sulfur dioxide to sulfates,
and the length of time the sulfur dioxide is
airborne.
Perhaps the most definitive study of sul-
fur dioxide/sulfate transport is the Midwest
Interstate Sulfur Transformation and Trans-
port Study. This study provided ciear evi-
dence that air pollution in one urban area
may originate in another urban area, or from
a rural power plant many miles away. Long
range transport must be considered in
developing future air pollution, and suliate
control strategies.
Impact of Sulfur Pollutants
One form of atmospheric sulfate is sulfur
acid mist. During the past few years, exact-
ing clinical research has compiled data on
the health effects of sulfuric acid and some
of its salts. When laboratory animals were
exposed to this pollutant combination, no
significant increase in mortality rate oc-
curred. However, when the pollutants were
introduced in conjunction with micro-
organisms, a significant increase occurred.
Acid aerosols may have an effect on im-
munologica! processes and increase the
vulnerability to infection.
Sulfuric acid is also responsible for
acidic rainfall. A growing body of evidence
suggests that acid rain is responsible for
the acidification of surface or ground
waters, and the acidification and demineral-
ization of soil. Northeastern American and
Canadian lakes are becoming acid to the
point where they no longer support fish and
acid leaching of soils reduce forest and
agricultural production.
Recent data indicate that precipitation in
a large region of the United States is highly
acidic. The average pH was routinely less
than 4.7 in the mid 1 960's. These areas
currently record pH values between 3.0 and
4.0 during individual storms.
Developing Controls
The second major task of EPA's energy-
related environmental research program is
to develop techniques and technologies for
Controlling energy-related pollutants. A
main focus of EPA's Energy/Environment
R&D Program has been to develop and
improve alternative means of removing
sulfurfromcoal. Sulfur can be removed
from coal: prior to combustion by cleaning;
during combustion in fluidized bed reactors
and from the exhaust gases after combus-
tion by flue gas scrubbers.
EPA has played a major role in all three
areas. Through the Interagency Program,
EPA funded the country's major research
program on coal cleaning, conducted by
the Bureau of Mines. In addition, EPA spon-
sored and developed a test fluid bed com-
bustion system.
Flue Gas Desu/furi.-'ation
Most of EPA's sulfur control activities have,
however, been in the flue gas desulfuriza-
tion area. The flue gas desulfurization
(FGD) systems, or "scrubbers," wash flue
gases with an alkali slurry, which reacts
with and removes the sulfur dioxide. These
systems either produce a disposable sludge
or a commercial by-product such as ele-
mental sulfur. Approximately 30 flue gas
desulfurization systems are in operation on
electric utilities today. Another 35 are
operating on industrial combustion sources.
EPA has helped develop half a dozen
EPA JOURNAL
-------
different flue gas desulfurization technol-
ogies and has sponsored many of the key
demonstrations of these systems in this
country. Working closely with the Tennes-
see Valley Authority, EPA has sought to
improve the efficiency and reliability of
existing technologies.
The use oi chemical buffering additives
to improve sulfur dioxide removal efficiency
has been a unique achievement of EPA
research. More efficient removal methods
could make possible higher levels of per-
formance or reduce the cost of flue gas de-
sulfurization. Experiments carried out at
TVA's Shawnee Test Facility have demon-
strated the effectiveness of two chemical
additives—magnesium oxide and adipic
acid—in increasing sulfur dioxide removal
efficiency.
Another focus of EPA research is on the
waste produced by flue gas desulfurization
systems—scrubber sludge. The most
widely used alkali are lime or limestone. A
key problem posed by this process is the
disposal of the solid waste or calcium
sulfide sludge that is produced by the sulfur
dioxide lime/limestone reaction.
In an effort to reduce the quantity of
sludge produced by the lime/limestone
process and improve its potential uses, EPA
is currently examining the use of far less
costly forced oxidation processes that cre-
ate a low purity gypsum ideal for use as
landfill. This process will soon be evaluated
at full-scale at TVA's Widow's Creek
Steam Station. Compared with other recent
methods of improved sludge disposal
studies, the forced oxidation technique
appears to be only one-third as costly, and
allows land being used for fill to be re-
claimed for further use.
Nitrogen Oxide Program
Because they damage the ozone layer, pro-
mote photochemical smog and high nitrate
rainfall, and directly affect health, nitrogen
oxides, principally nitric oxide (NO) and
nitrogen dioxide (N02), are important air
pollutants.
The high concentrations of these emis-
sions are the results of human activity. In
1974, 23 million tons of nitrogen oxide
were emitted. Ninety-nine percent of these
emissions originated from fuel combustion;
approximately half coming from stationary
combustion sources and the other half from
mobile sources, principally automobiles.
By 1985, however, with the continued
growth in energy use and increased re-
liance on coal as fuel, EPA anticipates a
70/30 percent split of stationary to mobile
nitrogen oxides emissions. By the year
2000, in the absence of stricter emission
standards, this trend could mean an output
that is two or three times greater than
present levels.
The Nitrogen Oxides Control Program
endeavors to develop combustion modifica-
tion technologies that will reduce these
emissions without increasing other poten-
tially harmful emissions, or reducing the
efficiency of energy systems.
A variety of projects were undertaken by
EPA in 1978 to study and develop low
nitrogen oxides burners for utility and in-
dustrial boilers. Under this program, an
advanced low nitrogen oxides coal burner
has been developed based on the proven
principle of staged combustion. This im-
proved combustion design would be com-
patible with new or existing coal-fired
utility and industrial boilers.
Anticipating Impacts
The third major task of EPA's energy/
environment research is to anticipate po-
tential pollution problems from emerging
energy technologies and to provide guide-
lines for their control. Such guidelines,
available before a technology is commer-
cialized, allow industry to make carefully
considered resource decisions.
Geothermal
In 1977, EPA was involved in a program to
define the environmental hazards asso-
ciated with geothermal energy and to work
toward the establishment of preliminary
guidelines for its development. EPA has
worked with the Department of Energy as
well as other Federal agencies to study a
number of specific environmental problems
affecting development and production of
geothermal energy. Some of the problems
examined were: disruption of land use pat-
terns; land subsidence and induced seismic
activity; water pollution and the degrada-
tion of nearby ecosystems; and localized
climate modifications.
Oil Shale
To meet the environmental guidance needs
of the emerging oil shale industry, EPA oil
shale research efforts have been designed
in anticipation of EPA regulations and
standards and the development of suitable
control technologies.
Oil shale environmental research has
involved: measurement and monitoring
techniques for air and water quality, in-
strumentation development, measurement
quality assurance programs, transport and
fate of pollutants and their effects on eco-
systems, environmental assessment of
regions of potential oil shale development,
and, finally, the development of control
technologies for oil shale extraction and
processing.
Diesel A utomobiles
A diesel powered automobile will achieve
about 25 percent better fuel economy than
its conventional combustion counterpart.
Diesel engines are also able to meet vir-
tually all of the 1980 EPA emissions stand-
ards for carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides,
and hydrocarbons with a minimum of tech-
nological modification. By 1985, the auto-
motive industry estimates that 25 percent
of new U.S. automobiles sold will be diesel
powered.
In view of the projected increase in
diesels on American roadways, EPA em-
barked on a program in 1977 to evaluate the
potential public health problems posed by
diesel soot in automobile exhaust. A diesel
powered auto emitted 30 to 50 times more
particulate matter than a comparable gaso-
line powered vehicle equipped with a
catalytic converter. Diesel particulate mat-
ter has high carbon content and is similar
to soot from other combustion processes.
Although future diesel emission research
will focus on carcinogenicity, a special
diesel exhaust inhalation study is now un-
derway to study non-carcinogenic diseases
such as fibrosis and emphysema. Future
carcinogenic studies will be carried out to
complete whole animal tests, and relate the
test results to human epidemiology studies.
Communicating Results
Communicating with the research com-
munity is the cornerstone of the EPA's
Interagency Energy/Environment Research
and Development Program. In such a broad
area as the health and environmental
effects energy systems, the problem of
meaningful information exchange is a
challenge. Through reports, seminars, and
conferences the Interagency Program
brings together the key personnel in various
aspects of energy/environment research
and development. Such direct contact is an
effective way to coordinate the Federal
research effort and to avoid unnecessary
duplication of, or misdirection of, research.
One way to advance our research is to
improve information transfer between the
technical community, the decision-makers
and the public.
Perhaps the two most important events
that serve to aid communication are the
annual conference on the research and
development results of the Interagency
Energy/Environment R&D Program and
public hearings under Section 11 of the
Federal Non-Nuclear Energy R&D Act. The
next conference will be held in Washing-
ton, D.C. on June 7 and 8 and this year's
Section 11 hearings are scheduled for
September.
For further information on ORD's
energy-related research program, contact
Richard Laska of the ORD Technical In-
formation Office at 202-426-9454. Ques-
tions on the Interagency Energy/Environ-
ment Program should be directed to
Francine S. Jacoff, Technical Information
Coordinator for the Office of Energy, Min-
erals, and Industry at 202-755-0324. Q
APRIL 1979
13
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By John Heritage
A Future for the Rockies
Snow plumes arch hundreds of feet into
the air, blown from the edges of
Rocky Mountain peaks. Ancient cliffs wind
across the northern plains, marking the
edge of a long vanished sea. Ponderosa
pine march up the flanks of mountain
foothills.
This is the Rocky Mountain West, as
seen recently from a small airplane. The
vistas—from 1 4,000 foot peaks to vast
plains—-awe visitors and inhabitants alike.
But the region of snow plumes and a far
away horizon contains still another im-
pressive gift. Beneath the basins and
mountain slopes lies a sleeping giant, a
huge reservoir of potential energy.
The area has 50 percent of the Nation's
coal reserves, 50 percent of the uranium
reserves, 1 00 percent of the oil shale de-
posits, and 9 percent of the oil reserves.
The region's strippable coal totals 195
billion tons. Its shale oil potential totals
600 billion barrels.
Yet for all the region's grandeur and
power, it may be the country's most vulner-
able.
Dryness is one of the greatest sensitivi-
ties. "The West can't hide its mistakes,"
says Alan Merson. He is Administrator of
EPA's Region 8, with a jurisdiction covering
six States—Montana, North Dakota, South
Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah.
Tracks from the settlers' wagon wheels
can still be seen on some mountain passes.
A ski slope cut decades ago still marks a
hillside with a wide scar.
The spectacularly beautiful geography
helps create other weak spots. In the valley
near Anaconda, Mont., air pollution from
a copper smelter almost forced evacuation
of part of the town recently. Smog from air
trapped in the basin where Denver has
grown has become an unsightly, unhealthy
menace.
John Heritage is an Assistant Editor of EPA
Journal.
Rocky Mountains rise in the background
on a clear day in Denver, Colo.
These weaknesses might not have
mattered. The region might have gone
on for another 100 years, easily accom-
modating occasional visitors on the Inter-
state highways and new neighbors fleeing
crowded cities of the East and Midwest.
The wagon tracks might have remained a
sentimental reminder of the past.
Then came the Middle East oil embargo.
The Nation began to count its own energy
resources. The new goal was energy in-
dependence. In this pursuit, the Rocky
Mountain West—much of EPA Region 8—
was recognized as an extraordinary asset.
Once again, the country has begun to
turn West, creating a new frontier—this
time in fuel. Instead of seeking the wide
open spaces and blue sky it seeks the black
coal, the brown oil shale, and a yellowish
uranium oxide.
"Clearly the big story is energy develop-
ment—rapid energy development," says
Merson. EPA's Region 8 is in the forefront
of efforts to see that this energy growth is
wisely managed.
The development pace is awesome. The
region's coal production will increase by
more than 300 percent from 1977 to 1987,
EPA Region 8 estimates. Power plant
generating capacity will nearly double from
1976-1986.
To match the fuel boom, one half the
workload in EPA Region 8 now involves
energy development, Merson estimates.
For instance, the office will be reviewing
environmental impact statements on 50
proposed energy-related projects within the
next two years.
The energy drive is affecting, or could
affect, 325 communities in the region,
according to a Department of Energy study
on impacted areas. The sprawling metrop-
olis of Denver is as much an energy boom
town as little Craig, Colo., surrounded by
mines and power plants, adds Merson.
Faced with soaring populations of mine
and power plant workers, small towns can
find themselves overloaded with debt to
finance more streets, schools, waste treat-
ment and water supply facilities. They can
be plagued with alcoholism, crime,
pollution.
The implications? The open space and
freedom which settlers sought in the last
century could be destroyed. The clean en-
vironment which attracted many of the
Nation's young people in the 1 960's and
70's could be ruined.
EPA's job now is mostly protection, not
correction, says Merson. Much of the air is
pristine, with the view unimpaired. Most of
the streams are still clean. Many of the
most spectacular areas are set aside in the
region's national parks, from Yellowstone
to Mesa Verde.
But Merson sees great potential for con-
flict between energy policy and environ-
mental values in the region. Energy devel-
opment is demanding water, degrading air,
and bringing in more people. The issue is
whether the effects can be kept at accept-
able levels.
"If we can't win recognition for some of
the values here, I doubt if it can be done
anywhere," Merson says.
The energy-environment conflict is turn-
ing up in Federal coal leasing plans, urban
growth, groundwater supply and quality,
surface water quality, wildlife habitat, dust
from coal mining, dust and gaseous emis-
sions from uranium mining and milling,
disturbed land from coal stripping, agri-
cultural water supply, salinity of the Colo-
rado River, protection of pristine air, Indian
rights, and oil shale development.
To keep pace with this eruption of energy
issues, Merson maintains a heavy work
calendar packed with meetings and ap-
pointments. Wasting little time, he knifes
to the key points with his questions; Why
can't you produce a new kind of cleanup
technology?
All 330 employees of the Region 8 office
are being taxed by a similar workload in the
energy development onrush.
Above all, Merson is an environmentalist.
In his first report as Regional Administrator,
he told employees, "The final test or deci-
sion for any Region 8 program will be, 'Is
it good for the environment?'
Merson—who has served widely in the
Region in activities such as Chairman of the
APRIL 1979
15
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Colorado Land Use Commission and teacher
of environmental law—mirrors the con-
science of many people in the area. He
sees residents as guardians, preserving
something unique, adapting to the environ-
ment as the Indians adapted to the land.
With such an attitude, the region still
could be saved from the wounds that scar
Appalachia. Merson believes. One asset
that Appalachia didn't have is the EPA, an
agency with "protection" as its middle
na'me, Merson adds.
But EPA's role in the region is not that of
a naysayer, Merson explains. "EPA's role is
one of making sure that when development
occurs it takes place in a manner that's con-
sonant with environmental legislation and
that certain standards are adhered to in the
building of a power plant or any other
facility."
The case of two giant power plant units
proposed at Colstrip, Mont., illustrates this
approach to energy-environmental issues
by EPA Region 8.
When the EPA Regional Office found that
Montana Power Company's proposed new
Colstrip power units would violate pristine
air standards on the Northern Cheyenne
Indian Reservation, Merson denied a cru-
cial environmental permit.
Montana Power challenged the decision
in court. But it also investigated ways to
increase the efficiency of its air pollution
control systems. EPA Region 8 encouraged
the Montana Power effort and subjected its
own research to independent review at the
Agency's Research Triangle Park, N.C.,
facilities.
Then Montana Power recently amended
its air permit application, proposing to in-
crease the efficiency of its sulfur dioxide
cleanup to more than 94 percent. It would
be one of the country's best air pollution
control systems on a coal-fired plant. Public
hearings on the amended proposal are
expected soon.
"What's happened here is, in the face of
a turndown by the Agency, Montana Power
has committed to a much cleaner power
plant," says Merson. The Regional Admin-
istrator emphasized that a permit still isn't
guaranteed. Reviews by EPA and the public
are necessary.
The Colstrip case is showing EPA's
willingness to fully hear both sides, to con-
sider all the evidence, and to encourage
better technology rather than simply turn-
ing down energy projects. It is an example
of the art of the possible, providing power
to avoid brownouts in Seattle while pro-
tecting the clean air values of an Indian
tribe.
The Agency is "an orderly, healthy
restraining influence," says Merson. If
it tried only to oppose energy development
in the Rocky Mountain West, EPA would
lose more than it gained, he adds. Environ-
mental laws might be greatly weakened, to
make way for the energy growth EPA was
resisting, Merson explained.
The fronts of EPA action range from the
Colorado River to Wyoming uranium mines.
They include:
Visibility. Under the Clean Air Act, EPA is
to issue regulations to protect the view in
areas classed as pristine air. The cherished
western visibility can be dimmed by fine
particles from power plant emissions and
impaired by brownish plumes from the
plants. Nitrogen oxides form the brown
color.
Fugitive dust. EPA Region 8 has declared a
policy requiring use of best available con-
trol technology to keep down wind-blown
soil around strip mining operations, a major
western polluter. Controls range from
chemical sprays to fast replanting.
Uranium. Under the recently-enacted
Uranium Mill Tailings Act, EPA would
provide environmental standards to guide
the Department of Energy and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission in deciding on
proposed uranium mining operations.
Meanwhile, in a typical year EPA Region 8
reviews 15-20 environmental impact state-
ments on proposed uranium mills.
Air quality. Of the 80 air quality permits
Region 8 is now working on, more than 90
percent are for energy sources. The per-
mits are to "prevent significant deteriora-
tion" of the region's clean air, part of a
national EPA program under the Clean Air
Act.
Oil shale. When and if this massive energy
resource is developed, EPA would be re-
sponsible for clean air and water discharge
permits and solid waste regulations under
the Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act.
Coal leasing. EPA Region 8 is reviewing
new coal leasing proposed by the Bureau of
Land Management in the Department of the
Interior. The EPA office is making com-
ments on the Interior agency's environ-
mental impact statement on the coal
development.
Salinity. With EPA approval, seven States
have adopted standards to regulate saline
discharges into the Colorado River, includ-
ing those from coal mines.
With these energy-related actions, EPA is
already making a difference in the region's
environment. But, Merson cautions, EPA
Region 8 cannot be "an overseer of the
total quality of life." It deals with specific
environmental problems, under authorities
spelled out by Congress. The EPA role in
the region is mostly protection of air and
water.
But Merson is an unconventional thinker
in a conventional job. While he respects
Congressional mandates, he points out that
the lawmakers have authorized some novel
approaches in protecting the environment.
The most dramatic example of this was
the so-called Overview Environmental Im-
pact Statement for 10 proposed waste-
water treatment plants in Denver. In this
non-energy case, Merson argued that the
plants should not be allowed unless urban
sprawl and related air pollution were con-
trolled. While not opposing Denver growth,
Merson was using his authority to encour-
age better-planned development. He based
his argument on provisions in national
pollution control laws.
Meanwhile, EPA's grants and technical
assistance give room for innovation, Merson
adds. The Agency can't turn down a coal-
fired power plant if the facility meets clean
air requirements. But EPA can provide aid
to a wastewater treatment system that will
try new recycling methods and perhaps
plan to use alternative energy sources for
its operation.
Recently, Region 8 sponsored a con-
ference on just such possibilities. The
session emphasized smaller, decentralized
technologies appropriate to the small towns
and sparse populations of the West. "I
think we have an obligation as EPA to
promote technologies less harmful to the
environment," says Merson. "The National
Environmental Policy Act asks us to evalu-
ate alternatives and to disclose the least
damaging ones."
EPA is also helping the region answer
questions about its environment before it
is too late. With a device called a telepho-
tometer. the Agency is measuring visibility
throughout the area, providing a yardstick
if pollution begins to creep in.
Region 8 is looking ahead too, trying to
sort out the environmental "No's" now so it
can say "Yes" later to energy projects.
Merson has met with regional representa-
tives of the Interior and Energy depart-
ments. The aim: As energy goals are set,
environmental contingencies can be
plugged in.
But as Merson reflects on the gigantic
push to develop the region's energy re-
sources, he sees the crucial need for an
informed, dedicated constituency to pro-
tect the environment.
Now, says Merson, the trend is pro
energy development. But he sees evidence
of another constituency: The average citi-
zen who is concerned about getting out of
the rat race, the rancher who seeks peace
and quiet, the Indian tribe at Colstrip that
wants clean air.
With informed citizens and political
leadership, good development is possible,
Merson says. He points to Mercer County,
N. Dak. State and local officials have
worked together there to plan lignite
mining and power development. They've
produced a framework for growth, he says,
while preventing the dire consequences
that can come with it.
There is reason for optimism, Merson
says. It lies in the actions of agencies such
as EPA, and in the attitudes of people them-
selves, who ultimately will arbitrate the
future of the Rocky Mountain West. Q
16
EPAJOURNAL
-------
WA'sNew
Look
Interview with David
Freeman
Chairman of the
Tennessee Valley
Authority
This interview was conducted
by Truman Temple, Associate
Editor of EPA Journal.
<*
Back in 1977President
Carter remarked, "The
TVA program, which used
to be a very valuable
demonstration project for
progress find innovation,
has become dormant and
just another power
company."
That was before he
appointed S. David Free-
man, an engineer, lawyer,
and innovative populist,
to TVA 's board. Con-
firmed by the Senate in
August, 1977, and desig-
nated Chairman last May,
Freeman has been bring-
ing many fresh ideas to
the utility, as the accom-
panying interview shows.
He served as o TVA
attorney five years, was
assistant to the Federal
Power Commission's
Chairman 1961-65, and
later headed a Ford Foun-
dation research project on
energy problems. Prior to
his appointment at TVA,
he was a member of the
White House energy staff,
serving as assistant to
James Schlesinger, at that
time the President's
energy adviser.
Press reports have stated
that you were personally
responsible for changing
the mood of TVA, and
making possible the re-
cent settlement with
EPA to reduce air poHu-
tion from coal burning
power plants. Could you
describe how you were
able to quickly end the
litigation that had
dragged on so long?
The mood of an agency is set
by the agency leadership, so
that it's no great mystery as to
how that is changed. I don't feel
that what we did was really all
that spectacular. We worked
out an agreement that will en-
able TVA to comply with the
law of the land, which seems to
me a prerequisite for a citizen
or a Federal agency.
When I came here I found
that TVA board and staff real-
ized that they had exhausted
their legal options for attempt-
ing to implement the tall stack
theory of compliance, which the
Supreme Court had ruled un-
lawful in '76, and was clearly
outlawed by the 1 977 amend-
ments to the Clean Air Act.
The question was really
just trying to get two agencies
that had been at each other's
throats, so to speak, to stop
fighting and sit down and work
out an agreement. There was a
desire on the part of the TVA
staff to work out such an agree-
ment because our power people
knew that we had to do it, and
the sooner we did it the cheaper
and better it was going to be.
I did serve a role because I
had had some credibility in the
eyes of the EPA people, since I
was new and not involved in the
fight, and I was able to speak for
TVA in working the agreement
out. My own personal attitude
was that eliminating a million
tons a year of pollutants in the
air was a very important thing to
do, not only because the taw
required it but because the
health of the people throughout
the Eastern part of the United
States required it.
You have created a new
solar division since taking
office. It seems a radical
departure from TVA's
traditional concern with
hydro and fossil fuel
power. Could you explain
the reasons behind that?
I do not consider the initiatives
that we've undertaken a radical
departure at all from TVA's
historical role. I would consider
it getting back to our basic
mission. Throughout most of
its history, TVA has been an
innovative leader in the field of
natural resources. As a matter
of fact it started off life as an en-
vironmental protection agency.
The policy perspective that
I'm supplying here is getting
back to our origins and the ex-
pectations that Franklin Roose-
velt had and Jimmy Carter has
for TVA. If there was any rad-
ical departure, it may have been
the course of action that TVA
embarked upon a decade ago to
depart from those principles.
TVA has always led in the
energy field. People forget that
the integrated development of a
river basin was an innovative
approach back in the Thirties
and Forties. That was the TVA
approach. Not just to look at
flood control or recreation or
power, but to try to get the most
out of river basin development.
Also, TVA pioneered flood
plain zoning—that is, not build-
ing dams where presumably you
could persuade people through
zoning not to live in the flood
plain. In the energy field, we did
pioneer in hydropower. When
the hydropower wasn't suffi-
cient, we pioneered in the econ-
omies of scale for coal-fired
plants. TVA also pioneered in
the nuclear field. I think that it
is logical, now that solar energy
has become economically feas-
ible for many uses, and we see
the bottom of the oil barrel, and
we see the horrible environ-
mental impacts of mining and
burning coal, and are aware of
the safety problems and prolif-
eration concerns with nuclear
power, that we continue our
pioneering role. We've got to go
for the sun.
TVA is probably better situ-
ated than any other organization
in the country to demonstrate a
happy marriage between an
electric power supply organi-
zation and solar energy, passive
or active, in people's buildings.
Those are the demonstrations
that we're putting on.
We have no reason for exist-
ing if we're not a model for the
rest of the Nation. Otherwise,
why should the Federal Govern-
ment have billions invested in
a power supply organization in
one part of the country? I think
that we are doing our job. We
also are self-sufficient in terms
of our power system so that
we're not being financed by the
rest of the country.
The solar applications we're
demonstrating are economical.
It's going to save people money.
And that is what we're going to
demonstrate.
Do you have any solar
projects under way now?
Yes. We are installing solar hot
water systems in 1,000 homes
in Memphis. These are with
long-term loans from TVA, re-
paid in electric bills. The sys-
tems are economic on the basis
of electric power rates today,
and they will result in savings
over the next 20 years to the
consumer as the price of elec-
tricity continues to go up. Once
a solar system is installed, it's
inflation-proof. It's not going to
go up in price.
And, of course, it doesn't add
to pollution the way the equiv-
alent amount of coal or nuclear
power would. We feel that we're
making a marvelous contribu-
tion, if that project proves as
successful as it appears to be,
and we expand it valleywide,
just as we're doing with our
conservation program.
You remarked a moment
ago that TVA started out
out as an environmental
protection agency. In
what sense did you mean
that?
In the early 1 930's the Valley
soil was washing away in the
rivers, due to the flooding and
the lack of vegetation. This
major problem of soil erosion
was one of the first jobs that
TVA tackled. Those trees that
we planted are now 30 to 40
years tall, and 60 percent of the
Valley is in forest.
APRIL 1979
-------
The Tennessee Valley Au-
thority, working with State and
local people and our forestry
department, has successfully
eliminated soil erosion through-
out much of the Valley. Putting
a green cover back on the land
was, I think, a massive job in
environmental protection.
The whole TVA concept of
integrated development of re-
sources had a conservation and
environmental protection man-
date. If you look at the TVA Act,
you will find the word conserva-
tion in there, as many times as
you find the word production.
This was an insight that my
colleague on the TVA board of
directors, Richard Freeman,
pointed out in his confirmation
hearings.
You also have to remember
that hydropower was pushed by
the conservationists in the early
days because we were conserv-
ing water power that was other-
wise wasted at sea. We were
using a renewable resource.
When I say that solar energy
is in TVA's finest tradition, you
have to remember that hydro-
power also is a form of solar
energy. It's a renewable source
of energy as a result of the
ecological system of nature.
We started off with an energy
base that was renewable. It was
only after World War II that we
started draining the capital re-
source of fossil fuels and start-
ed using coal. And, I think it is
in the best tradition of TVA
that we've got to help lead the
way to get this country back to
a renewable energy base, and
one that is more in harmony
with the ecological system.
Are there any more hydro
sites left in your seven
State system?
There may be some sites, but
none that are economically or
environmentally feasible to de-
velop. As a matter of fact, one
of the biggest problems that I
have inherited is what to do
about a dam that has not yet
been completed, and has great
difficulty in complying with
environmental laws.
There are no additional hy-
droelectric dams that we are
planning to build. The dam-
building era of TVA is about
over.
Our focal point will be in
developing alternative energy
sources, and helping the rural
communities in the valley grow
in a sensible way, for both qual-
ity growth and somehow to try
to stop the spread of neon signs
and strip development, which is
blighting the countryside.
We've got a major role to
play, I think, in helping plan the
growth of this valley so that
we don't wake up in the year
2000 looking and smelling like
northern New Jersey.
On the subject of coal
burning plants, both EPA
and the Department of
Energy have spent a good
deal of money on R&D on
fluidized bed combustion.
Is TVA also trying to
research that?
I would not agree that they
spent a good deal of money.
Compared to the kind of expen-
ditures we're making on nuclear
or fusion power, the amount of
money that is being spent on
fluidized bed combustion is
small.
TVA is designing a 200
megawatt fluidized bed demon-
stration plant, and I think that
we are leading the Nation in
that effort. The Department of
Energy has acknowledged our
leadership, and is supporting
our plans to go ahead. We ex-
pect to have that demonstration
plant on the line and completed
by 1 984 or at the latest 1 985.
If the data that we are relying
on out of the Department of
Energy's pilot plant in Pennsyl-
vania continue to prove to be
satisfactory, in another six
months we'll have a basis for
going ahead with the design
and construction of the TVA
plant.
TVA will make a sizable con-
tribution to the financing of it.
So we are, I think, in a leader-
ship role in the fluidized bed
technology.
In your book. Energy—The
New Era, you stressed the
need for energy conserva-
tion. Is TVA now promot-
ing such conservation in
the same way that it once
promoted the idea of
cheap, abundant power?
I would not say that we have
reached that millennium yet
because TVA really led the
world in the promotion of cheap
electricity. But I will say that
we have turned the corner and
have mounted a mighty effort
to promote conservation. Bob
Hemphill, who was the deputy
assistant secretary in the De-
partment of Energy, and one of
the foremost experts in energy
conservation, is down here and
he is heading the new division
in TVA, the conservation divi-
sion. Some of us on the inside
call it the "Unelectric Divi-
sion." It also includes our solar
office, which is headed by Fran
Koster, former coordinator of
energy programs at the Univer-
sity of Massachusetts, whom
we were fortunate to get.
We've got some people with
national reputations and ex-
pertise in conservation to
mount this new effort. I think
it's important and we've got a
lot of programs under way. We
now offer each of our customers
a loan of up to $2,000, interest
free, to weatherize their homes.
And we've had 70,000 homes
that have already taken ad-
vantage of that.
We provide a free audit, to
tell people what they need to do
that is economical. They pay
the loans back in their electric
bills, and the program now is
being expanded to our commer-
cial and industrial customers.
So we have a comprehensive
energy conservation program
where we provide a package,
delivered to the consumer's
door, including financing and
easy repayments. We expect to
build the equivalent of several
thousand megawatts capacity
through investments in energy
conservation over the next ten
years. And that will be the
cheapest, the quickest capacity
that we can build.
What does electricity cost
a resident in the TVA
region?
About two and three-quarters
cents per kilowatt hour on the
average for the residential cus-
tomer. The industrial customers
pay about two cents a kilowatt
hour.
How would that compare
with Washington, D.C. or
the New England region?
Oh, I think it's 30 to 40 percent
cheaper than the average in the
United States east of the Rock-
ies. Our rates have gone up
tremendously, but they are still
appreciably lower than the resi-
dential rates throughout the
country.
Our industrial rates are get-
ting close to what utilities in the
South charge industry, but I
think that they still have more
promotion left in their industrial
rates than we do, and I suspect
they will be increasing them
very sharply.
We will be increasing rates
but we are beginning, I think, to
get our costs under control.
I hope that TVA's electric power
rates wili not go up any faster
than inflation in the next ten
years.
in other words, the real price
of electricity in terms of real
dollars hopefully will stay about
constant. That would be quite
an accomplishment.
Why is TVA power so
cheap for residents in
this area?
Well, the hydropower is very
low cost, it hasn't gone up. It's
like the sun. Once you make the
investment, the fuel charges are
practically free. Only 30 per-
cent of our electricity goes to
residents, and we're giving
them the benefit of the hydro-
power. And we'll have rate re-
forms to do it even more.
Then we have some other
fairly low cost sources of en-
ergy. We are able to build our
plants cheaper than the private
company because we use our
own construction organization,
and we have a record of effi-
ciency. We also have a large,
integrated grid system, and we
run a pretty good shop.
We have the advantage of
hydropower that most systems
in the East don't have, but we
do pay our way. And when we
borrow money, our bonds pay
Federal income tax. We're not
charging less at the expense of
consumers in other parts of the
country.
We will have some increased
costs to "clean up our act," but
that will amount to a very small
percentage of the total cost of
18
EPAJOURNAL
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electricity—at most eight or
nine percent. We expect, as we
complete the nuclear plants that
are under construction, that
they will provide us with cost
effective sources of energy that
will offset some of these other
increased costs.
Do you have any plans for
building more nuclear
plants beyond what's on
the books now?
We don't have any present
plans. We wili obviously need
to make additional investments
to balance supply and demand.
But we have our staff looking at
all the options, and we are now
in a policy framework where
conservation and cogeneration
and solar energy are getting
equal billing with coal and
nuclear.
We will make these decisions
on the basis of marginal costs.
We will choose either conserva-
tion, solar energy, or cogenera-
tion or central station coal or
nuclear, whichever is the most
cost effective, also taking into
account environmental and
economic impacts.
Do you have any plans
for managing the radio-
active wastes of present
nuclear plants?
We are intensively examining
our options. We have until 1988
to implement one or more op-
tions. We've got enough capa-
city at our existing nuclear
plants to store the spent fuel
until 1 988. Other utility organ-
izations are not in that good a
shape.
The basic question is: Do we
build a central facility where
we store all of the spent fuel for
all of our plants, or do we pro-
vide storage at each plant so
that there will be no transporta-
tion of the spent fuel?
The transportation of spent
fuel is a source of great concern
to a lot of citizens. I want to
know what the arguments are
for and against central versus
decentralized storage of the
spent fuel. We'll examine those
arguments and the facts and
make a decision on that point
well before the year is over.
We are not going to wait for
Washington to decide the spent
fuel storage problem, because
we've got the spent fuel. I feel
a responsibility that TVA, as the
organization that is generating
it, should come up with a satis-
factory solution. Here again is a
place where TVA can exercise
some leadership and serve as a
model for the rest of the Nation.
Our solution may not be ap-
propriate for other parts of the
country, but we are going ahead
with the job of deciding, and
not just wringing our hands
over it.
Some critics argue that
energy conservation is
going to cost jobs. Do
you feel that is true for
the TVA region?
I find those arguments to be
made either out of ignorance or
with malice. It doesn't really
require a Ph.D. in economics to
understand that you create jobs
when you invest in insulating
buildings just as much, and
even more per dollar, as in
building a power plant.
The problem may have
stemmed from a misconception
in some people's mind that con-
servation means doing without.
But most of the conservation
that we can achieve comes from
investments—in storm win-
dows, insulation, heat pumps,
heat exchangers, and other
equipment, and changes in
existing buildings, plus addi-
tional investment in new build-
ings, to save energy.
This country has grown over
the years on the basis of doing
things efficiently. Not only will
conservation investments gen-
erate more jobs per dollar in
investments than the power
plants that they may displace,
but because they are more cost
effective, they are anti-
inflationary.
One of the major causes of
inflation today is the fact that
we have been wasting and not
conserving. Studies that I've
done in the past suggest that
we're wasting perhaps $100
billion of capital and inflating
the economy something awful
if we do not implement
conservation.
So it's not just the protection
of the environment. That may be
considered as a happy by-
product. The most compelling
reason right now to invest in
conservation is the need to
combat inflation. Energy infla-
tion is what's been heating up
the economy.
We cannot exempt energy
from our anti-inflation fight.
That is a suicidal path. The way
that we combat inflation in the
energy field is by conserving,
by using our resources more
frugally, by getting more energy
out of existing plants, and when
the energy is manufactured to
make it do more work for us in
our homes and in our factories.
By saving energy we save
money and cut down on the in-
flationary impact of higher and
higher energy prices.
That is the burden that TVA
has to shoulder and is part of
our modeling effort.
When you say pollution
control is a happy by-
product, you're saying
that the less fuel con-
sumed, the less pollution
you have.
Of course. There is no way that
you can mine a ton of coal and
burn it without adding to our
pollution burden. There is no
way that you can mine a ton of
uranium ore and refine it and
build a nuclear plant without
adding to the dangers of radio-
activity and health and safety
and impacting the land as well.
So the surest way to combat
pollution is to get by with using
fewer Btu's of energy to get
your job done, unless you are
using solar energy. But we use
very little of that thus far.
You have mentioned a
need to hire more minor-
ities in the TVA region,
and at TVA itself. Do you
have a percentage goal
you're working toward?
We have percentage goals, but
so does everybody. That's not a
big deal. The real question is
what progress we are making to
implement this goal. We are
working quite hard at it, and
making some progress.
I just received a report from a
panel of citizens who are not
TVA employees, one black man
and two white people, who
looked at our situation in Chat-
tanooga. They interviewed TVA
black employees and our man-
agers, and they made a lot of
suggestions which we are going
to implement in the next 30
days, to improve the work en-
vironment for black employees.
I think that one impediment
to recruiting able black people
is that they feel you're doing it
just for show and you're not
going to give them a fair shake
at promotions once they get
there.
So we're trying to eliminate
that impediment. We're trying
to recruit minority citizens, but
we're not going to discriminate
against white people. Our Act
requires that we hire on the
basis of merit and efficiency.
1 happen to believe that there
are plenty of black people who
have plenty of merit and effi-
ciency and who need to be
recruited.
We're trying to do that. We
need to have more training once
people get on the job at TVA to
fulfill their inherent capabilities.
But this is a long haul because
many of the needs that TVA has
are in highly skilled professions
and crafts. And minorities have
not had the opportunity for up-
ward mobility in the past, so
we're stressing training.
We may hire people in jobs
that are not that attractive and
try to upgrade them after they're
here, but I want to say this:
Most of what I have to say about
minority employment still repre-
sents aspirations and not
accomplishments.
One of our initiatives will
play a very big role in terms of
minority contractors. We're try-
ing to set up a mechanism so
TVA can plan its programs to
create more activities for small
businessmen and minority busi-
nessmen. And that's where
solar energy comes in.
Not only is it pollution-proof
and inflation proof, but it gives
the small business person and
the black entrepreneur a chance
to compete and get the busi-
ness. There is no way in the
worid a small black or white
businessman is going to get
much of a piece of a big nuclear
power plant.
TVA has to build those itself,
and to the extent that we con-
tract, it's got to be to a large
organization. They in turn em-
ploy some black people, but you
won't get the black entrepre-
neurs with large, centra! station
APRIL 1979
1!)
-------
power plants. You give them an
opportunity with the smaller,
decentralized technologies, like
solar collectors, fuel cells, and
things of that type.
There is also a trend away
from doing everything
with your own staff, is
there not, where you're
letting out contracts to
smaller entrepreneurs?
We've got $500 million of sub-
contracs out now, and we'll
be doing more of that. We had
an independent management
team look over our construction
organization, and it made a lot
of suggestions about this. And
I think you will find that we are
trying to utilize all the talents
that are in the Valley.
I will say this for our con-
struction organization. They
have a record of cost effective-
ness that is hard to beat, and
we do have a mandate to keep
the price of electricity as low
as feasible. We're going to
continue to implement that
more forcefully than I think has
been the case in recent years.
And that means that we are
going to build these power
plants ourselves unless we can
find contractors that can do the
work cheaper.
Business Week has men-
tioned your interest in
promoting the use of elec-
tric vehicles. What
prompts your interest in
them?
I think the electric vehicle
concept is one of the funda-
mental answers to the environ-
mental crisis, as well as the
energy crisis. I don't think that
we will ever achieve implemen-
tation of the clean air standards
in our major metropolitan
centers, unless we get internal
combustion cars the hell out
of there.
And yet people are not going
to be able to be served exclu-
sively by mass transit in the
foreseeable future, perhaps
ever.
Certainly we've got too much
of a decentralized suburbia
built. I see the electrical
vehicle as being the means to
keep the mobility that people
treasure, their independence,
the freedom to stop off at a store
or whatever on the way home
rather than having to go in
a carpool.
I think that the electrical car
is a fundamental answer and I
think TVA can play a useful role
in pulling that technology
ahead, rather than simply
sitting back, as everyone seems
to be doing, and waiting for
some inventor to achieve a
breakthrough in the battery that
supposedly is going to trans-
form it from a turkey to a
treasure overnight.
I don't believe it's going to
happen that way. I think we're
going to make incremental
improvements in the battery
right along, but there are a
number of institutional and
marketing barriers that have to
be overcome. I think that vehicle
will start off first in fleets in
the cities for stop and start
traffic. Some of that already is
being done.
It will gradually grow, tak-
ing over the second car urban
vehicle market, and in time
perhaps we will have electric
vehicles that we can drive
from one city to another.
But if you've got a car with a
good 100-1 50 mile radius, it's
going to be economical. The
curves are going to cross.
Every time OPEC meets we
have a breakthrough in electric
powered vehicles.
As the price of oil gets
higher and higher, it is going to
be more economically feasible
to use coal or nuclear power or
solar energy for electricity to
charge batteries to run a
vehicle. I dare say that by the
turn of the century, electric
power will be dominating the
automobile market.
I hope that TVA can play a
role in making it happen a few
years sooner, and maybe in the
process encourage some of the
industry to locate in this part
of the country and bring jobs
to people in rural areas so they
can keep the good life and
not have to go to Detroit to get
a job, which was the situation
a few decades ago.
Does TVA have money in
electric car development
now?
We are putting some of our
own corporate research and
development funds into electric
cars. We only have a half dozen
or so vehicles now.
I'm awaiting firm recommen-
dations from the staff as to
which vehicles we should
purchase and get out on the
road, but our 1980 budget
visualizes that TVA will be
spending millions of dollars,
perhaps, on a fleet of electric
vehicles, to begin demonstrat-
ing their use, to get some
experience in our own opera-
tions, and encourage our
distributors, Stateagencies, and
others to do so. We are
working with the Electric Power
Research Institute. It is a
beautiful load for electric utility
systems, on top of everything
else, because the batteries can
be charged at night. It's an
off-peak load that will fit into
our hydro and nuclear power
system quite well.
We won't have to build any
new power plants for a long
time to serve the electric car
market—we can just run exist-
ing plants at better load factors.
From an energy point of view,
it's a more efficient way to use
energy than an internal com-
bustion engine.
But aside from that point,
you can get off imported oil,
which is the heart of the
energy crisis.
So I cannot overemphasize
the importance of getting on
with the development of auto-
motive electric power. Some-
times I think that we neglect the
positive answers and pour all
the money into yesterday's
non-answers.
You've spoken of the evils
of strip-mining and deep
mining coal. Are there
ways TVA as an organiza-
tion can help to assure
proper mining practices,
or are you relying on
Federal law enforcement
for that?
I think it's going to take a lot
of both. TVA is working closely
with the Office of Surface
Mining (OSM) to implement
the new law. Until it was
passed, we had requirements
in our coal power contracts that
required our contractors to do
a minimum amount of
reclamation.
With the new Federal law
we don't need those require-
ments any more, but we
support OSM, not only through
loaning them some people, but
our coal contracts will now
provide that if any company is
in violation of Federal law, it
is also in breach of contract
with us, and we're not obligated
to buy the coal.
And that is a rather powerful,
supplemental deterrent to
encourage them to comply with
the iaw.
In addition to that, we have
a team of people to assist the
small coal companies to
comply with the new strip-
mining law, which is very
difficult for a very small com-
pany. They don't have the
technical expertise. So we're
trying to help positively.
We also do not enter into
contracts with companies that
are in violation of the strip
mining law. And we get advice
from OSM before we award the
contracts. So we have a series
of policies and programs that
supplement the people who are
struggling with the enforcement
of this new surface mine law.
On the deep mine front I
don't think that we have any
special effort, since there is an
agency of government that is
enforcing the underground
mining law. I think that more
and more they've become effec-
tive. There's been a tremendous
improvement in the levels of
dust in the underground mines
in the last ten years, and I think
gradually the safety record is
improving.
You observed a year ago
that in the environment
and energy debate, the
real enemy was the cal-
endar. What did you mean
by that?
Well, I felt that we were losing
precious time in that we have
continued to drain America
first, as we exhaust our store-
house of fossil fuels, and have
failed to put a concentrated
enough effort into developing
longer-lasting alternatives,
such as solar energy. And we
have failed to implement the
conservation options that could
buy us more time.
Unfortunately the environ-
mental perspective has taken a
kind of defensive tone in the
last year or two, which I think
continued to inside back cover
20
EPAJOURNAL
-------
•Hidden^% ^>
\JPCl9
Another Alternative
By David Tundermann
and Joel Schwartz
The continuing question in energy policy
circles has always been "Do we have a
near-term alternative to coal?" We suggest
that the answer is yes, and natural gas is at
least part of that alternative. At a price
competitive with imported oil it can provide
a more environmentally acceptable sub-
stitute for that oil than coal would be.
Morever, potential supplies of this gas are
fully as large as our coal deposits if we
look to unconventional sources.
The difficulties with coal are twofold.
First, expansion of supply is quite costly.
Previously coal was a cheap fuel, but that
low price was obtained only by excluding
from the price of the coal many of its real
costs. With the advent of mine safety and
needed environmental regulations, the
price of coal production has escalated
dramatically. With the advent of the Clean
Air Act requiring the control of dangerous
pollutants, the cost of combustion has
escalated as well. Finally, when adequate
provision was made for proper maintenance
of rail roadbeds, the cost of transporting
coal skyrocketed. All of this made
coaf more expensive than oil in much of the
(Tundermann is Director, EPA's Division of
Policy Planning, and Schwartz is an energy
policy analyst)
country, and led to the "disappointing"
growth in coal demand and production.
The second problem with coal is that
there remain noneconomic reasons not to
use it. Even when a coal boiler meets all
environmental regulations, it still produces
much more pollution than a gas boiler. And
even when a mine meets all safety regula-
tions, it is still a lot more dangerous than a
gas well. Many people's response to these
developments has been to attempt to sup-
press them, but these problems are very
real. They indicate that alternative solu-
tions to our energy supply problem shouid
receive greater emphasis.
The most environmentally favorable
source of additional fossil fuel is, of course,
natural gas. We have a number of uncon-
ventional sources of this gas that may offer
a far better transition fuel than coal to the
energy supplies of the next century. The
four major sources are: gas dissolved in
geopressurized water, gas from Devonian
shale, gas from Western tight sand rock
formations, and gas from very deep wells.
Some estimates of the supplies available
from these resources have been astronom-
ically high, so an important caveat should
be mentioned here. Most of these supplies
are unproducible at any reasonable price
and most of the estimates are based on
much too little data. Even so, the potential
supplies seem quite large, and are sum-
marized here.
Geopressurized Gas
There are large deposits of hot water, un-
der pressure, along the Gulf Coast and in
the Gulf itself. They are at temperatures of
250-300" F, and many of them have large
amounts of natural gas dissolved in the
water. While the small number of explora-
tory wells make speculation about the size
of the resource hazardous, there are at least
several hundred to several thousand trillion
cubic feet of gas in place. A trillion cubic
feet of gas is approximately equivalent to
half a million barrels of oil per day for a
year in energy value. The Department of
Energy has a modest drilling program to
determine the extent of producible re-
serves, and to develop the technology for
that production.
There are several difficulties that devel-
opment of this resource must overcome,
but potential reserves are so high that all of
these hurdles still leave very large potential
supplies available from this resource, de-
pending on price. Imported residual oil
already costs close to $3 per million Btu's,
delivered. Expected increases in the
price of oil should make this resource com-
petitive in the near future. Any action to
deregulate or otherwise increase domestic
oil prices to world level would of course
also advance this timetable.
Currently, the Department of Energy is
spending $28 million per year on research
into geopressurized gas, with an increase
to $36 million scheduled in fiscal year
1980. By contrast, coal gasification, whose
estimated price of $4 per million Btu is
certainly no cheaper, is budgeted for $169
million. Total Energy Department spending
on all unconventional gas in FY80 wilf be
$64 million.
Tight Sands
The next large source of unconventional
gas is the tight sand formations in the West.
These stone formations contain several
hundred to a thousand trillion cubic feet
of gas, but aren't very porous. Here, the
technology for production is better estab-
lished. It consists of drilling many wells
closer together and fracturing the rock for-
mations. Both of these increase flow rates
from reservoirs, and both are expensive.
Difficulties faced by this resource are the
high cost of fracturing and of many produc-
tion wells. Those formations with continu-
ous beds of gas-bearing rock are already
in production, but most of the gas is in dis-
continuous beds. This spotty nature of the
deposit makes fracturing less effective, and
requires more wells. As a result, production
is extremely sensitive to price.
A recent DOE study showed ultimate
recoverable reserves from known deposits,
with advanced technology, of 149 trillion
cubic feet at $3 per million Btu's (plus in-
flation). Production in 1990 is estimated
at over 7 trillion cubic feet per year at that
price. This is the equivalent of 3' '2 million
barrels of oil per day. Increased explora-
tion, moreover, may discover additional
formations.
As long as oil is price controlled (with
the average cost of oil in the United States
only two-thirds the world price), potential
users will be tempted to use imported oil
instead of this gas. Efforts to reduce this
incentive are probably more important to
production than additional fracturing
research.
Devonian Shale
Devonian shale is a brown rock distributed
throughout Appalachia. Enormous amounts
of gas are dissolved in this rock, and there
are existing wells in this shale already,
some over a century old. Most of those
wells are located in the most favorable re-
gions, so again, the total resource base is
unknown. The Congressional Office of
Technology Assessment in 1977 estimated
economically recoverable reserves at prices
between $2 and $3 per million Btu's in-
APRIL 1979
21
-------
volving between 23 and 38 trillion cubic
feet with maximum production of about 1
trillion cubic feet per year. The low produc-
tion is due to low porosity. Higher prices or
more advanced fracturing techniques
would lead to increases in both production
and recoverable reserves. The major ob-
stacles to more rapid development are the
need for improvements in fracturing tech-
niques, and the lack of any customers who
are being forced to make a choice between
the real cost of imported oil and this gas.
Deep Wells
Deep gas is perhaps the most conventional
of all the unconventional sources. It is un-
conventional in the depths, 1 5,000 to
40,000 feet, at which it occurs. On the
other hand, alone of all the unconventional
sources deep gas wells flow at much greater
rates than normal wells. While very little is
known about reservoirs at these depths a
paper presented recently at the Aspen
Institute Workshop on R&D priorities and
the gas energy option estimated 200 tril-
lion cubic feet of "deep" gas in Oklahoma
alone.
It is estimated that prices necessary
to develop these reserves were in the range
of $3-3.50 per million Btu's. Here again
cost is a major factor. A well drilled to
15,000 feet costs 12 times as much as one
drilled to 5,000 feet. Even with greater
production rates, higher prices are clearly
necessary.
The significance of these supplies of un-
conventional gas is simply this: At a price
competitive with, or below that of synthetic
fuels we seem to have vast supplies of the
cleanest burning fossil fuel. Furthermore,
at a price competitive with foreign oil, we
have large economically recoverable re-
serves of gas that can replace that oil with
far less environmental cost than coal.
There are technical problems that will
keep us from producing this gas overnight.
And as long as oil prices in this country are
kept below imported prices, customers will
be few. Nevertheless the potential of this
gas is vast. What remains to be seen is
whether our price and allocation controls
for energy in this country will be adjusted
to let us use it. D
Wood
Growing Energy Source
By Chris Perham
"Firewood warms twice, once
when you split it and again
in the woodstove"
"Split wood not atoms"
bumper sticker
Searching for ways to cope with the
energy crunch, many Americans have
rediscovered wood as a fuel not only for
home heating, but for industrial needs,
and for power generation as well.
Wood fuel proponents, whose ranks
swell with each fossil fuel price increase,
point out that wood is safe, available,
cheap, renewable, and versatile. Forests
cover over 80 percent of the land in New
England, and more than one-third of
North America.
In Missoula, Mont., Champion Inter-
national uses waste wood from its plywood
mill to replace 84 percent of the power
formerly supplied by diesel fuel and natural
gas. The company has announced plans
to replace a gas-fired boiler at its hardboard
plant in Dee, Ore., with one that burns
wood waste.
Chris Perham is an A ssistant Editor of
EPA Journal.
Potlatch Corporation has said it will
build a power boiler at its Lewiston, Idaho
facility to burn wood waste and bark. In
Vermont, a power company fuels one of its
generators with wood chips.
In Millinocket, Me., the Great Northern
Nekoosa Corporation has a stockpile of
bark that covers 1 5 acres to a depth of 60
feet. The company is considering building
a $30 million boiler that would burn the
bark and cut the company's oil purchases
by 20 percent.
The Wood Fuel Research Institute in
New England studies conversion possibili-
ties for wood waste. In Michigan and
Georgia State governments are investigat-
ing the large-scale use of wood for indus-
trial fuel. Dr. John Burchard, Director of
EPA's Industrial Environmental Research
Laboratory, is a member of the Board of
Science Advisors of the North Carolina
Energy Institute, which has wood burning
high on its priority list.
Dr. Burchard says, "Wood fuel is gain-
ing acceptance in heavily forested areas of
our country. Pollution from these sources
has not been a high priority in the past be-
cause it was such a small part of the indus-
trial fuel supply, and other health-related
research took precedence.
"Now the Agency is analyzing the pollu-
tion potential; mainly polycyclic organic
materials that vaporize from burning wood,
and particle emissions. Many of the
methods needed to analyze these vapors
were not available 5 or 6 years ago and
some are still being perfected."
While a great deal of wood fuel is waste
from timber cutting or fireplace logs, many
users are also turning to wood chips. These
are produced right in the woods by ma-
chines that chew up entire trees or tree
sections into chips the size of a matchbook
and shoot them into a trailer truck.
Part of an EPA study now in progress at
the Process Technology Branch in Research
Triangle Park will look at the pollution
caused by industrial boilers that use wood
for fuel. As more companies turn to wood
to cut their fuel bills, EPA scientists are
seeking pollution control measures best
suited to wood fuel. According to project
officer Warren Peters, the pollution varies
according to the type of use, the location
of the facility, and even the kind of wood
being burned.
EPA's studies of wood-fired boilers
show wide variations in such pollutants as
particles, carbon monoxide, nitrogen ox-
ides, unburned hydrocarbons, and poly-
cyclic organic materials. Similar pollutants
can be produced by fireplaces and stoves,
depending on the type of combustion unit,
whether the wood was green or seasoned,
and how fast and well it burned. A study
underway for the Agency now is comparing
fireplaces, ordinary wood-fired stoves, and
EPAJOURNAL
-------
stoves that have baffle plates and secondary
combustion chambers, to record the effects
of each on air quality.
A homeowner can choose to burn pine or
oak in a fireplace, a stove, or a furnace.
Fireplaces are the most romantic and least
efficient way to use wood. Incomplete com-
bustion leaves Creosote deposits in chim-
neys and sends smoke and pollutants into
the air. Often because of thermal draft,
fireplaces cause a net loss of heat to the
home. An air-tight stove uses the solar
energy stored in wood more efficiently.
Using some new wood-burning furnace
designs residents can heat a house on four
sticks of wood a day.
State and local government officials may
soon have to consider the density of such
home heating use when planning for clean
air goals. Some New England States have
raised the possibility of requiring permits
for wood-fired home-heating devices.
EPA's Denver office has advised the cities
of Vail and Aspen, Colo., that wood burning
emissions are a significant part of their
air pollution problem.
A wood stove may smell "homey" on an
isolated^arm in rural North Dakota, but
the effect of many stoves and fireplaces in
a suburban area can be air pollution. EPA
scientists point out the home chimneys are
often placed so that downward air move-
ments carry pollution to where people
breathe instead of allowing it to disperse
into the atmosphere.
If a simple stove can cause air quality
problems what about industrial use? EPA is
interested because increasingly industries
located in out-of-the-way places, which
have transportation problems and high
costs for conventional fuels, are finding
ways to put wood to work for them.
In Northern Vermont the Burlington
Electric Department converted one of its
generators to burn wood chips instead of
coal late in 1977. One ton (wet) of wood
chips produces approximately the same
heat in Btu's (8 million) as a barrel of oil or
one-third ton of coal. However because of
the price differences between these fuels
the utility can generate electricity for less
than 2.5 cents per kilowatt using wood,
compared to 3 cents per kilowatt hour with
coal.
Local support for the utility is strong.
Residents approved the sale of revenue
bonds to fund construction of an $80 mil-
lion generator that will use wood to produce
50 megawatts of power. While proponents
expect the price of wood to rise in re-
sponse to the new demand, they feel it will
continue to be cheaper than coal and oil.
The money spent on wood fuel makes jobs
for local wood workers, machine operators,
and truckers.
The State government also has begun
turning to wood. A boiler at the Vermont
State hospital in Waterbury was converted
to burn wood chips harvested from State
forest lands. Forestry officials see the trend
toward wood fuel as providing a market
for trees that were previously unusable.
Over the last century unrestricted cutting
and clearing for agriculture has often left
woodlands with low quality trees and many
that are diseased, rotten, misshapen or
otherwise unsuitable for commercial use.
Selective cutting of such trees can be com-
pared to weeding a garden. Chip harvesting
provides an economic incentive to remove
them and improve the health and esthetic
quality of the forest.
What effect will this have on air quality?
Perhaps less than the smoke from the many
fireplaces that burn in Vermont's largest
city. Burlington is an area that does not
meet all air pollution standards, and pol-
lution control permits may be required for
the planned 50 megawatt plant, according
to EPA's Regional Office. Meanwhile the
Burlington Electric Department uses a
precipitator to control the particle emis-
sions from the wood-fueled generator, just
as it does for those that burn coal. Wood
chips have the advantage that they produce
relatively little sulfur dioxide, a combus-
tion by-product of coal.
In the Northwest logging wastes have
often been burned in the field leading
to air pollution disputes, especially near
urban areas. Now more industries and util-
ities are considering the economic advan-
tages of converting the wastes, called
slash, into fuel. Some wood industries are
trucking the slash to their plants where it is
burned to produce steam, along with mill
waste and other wood residues.
In the past mill waste was stockpiled or
burned in coneshaped incinerators called
tepee-burners. These were also sources of
dirty air. Few of the industries can afford
such practices with today's fueJ prices.
Waste stockpiles are dwindling as the
companies recycle their wood for steam.
"Wood products plants in the West are
supplying part of their energy needs from
wood waste and a few plants are approach-
ing 100 percent satisfaction of their energy
needs," says Dr. H. Kirk Willard, Chief of
the Food and Wood Products Branch at
EPA's Industrial Environmental Research
Lab in Cincinnati, Ohio. He adds, "Initially
labor costs were too high to justify collect-
ing and using wood waste as fuel. The
trend toward increased wood use began
after the shortage of cheap natural gas in the
late 60's and picked up after the increased
cost of oil in the 70's. We now estimate
that over one-third of the 110-1 50 million
tons (dry) of wood wastes, largely from
mill-waste and harvest residues, produced
in the U.S. each year are used for fuel.
Dr. Willard points out that in addition to
reductions in sulfate emissions the substi-
tution of wood as fuel allows a significant
reduction in ash generated, less than 25
percent that for coal.
EPA's Seattle office reports that while
some of the older wood-fueled sources can
be a problem, the newer plants can be con-
trolled as well or better than coal. EPA is
working with the Department of Energy
and the U.S. Forest Service in Region 10 to
find environmentally safe and economical
'ways to convert wood wastes and other
biomass to energy.
Biomass is the total volume of all living
matter in a given area. The term includes
plant materials once considered waste but
which can be used as fuel. In addition to
slash from wood operations, it includes
such plant materials as cornstalks and
bagasse, the stalk left after sugar has been
extracted from sugarcane.
The ingenuity that turns biomass into
fuel has helped a wide range of industries
and institutions.
For example in the Midwest a walnut
processing firm uses the walnut hulls,
shells, and shards to fuel the ovens that
dry the nut-meats. Some farmers are using
chopped cornstalks to feed their grain
drying ovens.
Wood wastes can be formed into pellets
for easier transport and more efficient burn-
ing. A firm in Vermont is developing a small
gasification furnace for home heating
fueled by pellets. This home heater would
operate on a thermostat much like an oil
furnace, taking fuel from a supply of wood
pellets blown into a cellar bin by a delivery
truck.
EPA is supporting a project in coopera-
tion with the California Solid Waste Man-
agement Board to design, construct, and
field testa mobile pyrolysis system to con-
vert agricultural and forestry wastes into
char (a combustible residue) and oil energy
products. The unit will be able to travel to
the source of the waste and convert up to
200 tons per day of wastes into energy
products. When the waste supply runs out
the unit can move to another area. From
every ton of waste processed the system is
projected to produce 270 pounds of char,
250 pounds of an oil similar to Number 6
fuel oil, and 1,500 pounds of low Btu gas.
This concept will provide an alternative to
current unacceptable disposal practices
such as open burning, while producing
fuel products.
EPA Scientists at the Industrial Environ-
mental Research Laboratories in Cincin-
nati, Ohio and Research Triangle Park,
N.C. are working with industry, and other
government agencies to help make wood a
fuel that pays off in dollars and in a better
environment. D
APRIL 1979
23
-------
CEQ Urges Energy Conservation
The Nation can achieve a
major expansion in its
economy b'etween now and the
year 2000 while using only
about 10 to 15 percent more
energy than it uses today,
according to the President's
Council on Environmental
Quality.
In a special report, The Good
News About Energy, the Coun-
cil said recent studies showed
the real Gross National Product
will increase between 60 and
90 percent in the next 21 years
but energy use need not grow
by more than a fraction of that,
if the United States makes a
determined effort.
In announcing the findings.
Council members said their
overall conclusion was that
"the United States can do well,
indeed prosper, on much less
energy than has been com-
monly supposed. The principal
basis for this good news is the
accumulating evidence that the
means are available to wring
far more consumer goods and
services out of each unit of
fuel that we use, whether it be
a barrel of oil or a ton of coal
or uranium."
What has happened is that
the technology to make energy
use more efficient is now avail-
able, according to the report.
CEQ cited such things as
improved housing construction
to conserve fuel, new car
models that guzzle less gas,
and waste heat recovery sys-
tems in industry that can
provide a 30 to 50 percent
annual return on investment.
"Energy productivity . . .
thus refers to getting more
from the energy we use, not to
a back-to-the-caves reduction
in amenities," members
explained.
The 49-page CEQ report
pulls together conclusions from
a number of recent studies
dealing with energy by the
National Academy of Sciences,
the Oak Ridge Associated
Universities' Institute for
Energy Analysis, the Ford
Foundation's Energy Policy
Project, and by independent
researchers. Although they
differ on many assumptions
and details, these studies point
to the real possibility of a low
energy growth future, although
accompanied by an economy
with steadily rising GNP.
"As a result of this large
potential for energy savings,"
the report noted, "we can fuel
the growth of the economy in
years ahead in large part by
increasing the productivity of
the energy we now use rather
than by greatly increasing our
energy inputs. Energywise, a
barrel of oil saved through in-
creased efficiency is as useful
as a barrel produced and in
other respects it is better."
Gross National Product is a
term to describe the tola! value
of the goods and services
produced in a country during a
specified period such as a year.
It is a familiar yardstick used
by economists to indicate how
the Nation's economy is faring.
The U.S. GNP last year reached
more than $2.2 trillion, com-
pared to about S1.9 trillion in
1977.
The recent studies indicate
that the GNP is not likely to
grow as rapidly in the decades
ahead as in the past. Among
the reasons given are slowed
population growth and a his-
torical shift in the U.S. econ-
omy to less energy-intensive
goods and services. CEQ's
report said, "These two trends
mean that our demand for the
things energy can provide will
be growing at a reduced rate at
the same time that our ability
to provide those things with
less energy is increasing."
How can the Nation cut back
on its energy use patterns?
The report cited numerous
areas for savings. It emphasized
that several European countries
such as Sweden, West Ger-
many, and Switzerland have
per capita incomes comparable
to the U.S. but have substan-
tially lower energy/output
ratios. Sweden, for example,
uses only about 60 percent as
much energy as the U.S. but
has a comparable standard of
living.
There is no single factor
that explains the higher use of
energy compared to produc-
tivity in the U.S. More than
half the difference is attributed
to energy use in three areas:
passenger transport, residential
space heating and air condi-
tioning, and industry.
"Some of our relative ineffi-
ciency in passenger transport
is probably due to our less
dense living patterns," the
report declared, "but the data
also indicate that our automo-
biles are less efficient, that we
use less mass transportation,
and less clearly, that we take
more short trips in our autos,
including trips in congested
areas." In housing, Americans
employ less efficient heating
practices combined with a
preference for larger homes
and single family dwellings.
Industry-for-industry, the U.S.
is considerably less efficient
than Western Europe, using
more energy to produce a given
amount of a product such as
steel, according to the report.
The CEQ report called for a
strengthened national commit-
ment to energy conservation,
and suggested the following
areas where efforts could
achieve large fuel savings:
Residential and com-
mercial buildings:
Reduce heating losses by 50
percent with better insulation;
Substitute heat pumps for
electric resistance heating;
Cut water heating fuel require-
ments through more insulation,
reduced hot water temperature
settings, and use of solar
energy or heat recovery;
Increase efficiency of new air
conditioners and refrigerators;
Improve lighting systems in
commercial buildings.
Transportation:
Emphasize smaller, light-weight
vehicles (a move well under
way already in Detroit);
Improve efficiency of car drive
trains, such as greater use of
manual transmissions;
Improve fuel mileage by greater
use of radial tires, streamlining,
and modifications of auto
engines and power accessories.
More efficient airliners and
greater use of diesels by truck
fleets, as well as shifts to more
piggy-back transport of truck
loads by freight trains.
Although the report sug-
gested encouraging wider use
of mass transit in major cities,
it was silent on the subject of
rail passenger service between
cities. The Administration
recently proposed cutbacks in
Amtrak service.
Industrial sector:
Improve "housekeeping" prac-
tices such as turning down
thermostats, turning off un-
necessary lighting, and repair-
ing steam leaks.
Produce more process steam
through cogeneration, a term
for producing electric power
and other energy such as
process steam from the same
facility, and add heat
recuperators;
Reduce losses in electric power
generation by such measures as
locating stations closer to load
centers;
Recycle steel and aluminum in
urban refuse and use more
solid waste for fuel.
The CEQ report said that low
energy growth in the next two
decades means that the Nation
can avoid many difficulties. In-
stead of needing some 500 new
power plants, we can limit the
number to perhaps 25 percent
of that total; we can lessen our
dependence on oil and gas
imports; we can free capital
from new energy facilities and
use it to create jobs elsewhere,
and we can conserve our own
fossil fuels.
"In an age increasingly beset
by all kinds of limits (resource,
environmental, and social),
conserving energy through im-
proving fuel productivity is the
single most effective means of
easing our long-term environ-
mental and energy problems,"
the report declared.
Copies of the report may be
obtained by sending a self-
addressed mailing label to:
Council on Environmental
Quality, 722 Jackson Place
N.W., Washington, D.C.
20006.Q
24
EPAJOURNAL
-------
The U.S. economy was built on oil that
cost $2 per barrel. International oil
now costs nearly $14and the price isclimb-
ing. As the price of our chief energy source
climbs steadily higher, dramatic changes
will certainly ensue. Many such changes
will reflect investments to enhance the
efficiency of energy use, since such invest-
ments are the most cost-effective energy
choices available today.
Yet, no matter how heroic the effort we
make to conserve energy, substitutes for
domestic oil and gas must be found. Sup-
plies of both have been declining steadily
for several years. The time has come to
begin the transition to a sustainable energy
base.
The arguments in favor of a program to
accelerate solar development are well
known. Renewable energy resources, used
widely, have fewer negative environmental
consequences than do conventional energy
resources. They produce no radioactive
wastes or bomb-grade materials; nor do
they threaten to trigger a planetary green-
house effect. Solar sources tend to be labor-
intensive, stable, and resilient; they tend to
foster self-reliance, political and cultural
pluralism, and a favorable balance-of-pay-
ments. Moreover, used worldwide, renew-
Toward a
Solar
America
By Denis Hayes
able resources should discourage the
proliferation of nuclear power with its
associated weapons potential.
Americans are beginning to appreciate
the social, environmental, and economic
advantages of solar energy. Recent polls
suggest that, in an era when most new
energy sources are deeply embattled with
a hostile public, 94 percent of the American
people favor the rapid development of solar
sources.
Economic history provides a powerful
set of arguments for solar energy. Two
major energy transitions have swept the
United States in the last 1 25 years. First,
coal replaced wood as the dominant source
of commercial energy. Then, coal was itself
displaced by oil and gas. Both these
changeovers occurred with breathtaking
speed. In 1850, coal contributed only 10
percent of the Nation's energy; just thirty-
five years later, it provided more than half
the Nation's fuel. In 1910, less than 10 per-
cent of the United States' energy supply
came from oil and gas; thirty-five years
later, oil and gas accounted for half the
Nation's energy.
We are now entering another transition.
No doubt the era now aborning will be
powered mostly by renewable energy
sources. The critical question is whether
this transition will proceed fast enough to
enable us to avoid massive economic and
social disruptions.
Past energy transitions have been en-
couraged by strong Federal policies. If re-
newable resources are to compete with
conventional fuels, their development
should be similarly encouraged by explicit
Federal policies. Part of such a Federal
commitment must take the form of sub-
sidies. Virtually every form of energy sold
in this country, with the notable exception
of solar energy, has received massive Fed-
eral subsidies for development, transmis-
sion, and use. Nuclear power has received
a generation's worth of government-spon-
sored research and development at no
metered cost to those buying electricity
from a nuclear power plant. Every stage of
the nuclear fuel cycle, from the enrichment
APRIL 1979
25
-------
of uranium to the disposal of radioactive
waste, continues to receive heavy Federal
subsidies.
Vendors of oil, gas, coal, and nuclear
power, represented in Washington by for-
midable trade associations, have managed
by influencing legislation to shape the
energy marketplace to serve their interests.
The tax code stands as a monument to the
skill of lobbyists in minimizing taxes on
the particular form of energy development
their clients control. The case for a major
Federal role in promoting rapid solar
development rests heavily upon the govern-
ment's desire to balance a market heavily
biased toward encouraging continued in-
vestments in conventional energy sources.
All our assumptions about the real cost
of solar energy must be overhauled in light
of new economic realities. Conventional
wisdom holds that while solar energy has
many attractive characteristics, it is
currently too expensive for widespread
application. But yesterday's half-truth has
become today's misapprehension, es-
pecially when viewed from the broad
vantage point of national interest, since
consumers want to obtain as much energy
as possible per dollar of investment, the
question is simply which new investment
produces the most bang for the buck.
Homeowners or business executives
considering the purchase of solar equip-
ment do not ask this question. They com-
pare the price of the solar collector with the
average price of fuel. These consumers
may or may not know that oil prices are an
average of the costs (plus profit) of cheap
oil from old domestic fields, imported oil,
frontier oil from Alaska and other remote
places, and advanced-recovery oil obtained
by using sophisticated techniques to pull
more oil out of "dry" wells. They may not
know that the cost of new oil is much
higher than this average. The real replace-
ment cost is considered by some to be the
cost of making oil from coal—$30 to $40
aer barrel.
The point is that the individual con-
sumer, who has to shoulder the full cost of
a new solar water heater, never has to come
lo grips with the cost of new oil. Instead,
the price of new oil is averaged with the
price of cheaper old oil, and all consumers
pay for the expensive new oil with slightly
higher bills. This effect is most dramatic
with respect to electricity; in some parts of
the country, power from a new power plant
costs ten times more than the average price
now paid by the consumer.
If everyone paid for oil at the world
price, for gas at the price of imports, and
for electricity at roughly the cost of power
from the least expensive new power plants,
the Nation's annual energy bill would be
$70 billion higher. This market distortion
amounts to almost one billion dollars per
year per quad of commercial energy sold.
If society subsidized solar technologies to
this same degree, the impact would be
revolutionary.
Solar energy now makes economic sense
at the margin; the energy from an unsub-
sidized new nuclear power plant (if there
were such a thing) would cost more than
that from an unsubsidized new solar unit.
If society's scarce capital is to be invested
efficiently, the micro-economic interests of
individual consumers must be brought
more closely in line with the macro-eco-
nomic interests of the Nation. Only through
Federal policy can such an alignment
come about.
What sorts of policies are needed?
(1) Financing. Solar technologies suffer
in the marketplace because most of their
expense is in "front-end" money, because
competing fuels have been and are now
heavily subsidized, and because important
economic externalities are omitted from
conventional balance sheets. In seeking
remedies for these problems, it is important
that Federal policy be relevant to the needs
of all consumers, including renters and
poor people.
(2) Consumer Protection. Most con-
sumers continue to view solar technologies
as risky investments. Strong programs
must be implemented to protect consumer
interests while not stifling creative inno-
vation in the infant solar industry.
(3) Competition. Safeguards must be
erected to ensure that control of the solar
industry does not fall into the hands of a
few giant firms.
(4) Job Training. Investments in renew-
able energy sources yield more jobs than
do similar investments in conventional
facilities. A major job training program will
be necessary if sufficient skilled workers
are to be available as needed.
(5) Federal Procurement. An important
Federal role is to set an example for the
rest of the country. A major Federal
procurement effort will also have the effect
of lowering costs to the public by encourag-
ing economies of mass production. Specific
goals must be set for Federal solar
purchases.
(6) Research, Development, and Dem-
onstration. To date, a disproportionate
share of Federal solar funding has gone
to large, centralized facilities to generate
electricity. Future funding must be intelli-
gently distributed among a broad range of
promising technologies. Little attention has
traditionally been paid to neighborhood
scale technologies, and to the wind and
biomass research programs.
(7) Government Organization. Inter-
departmental coordination of the solar
effort should be handled by a special Solar
Policy Council chaired by either the
President or Vice President, Control over
the DOE solar program, the Solar Energy
Research Institute, and the regional solar
centers should be centralized in one office.
(8) International Programs. Several
important policy objectives can be achieved
simultaneously by a strong international
outreach program. With economies of mass
production, domestic prices should de-
cline; as U.S. entrepreneurs visit other
lands, they can acquire new technologies
and ideas to bring back home, and a
prime excuse for nuclear proliferation
should be undercut.
With a strong solar program, the United
States could obtain 25 percent of its energy
from renewable sources by the year 2000.
Such a goal will not be cheaply achieved.
Yet the net costs, stretched over the next
22 years, would amount to less than the
proposed expenditures on national defense
for next year alone. In weighing Federal
expenditures, it is necessary to recall
that the solar energy being harnessed will
displace conventional fuels, all of which
also receive substantial direct Federal
subsidies. In addition, a strong solar
program would reduce the level pf many
indirect Federal outlays, e.g. for public
health, unemployment and welfare pro-
grams, radioactive waste disposal, the
national petroleum stockpile, etc. To the
extent that solar sources are substituted
for imported oil, they not only save foreign
taxes but also employ Americans (who
pay taxes and whose purchases of goods
and services have a multiplying effect
within the Nation's economy).
The net cost to the Federa I Government
over the next 22 years of pursuing a 25
percent goal would be approximately $50
billion, or an average of roughly $2.5
billion per year. The total cost to the
society would be lower than those asso-
ciated with a conventional strategy, pro-
vided that solar investments are made
intelligently.
The case for a solar transition is com-
pelling. With proper policies by the
Federal Government, the solar prospect
should be bright. But meaningful action is
long overdue.
Denis Hayes was Chairman of Sun Day.
1978, and now is a senior researcher with
WorldWatch Institute. He also is a member
of the U.S. Department of Energy's
Research Advisory Board, and is author of
Rays of Hope: The Transition to a Post-
Petroleum World. He founded and headed
Environmental Action, 1970-71, and was
national coordinator of Earth Day. Last
year he was the first recipient of the DOE
annual award for Outstanding Public
Service. The above article was adapted
from Blueprint for a Solar America. The
full text is available from the Solar Lobby,
1028 Connecticut A ve. N W. Suite 1100.
Washington, D.C. 20036. ($2.)
26
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Outlook
Charles J. DiBona
President, American Petroleum
Institute
1' I Jell with the lid off." So Charles
| I Dickens described the polluted
night sky over Pittsburgh when he once
visited the city. For too long, Dickens'
phrase would have been an apt description
of many American cities. After World War
II, though, milestones in our cleanup efforts
began to appear.
In Pittsburgh, a cooperative effort of
industry, households, rail and steamship
lines, and local government achieved a
dramatic cleanup of much of the city's
dingy air. New York City cut by 90 percent
the amount of sulfur in the fuels burned in
the city. Across the Nation, particulate
levels in the air dropped sharply with the
switch from coal to oil and gas as home
heating fuels.
Thus, by the start of this decade, the
Nation had already made big gains in clean-
ing up the air. And progress has continued
under the Clean Air Act.
The increased emphasis on cleaner air
over the last decade has been good for the
Nation. And in the future, more improve-
ment can and will be accomplished.
But we will have to pay close attention to
energy development, as our dependence on
imported oil continues to grow. We import
about 43 percent of the oil we use, and the
amount available from Western Hemi-
sphere sources has declined sharply. So,
we depend more and more heavily on the
Eastern Hemisphere members of OPEC—
the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries—which now supply more than
82 percent of our oil imports.
This shift means that our main sources
are not only more distant, but also less
stable. Obviously, the best current example
is Iran, which supplied nearly 11 percent of
our oil imports until the pofitical turmoil
and oil strike led to a cutoff of Iran's oil
exports in late December.
So, it is becoming increasingly important
that we consider our domestic energy goals
and our ciean air goals together. The ques-
tions and answers get a lot tougher as we
seek to eliminate the last few percent of
air pollution.
The benefits to public health are less
apparent. And the costs of control begin to
include an increasing number of lost oppor-
tunities. One important opportunity will be
to increase domestic energy production,
but ever tighter rules may foreclose much
new energy development. Another point
worth emphasizing is that job creation will
be slowed not just by plant closings, but,
perhaps more important, by projects—and
potential jobs—that simply never
materialize.
It is increasingly difficultto balance these
considerations. Just as it is hard to quantify
many of the real benefits of pollution con-
trol, so it is hard to quantify the value of
energy and other projects that die quietly
in board rooms.
Difficult or not, we must seek such a
balance. Emotional confrontation will not
get the job done, and we have, ! believe,
seen too much of it. Businessmen and
women find it easy to question the motives
of those who oppose their projects, while
environmental groups are often tempted to
put the business community on the side of
"dirty air" and poor health.
Such charges may serve as rallying cries
for both sides, but they merely attack a
straw man. No one wants dirty air. Every-
one wants clean energy development.
It is a matter of record that energy and
the environment are compatible. For ex-
ample, the giant Gulf Coast ecosystem,
with 25 national wildlife refuges, numerous
State and private refuges, a national park,
7 million acres of wetlands, one-fourth of
the Nation's commercial fish harvest and
2 million sport fishermen, coexists with
more than 35,000 oil and natural gas wells
and 10,000 miles of pipelines.
I believe the Clean Air Act can serve as
an effective framework for continued prog-
ress of this kind. Contrary to what the
public may have been led to believe, the Act
is neither all good nor all bad. Congress
recognized this when it established the
National Commission on Air Quality, which
is to study problems arising from the Act
and its administration and then to make
recommendations for changes to Congress.
There are questions badly in need of
study. What are the options for a company
that is new to an area and has no available
emission offsets? What will happen as
emission offsets eventually disappear
through growth or regulation? Is there a
way to eliminate the lengthy delays caused
solely by differences in Federal, State, and
local permitting processes? How do we
deal with natural pollution that exceeds
the standards in remote areas with energy
potential? Or allowable pollution incre-
ments that are too low even for projects
using the best modern control technology?
Resolving these and other questions
while assuring progress toward cleaner air
will require some adjustments to the Clean
Air Act. The potential future problems are
illustrated by some troubles which are
appearing today and which affect all phases
of the petroleum industry.
In production, for example, we have seen
nearly two years of delay in granting per-
mits for thermal recovery projects in Cali-
fornia. These projects would recover up to
5 billion barrels of crude oil—the equiva-
lent of two years' supply of oil imports.
In transportation, we have seen a similar
delay in approval of a terminal and pipeline
to receive and ship Alaskan crude oil to the
parts of the country that need it. The delays
continue despite strong approval by voters
in a referendum last November.
It has become nearly impossible to build
a new, modern refinery that can produce
the fuels that today's environmental rules
require, such as low-sulfur fuel oil and
unleaded gasoline. Proposed new refineries
at Eastport, Me., and Portsmouth, Va., are
still in limbo and have been for years.
These and other examples could turn out
to be either the exception or the rule. It
depends on whether we take a calm, ra-
tional approach or allow emotional confron-
tation to grow. Two questions summarize
both the issues we face and the emotional
pitfalls we must avoid. First, what level of
air quality will protect public health? And,
second, how do we achieve that level
efficiently?
In January, for example, EPA slightly
relaxed the ozone standard, from 0.08 to
0.1 2 parts per million. This revision—or
any upward revision—is decried by some
as both a "sellout" to industry and a com-
promise of public health.
It is neither. The emotional argument
ignores the fact that the standard was set
several years ago when data were slim.
The current scientific consensus, based on
confirmed studies, is that adverse health
effects have been demonstrated only at
levels more than twice as high as the new
standard.
So, the standard is still far more stringent
and billions of dollars more costly than is
necessary to protect public health. Also,
the standard will continue to hamper energy
projects. For example, needed expansions
in refinery capacity will still be virtually
impossible across the country. Thus, a fur-
ther relaxation of the standard is necessary
Continued to />n
-------
Cbal
The Key Fuel
By Carl E. Bagge
Just a little over five years ago, coal
was thought by most Americans to be a
fuel of the past. It was a fuel which had
powered the Nation to greatness over the
previous century, but it was a fuel of the
industrial revolution and not of the space
and computer age.
Coal had lost its public visibility. The
mental image of stacks belching smoke—
once a sign of progress—had given way to
the cleaner horizons of the environmentally
conscious Seventies. Few homes or busi-
nesses used coal anymore and the nostalgic
Carl E, Bagge is president of the National
Coal Association, a coal industry trade
group.
steam locomotives were limited to mu-
seums as relics of an era that had passed.
Coal mining and coal use today exist
one step removed from the vast majority of
the public. However, the images of coal's
not-so-glamorous past still linger. Coal to
many Americans is still dirty black stuff
mined from the bowels of the earth by char-
faced men with picks and shovels. Its
smoke pollutes. Orange stained water
seeps from its mines and fouls the rivers.
And barren and ravaged lands bear witness
to its environmental insult.
While these not entirely accurate images
of coal's past remain in the minds of many,
few remain in reality. The coal company of
today is a far different enterprise than its
predecessors. Anyone with a close working
relationship or knowledge of the coal indus-
try knows well the sharp and dramatic
changes which have occurred in this vital
and basic industry.
Since the middle and late Sixties, the
coal industry recognized its future was
bright. However, previous decades of
shrinking markets and profit margins took
their toll on the industry. Fewer and fewer
companies scrapped for a share of the ever-
smaller market. With a future bright only in
the long-term, the sons of coal miners left
their homes for work in other areas.
Coal's vital role is now well known. In
only a few short months during the fall of
1973, the public was reintroduced to its
most abundant energy resource. Coal was
again enthroned as king and savior of our
petroleum-dependent economy. And a new
industry has emerged out of the pains of
decline to rebirth. Grandfathers and grand-
sons now work together in much different
mines.
The public, the press, and the govern-
ment now know the fact the coal industry
has clutched for so long, that: Coal is in-
evitably, irrefutably, and unavoidably the
single most important fuel to the Nation.
That—of course—doesn't mean coal will
replace all other fuels, or that coal is the
right fuel for all applications. Nor does it
mean coai is the only answer to our energy
problems. It simply means that as the
Nation's energy needs grow, those new
demands will be supplied increasingly by
coal.
A future perspective
As the coal industry looks ahead, it must
focus on the traditional problems of busi-
ness in meeting the increasing demand for
its product. Coal executives must plan
mines, secure financing, attract and train
workers to operate complex mining equip-
ment and systems. And they must compete
for the development markets and earn a
•
,'M
EPAJOURNAL
-------
fair profit for their investors. All of this
alone is a mammoth task.
However, traditional business manage-
ment problems are not all the coal industry
must contend with as it moves ahead to
meet the Nation's need. Government—in
its many facets—has created myriad new
variables affecting the equation for busi-
ness survival in the present and the future.
New social and environmental goals must
now be considered by business—and
rightly so.
The coal industry has no basic quarrel
with the need for including such goals in its
operations. It is the proper role of govern-
ment to protect its citizens. The coal indus-
try, too, is concerned about the air we
breathe and the water we use. And we, too,
are concerned about the legacy we leave
our children.
Coal's problem today
Coal today is mined and burned more
safely, cleanly, and in a more acceptable
fashion than ever before. And some of the
improvement is the result of government
regulation. But the costs are high and ex-
pected to go higher. The effect of regulation
often goes beyond easily identifiable costs
and benefits. And the combined effect of all
government regulation is having an insidi-
ous impact on the coal industry.
A recent coal industry journal carried a
front page editorial cartoon depicting a
modern day "Coal Industry" Gulliver roped
and tied to the ground by Lilliputians
labeled with government acronyms. The
cartoon aptly captured the feeling of most
in the coal industry today. While it exag-
gerates reality, it carries a truth not visible
from within a single regulating agency.
No single government regulation or par-
ticular agency's actions will likely prevent
the Nation from using its abundant and
accessible coal resource. But the combined
impact of regulation, and other factors
beyond the industry's control, can and do
create delay and indecision in the sectors
Trnmloacl of coal winds its way through
West Virginia
of the economy that must make decisions
on fuel production and use.
The problems created by government reg-
ulation of the coal industry can be broken
into three areas: the uncertainties of future
costs and markets; confusing and conflict-
ing requirements; and the balance between
costs and benefits.
Air quality regulations, including pro-
posed new source performance standards,
prevention of significant deterioration pro-
visions, and yet to be proposed new source
performance standards for industrial
plants, already have and will continue to
have an enormous effect on the comparative
price of coal to other fuels and the cost of
burning different coals.
While the primary focus of EPA's air
quality regulations is protection of public
health and welfare, the regulations never-
theless have a very real and dramatic effect
on the shape of current and future markets
for coal. Such regulations make or break
the economic viability of coal reserves cur-
rently held by individual companies within
the industry. The regulations, in some
cases, also will cause siting changes and
may even force customers to delay or
cancel expansion plans.
The problem for coal producers and con-
sumers is often a question of timing.
Industry, in many instances, can adapt to
air quality standards or new siting criteria
provided there is sufficient time to adjust
without significant economic loss. I must
add parenthetically that many of the prob-
lems of timing have been created not by
EPA, but by Congress in the 1977 amend-
ments to the Clean Air Act.
The coal industry in recent years often
has found itself whipsawed by various gov-
ernment agencies as each pursues its indi-
vidual mandate.
Dozens of examples exist of the
unforeseen and negative impacts of Federal
regulation of the coal industry, but it is
sufficient to say the end result of each is
increased cost, reduced productivity, or
confusion in the business planning of coal
producers and consumers. Each of these
symptoms of "over-regulation" further
compounds the Nation's basic inflationary
spiral.
Finding a better way
Positive actions are afoot within and out-
side the Federal government. An emerging
majority of public officials now agree that
we simply must find a better way of regulat-
ing such vital industries as coal. The risks
of failure are just too great.
Creation of the President's Regulatory
Council, headed by EPA Administrator
Douglas Costle, is a positive sign that the
interrelationship of various agency regula-
tions has been recognized. The Regulatory
Analysis Review Group, of the Council on
Wage and Price Stability, also has taken a
firm stand for balancing various national
needs in its review of developing Federal
regulations. Such a voice within the Fed-
eral Government structure is essential and
that group has already begun to play a
valuable role.
But there is a burden also which rests
with industry. The coal industry and other
regulated industries must make certain that
the full range of effects of Federal regula-
tions is well articulated and made public.
For it is the public—in the long run—who
will judge how well government and indus-
try responded to the Nation's need for a
clean environment, its need for a secure
energy supply, and its need for a strong
economy. D
ids homi' .I'
shift
1 iMHl c! hi:;
APRIL 1979
29
-------
A
Government
Solar
Report
By Robert Caughlan
On May 3, 1978, millions of
Americans and people in
thirty-five other nations cele-
brated "Sun Day—the dawn of
the solar age."
President Jimmy Carter,
speaking at the dedication of
the Solar Energy Research Insti-
tute in Golden, Colo., an-
nounced the formation of a
multi-agency task force to re-
view, analyze, and accelerate
solar energy " development in
the United States. "The job of
this committee," he said, "will
be to develop an over-all solar
strategy for speeding the use of
solar technologies—both by
new programs and by improving
existing Federal programs."
In the Domestic Policy Re-
view on Solar Energy, over 100
officials representing more than
30 executive departments and
agencies participated. Twelve
regional public forums were
held and the quantity and the
quality of the testimony were
impressive. Over 2,000 citizens
and officials submitted advice,
criticisms, and recommenda-
tions. The review team also re-
ceived special briefings from
representatives of solar advo-
cacy groups, small businesses,
consumer groups, utilities, and
State and local leaders.
The findings of the commit-
tee can be summarized in nine
major categories:
1 Solar energy offers a num-
ber of important advan-
tages over competing technolo-
*"So/ar"power was broadly defined
to include the other renewable
resources such as wind, biomass,
and low-head hydro power.
gies. It can provide the Nation
with an abundant and renew-
able energy source with far few-
er negative environmental ramifi
cations than other sources of
energy. The increased use of
solar power will decrease our
national dependence on in-
creasingly expensive foreign
sources of oil, improve our bal-
ance of payments, alleviate as-
sociated economic problems,
provide thousands of new jobs,
and contribute to our national
security.
2 In spite of the fact that
many people still believe
solar energy is an exotic tech-
nology of the future, the com-
mittee found that many solar
applications are already eco-
nomically competitive and can
be used in many ways.
3 Limited public awareness
of, and confidence in solar
technologies is a major barrier
to accelerated solar energy use.
The public consistently asks for
more and better solar informa-
tion, and the task force cited the
need for new and more effective
programs to educate solar users
in residential, industrial, and
commercial sectors.
4 Federal and State policies,
as well as market imper-
fections, effectively subsidize
competing energy sources.
These policies include tax cred-
its; pricing policies; utility rate
structures based on average
pricing, and research, develop-
ment, and demonstration
expenditures.
According to "An Analysis of
Federal Incentives Used to Stim-
ulate Energy Production"
(Battelle, 1978) the U.S. Gov-
ernment has spent more than
$100 billion for financial assist-
ance to conventional energy
sources since 1918. In contrast,
solar power has received less
than $2 billion and only during
the past several years.
5 Financial barriers faced
by users and small produc-
ers are serious obstacles to in-
creased solar energy use. Al-
though the new solar tax credit
in the National Energy Act will
improve the economics of fuel
costs in the residential sector,
other barriers still exist be-
cause of the high initial costs
and the lack of experience in
financing solar systems.
6 Research, development,
and demonstration prior-
ities should be more closely
tied to national energy goals.
The task force concluded that
the R&D budgets have not
adequately focused on systems
that have near-term applications
and can help replace oil and
gas. Significantly, the review
team also concluded that elec-
tricity from large, centralized
systems has been over-empha-
sized, while near-term and com-
munity scale applications have
not received adequate support.
7 Significant potential exists
for expanding the nation's
use of solar power. Although
the estimates of future solar
energy demand and supply are
inherently imprecise and the
exact "quad" ' * count remains
highly controversial, (ranging
between 1 5 and 30 quads by the
year 2000) the potential is
certainly clear.
8 Solar energy offers the
United States important
new opportunities to advance
our foreign policy and interna-
tional trade objectives. Devel-
oping nations are having a hard-
er time paying for oil than we
are. And, since they don't heav-
ily subsidize conventional en-
ergy systems, solar is already
more economically competitive.
Finally, the increasing serious-
ness of the international fire-
wood crisis in the developing
nations has generated unpre-
cedented international interest
in solar technology.
9 Because of the decentral-
ized nature of solar energy
all Federal efforts must be as-
sisted and in many cases led by
State, local, and private actions.
Many barriers, such as utility
regulation, land use policies,
and building codes must be re-
formed at the local and State
levels.
**A "quad" is one-quadrillion
British Thermal Units. The United
States currently expends about
76 quads a year.
Because of many environ-
mental issues that are inter-
woven with our energy policies,
the Environment Protection
Agency played a major role in
the Domestic Policy Review.
Deputy Administrator Bar-
bara Blum and Dr. Stephen
Gage, Assistant Administrator
for Research and Development
(ORD) were the lead partici-
pants. David Graham and David
Berg of ORD, Dave Shaller of
the Office of Federal Activities,
and Greg Ondich of the Office
of International Affairs were in-
strumental in the collection and
inclusion of the significant en-
vironmental conclusions that
the committee reached.
The environmental benefits
of solar energy are significant.
Except during production of
equipment, it will not contribute
to air pollution. According to
the task force, increasing solar
energy applications to the maxi-
mum practical degree would
cut down emissions of particu-
lates, hydrocarbons, sulfur
oxides, carbon monoxide, and
nitrogen oxides by 1 5.7 million
tons, or between 8 and 50 per-
cent, depending on the fuel
being used.
Although solar energy utiliza-
tion is not entirely environmen-
tally benign and some pollution
and land use problems will have
to be carefully addressed, the
DPR concluded that it certainly
does not pose many threats to
human health and safety and
the environment that are asso-
ciated with conventional
technologies.
Thus, as far as positive and
preventive environmental medi-
cine is concerned, the future of
solar is bright indeed. D
Robert Caughlan is a staff
member of the EPA Office of
Public A wareness.
30
EPAJOURNAL
-------
Environmental Almanac
April 1979
A Glimpse of the Natural World
We Help Protect
Leaf
Rower
When the first waves of
pale-green leaves spread
through the valleys and begin to
climb the mountains, you know
the real spring—as opposed to
the calendar spring—has
arrived.
Billions of new leaves are
unfolding on trees and other
plants as the new season ad-
vances northward and rises
from the river flood plains to the
surrounding hills.
These leaves are miniature
power stations which use solar
energy to turn packaged sun-
light into new growth.
The leaf is a remarkable ma-
chine, which long ago perfected
the skill of capturing energy
from the sun—something hu-
man beings are still struggling
to learn.
Although a leaf may seem
simple, it has elaborate mecha-
nisms which enable it to provide
energy for the tree or other plant
it serves.
While leaves vary tremen-
dously in size and shape, the
basic leaf is generally flat so it
can present the most surface
and least volume to receive
maximum light without any
waste of cells. Evergreen
needles are a more primitive
form of leaf but they package
sunlight in the same way that
broad leaves do.
The great invention of the
plant kingdom is chlorophyll, a
pigment which can absorb the
sun's energy to combine water
and carbon dioxide and produce
sugar in the form of glucose.
This production process is
called photosynthesis.
Each leaf has an elaborate
plumbing system. Where the
leaf is joined to a branch or twig
it has vascular bundles, tiny
pipelines. Through these pipe-
lines the leaves can draw water
and minerals in from the roots
of the tree and send packages of
freshly made energy sugar out
to the rest of the plant.
In the leaf itself the vascular
bundles branch into veins,
which serve as the leaf's irriga-
tion system. On the bottom of
each leaf are the stomata
(mouths) which serve as pores
to let water in or out. They also
control the intake of carbon
dioxide.
Leaves have an impact on
their environment because they
discharge oxygen while manu-
facturing glucose and also give
off carbon dioxide at night when
the leaf factory is closed. Also
emitted from leaves are hydro-
carbons. The amount of this
type of discharge is determined
by plant species, light, temper-
ature and other factors influenc-
ing the plant energy balance.
These plant-produced hydro-
carbons can react with nitrogen
oxides to produce ozone, a key
pollutant in smog, in the same
way as hydrocarbons emitted
from auto traffic and other
human activities.
EPA's Environmental Re-
search Laboratory at Corvallis,
Ore., has been studying the
emission of hydrocarbons from
plants. Scientists at this instal-
lation will also investigate the
role of plants as air purifiers as
well as polluters.
Some industry representa-
tives have seized on the fact
that plants can emit hydrocar-
bons to argue that Mother
Nature is the real polluter of
this country's air.
In response to these state-
ments, David G. Hawkins,
EPA's Assistant Administrator
for Air, stated recently that
"hydrocarbons from vegetation
are dispersed over broad areas
so their concentrations in urban-
suburban areas are trivial com-
pared to hydrocarbons" re-
leased by human activities.
"No doubt," Hawkins said,
"there are some rural ozone
readings dominated by natural
phenomena but the evidence
simply will not support the
claim that nature is a significant
contributor to smog in our
cities."
In any case, it is green leaves
that support civilization every-
where in the world. The evolu-
tion of animals could not have
occurred without that of the
plants before them.
"All flesh is as grass," says
the Bible, "and all the glory of
man as the flower of grass. The
grass withereth, and the flower
thereof falleth away."
Not only is life fleeting but
while it lasts it is utterly de-
pendent on plants.—C. D. P.
APRIL 1979
31
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(EPA has received an increasing
number of inquiries about why
motorists with late model cars
should pay more for unleaded
gasoline when they go to their
service station. The following
fact sheet was prepared by the
Agency's Mobile Source Air
Pollution Control Office to
answer these questions.)
What is Switching?
Fuel switching is the term used
to describe the use of leaded
gasoline in a vehicle designed
for unleaded fuel. Fuel switch-
ing is also called misfueling.
Why Does Switching
Occur?
Apparently the most over-
whelming significant reason is
that unleaded fuel costs more
than leaded fuel. The national
average is about 4 cents a
gallon more, although there are
cases of a price spread exceed-
ing 10 cents a gallon.
How Much Switching
is Going On?
Estimates differ, but EPA's own
studies of the problem indicate
that about 1 0 percent of the
vehicles that require unleaded
fuel may be using leaded gaso-
line. Most car owners are com-
plying with the taw and manu-
facturers' recommended
specifications.
A Interested?
EPA is interested in fuel switch-
ing for the same two reasons
that EPA controls lead in gaso-
line—the health effects of lead
and its effects on emission con-
trol systems, which of course,
are interrelated. Lead is a toxic
material, and EPA has estab-
lished a health-based National
Ambient Air Quality Standard
for it. Small children are most
susceptible to the damaging
effects of lead pollution, espe-
cially those who live in urban
areas where ambient lead levels
are high. EPA's "phase down"
regulations to reduce the aver-
age lead level in all gasoline
are designed to alleviate this
public health problem. EPA re-
quires that unleaded gasoline
be available in order to ensure
that the emission control sys-
tems installed on many cars will
work. The most prominent ex-
ample of an emission control
device whose operation is nega-
tively affected by lead is the
oxidation catalyst that has been
used on most cars since 1975
to reduce hydrocarbons (HC)
and carbon monoxide (CO).
Lead poisons the catalyst.
What Happens to the
Air If Switching
Occurs?
Your health, the environment,
and your car are adversely af-
fected. Exhaust emissions from
your car go up substantially.
HC and CO will increase be-
The
Hitch
-------
cause lead can destroy the
catalytic converter, which is the
most effective emission control
component on late-model cars.
With continued use of leaded
fuel, HC and CO emissions will
increase by several times over
what they should be. Also, de-
posits caused by lead and other
additives in leaded fuel could
plug up exhaust gas recircula-
tion (EGR) valves leading to
substantial increases in oxides
of nitrogen (NOx) emissions.
Emissions of lead will, of
course, also increase. Fuel
switching then will have a major
negative influence on the rate
at which the air in the polluted
parts of the country is cleaned
up.
EPA is also concerned about
the emission of other pollutants
not currently regulated from
motor vehicles, and which will
increase due to fuel switching.
The primary example is ethyl-
ene dibromide (EDB). This is
one of the two primary additives
put in leaded gasoline to reduce
the deposits inside the engine
caused by the combustion of
the lead additive. The other
"scavenger" additive is ethyl-
ene dichloride (EDC). EDB has
been shown to cause cancer in
laboratory tests with animals.
EDB will be emitted from a ve-
hicle using leaded fuel both
from the exhaust and from the
vapors that are emitted from the
fuel system. Although the exact
amounts aren't precisely known
now, EPA is concerned about
any increase in the amount of
cancer-causing substances
emitted into the air that we all
breathe.
What Could Happen
to My Pocketbook or
My Car if I Switch Fuel?
More Frequent Maintenance
Many cars today need oil
changes only every 7,500 miles
and spark plug changes every
30,000 miles, but if you switch
fuel, you will have to change
them about twice as often in or-
der to make sure that your engine
is operating properly. This in-
creased maintenance will cost
you money. The longer intervals
between spark plug changes
that are common for current
cars are due in large part to the
use of unleaded fuel. Since
spark plug deposits are re-
duced, and the oil isn't contam-
inated with combustion by-
products of lead and other addi-
tives, maintenance intervals
can be extended for cars that
use unleaded fuel.
Also, the use of unleaded fuel
will make your muffler
last longer, so if you switch,
you could wind up paying for
more frequent muffler changes.
In addition, there may be some
cars that might have problems
with internal engine com-
ponents such as valves if
switching occurs.
Your Engine May Knock
If the use of leaded fuel causes
your EGR valve to plug, your
engine may start knocking,
since EGR is an effective anti-
knock agent. If knocking be-
comes severe, engine damage
could result.
Vehicle Performance May Be
Reduced
If enough lead is used the cata-
lyst on some cars is apt to
become plugged. This will in-
crease the backpressure on the
engine and reduce the perform-
ance of the vehicle. If the EGR
valve is plugged, this can alter
the shifting of your automatic
transmission and cause pre-
mature transmission wear.
What are Legal Penal-
ties for Switching?
You Could be Caught by an
Inspection Program
Because the air in many areas
isn't as clean as it should be,
most major metropolitan areas
around the country will be start-
ing Inspection and Maintenance
(I/M) programs in the near
future. These I/M programs will
generally involve some test of
your car's emissions. If your car
fails the test, you may not be
able to get new license plates
until the car is fixed and passes
a retest. Since your car's emis-
sions will have greatly in-
creased if you have switched,
there is a good chance that your
car will fail the test and need
maintenance work. If your cata-
lyst needs to be changed, this
could be expensive, since the
cost to change a catalyst could
be over a hundred dollars. You
cannot expect to get the catalyst
replaced under the emission
warranty on your car, because
you probably will have voided
that warranty by switching.
You May Be Breaking the Law,
Or Causing Others to Break It
Twenty-nine States have laws
that prohibit tampering with
your emission control system,
and there is a good chance that
these State laws would treat
switching as tampering. In addi-
tion, it is a violation of Federal
law for service station attend-
ants to cause or allow switching
to occur. This law carries a
$10,000 fine, so you could be
causing trouble for your service
station owner or attendant by
switching.
Summary—Don't
Switch
There are a lot of problems in-
volved in fuel switching. It is a
bad idea.
EPA realizes that several
cents per gallon is an extra bite
out of people's pocketbooks.
However, we all will have to pay
for the cleanup of our air, and
fuel switching could cost you
more in the long run than what
you would save.
EPA believes that most of the
push toward fuel switching is
caused by the fact that unleaded
gasoline is more expensive.
If you have been thinking
about switching for that reason,
you may want to write to the De-
partment of Energy and ask
them why the difference at the
pump is so big when EPA's stu-
dies show that it cost only 1 or 2
pennies per gallon more to make
unleaded gasoline. Congress is
also planning to look into this
situation. C
in Switching
-------
Update
A review of recent major
EPA activities and devel-
opments in the pollution
control program areas.
AIR
Aid Planned
For Clean Air,
Growth
The White House has
announced that eight
urban areas have been
selected to participate
in a $4 million demon-
stration program aimed at
aiding industrial growth
while meeting clean air
requirements.
The program, an-
nounced by Jack Watson,
Assistant to the President
for Intergovernmental
Affairs, is sponsored by
four agencies: EPA and
the Departments of Com-
merce, Transportation,
and Housing and Urban
Development. Watson
chairs the Interagency
Coordinating Council,
which includes the four
agencies.
The Air Quality Tech-
nical Assistance Program
is part of the urban policy
President Carter an-
nounced March 27 last
year.
The urban areas, se-
lected from 75 applicants,
will receive up to $500,-
000 each. They are Phila-
delphia, Pa.; Boston,
Mass.; Bridgeport/Water-
bury, Conn.; Buffalo/
Erie County, N.Y.; Port-
land, Oreg.; Chicago, III.;
Elizabeth, N.J.; and Min-
neapolis/St. Paul, Minn.
EPA Deputy Adminis-
trator Barbara Blum noted,
"Non-attainment of air
quality standards is a
problem many distressed
cities face. We look for-
ward to the results of the
demonstrations and are
optimistic that they will
show that economic de-
velopment and the quality
of the environment can
co-exist."
New Clean Air
Standards For
Heavy-duty Engines
EPA is proposing new air
pollution standards and
testing procedures for
heavy-duty gasoline and
diesel engines in buses
and trucks over 8,500
pounds in gross weight.
As required by the
Clean Air Act Amend-
ments of 1977, the new
standards will mean 90
percent reductions in hy-
drocarbons and carbon
monoxide as compared
to uncontrolled 1969
emission levels. The
shift in certification test-
ing requirements is to-
ward a better simulation
of real-life operation, and
is expected to ensure that
the standards are being
met on the road for the
vehicle's full useful life.
"As the total amount of
urban air pollution from
light-duty cars and trucks
is reduced, heavy-duty
engines become a more
important part of the
overall problem," EPA
Administrator Douglas
Costle said.
Grant Awarded for
Urban Air Planning
As part of President
Carter's urban policy, the
first of many Federal
grants to assist urban
areas in meeting trans-
portation-related air
quality problems was
awarded recently by the
Department of Transpor-
tation (DOT) and the EPA.
The $1 29,050 grant was
to the Portland, Oreg.,
Metropolitan Service
District.
"Financial support from
these air quality plan-
ning grants helps deal
with one of the major
causes of lung and heart
problems in urban areas,"
said Barbara Blum, EPA
Deputy Administrator.
"These grants help ful-
fill President Carter's
promise last March to
provide assistance, under
the Administration's ur-
ban policy, for areas
earnestly striving to deal
with unhealthy air."
The grants will provide
100 percent Federal fund-
ing to implement an inte-
grated air quality/trans-
portation planning process
in areas not meeting clean
air standards.
EPA apportioned $50
million for air quality-
transportation grants
under Section 175 of
the Clean Air Act. An
initial $25 million has
been transferred to the
DOT Urban Mass Trans-
portation Administration,
which will administer
the grant program. This
program is separate from
the grants being awarded
in eight urban areas to aid
industrial growth while
meeting clean air require-
ments.
Symposium Set on
Particle Emissions
EPA and the Denver
Research Institute of the
University of Denver,
Colo., will sponsor the
second symposium on
the transfer and utiliza-
tion of particulate control
technology. The sympo-
sium will be July 23-27 at
Stouffer's Denver Inn.
More information can be
obtained from Fred P.
Venditti, Program Chair-
man, Denver Research
Institute, University of
Denver, P. 0. Box 10127,
Denver, Colo. 80210.
Phone:303-753-2241.
ENFORCEMENT
Clearance for
Fuel Additives
EPA announced recently
that it has granted waivers
to the Atlantic Richfield
Co. (ARCO) for the use
of two fuel additives,
Arconol and MTBE.
Arconol, consisting
primarily of tertiary butyl
alcohol (TEA), may be
blended into unleaded
gasoline at concentrations
up to seven percent.
MTBE, which stands for
methyl tertiary butyl
ether, also may be
blended in at levels up to
seven percent.
EPA Administrator
Douglas Costle pointed
out that Arconol can be
used to boost the octane
of gasoline, acting as a
replacement for lead and
MMT which cause auto
emissions to increase.
MTBE can be used to
increase the production
of unleaded gasoline
without adversely
affecting automobile
emissions, he said.
Coal Washing
Agreement
The EPA and Columbus
and Southern Ohio
Electric Co. have reached
an agreement in principle
under which the company
would continue to burn
coal mined in Ohio and
"washed" to comply with
Federal air pollution
standards. Cleaning of the
coal prior to combustion
would allow the burning
of Ohio coal at less cost
to the utility and the
consumer than buying
out-of-state coal. It would
also help protect the jobs
of Ohio coal miners.
EPA and Columbus and
Southern will continue
negotiations to work out
details of the agreement.
GENERAL
COUNSEL
Legal Opinions
The complete legal
opinions of the General
Counsel of the EPA are
available for the first time
in regular book form from
the Environmental Law
Publishing Service.
The General Counsel's
Opinions include formal
and informal interpreta-
tions of EPA's statutes
and regulations. Many of
these opinions carry the
force of law. Others are
relied on as precedent in
deciding environmental
disputes.
The two volumes, total-
ing 1,200 pages, are
available for $150 from
the Environmental Law
Publishing Service, a
subsidiary of ABC Pub-
lishing, 20675 Bahama
Street, Chatsworth, Calif.
91311. Phone: 213-
998-9830.
PESTICIDES
EPA Approves
Natural Pesticide
EPA has approved a
natural bacterium as a
pesticide to control a
serious plant disease that
now destroys ten percent
of nursery fruit trees on
the West Coast.
The new pesticide,
brand named "Galltrol-A"
by AgBioChem, Inc., of
Orinda, Calif., combats
"crown gall," a plant
ailment that kills or
weakens young trees by
causing cancer-like
growths on their roots and
stems.
EPA is limiting use of
the bacterium to immature
almond, apricot, cherry,
peach, and plum trees in
nurseries and orchards in
California, Oregon, and
Washington.
In a related develop-
ment, EPA is revamping
its processes for approv-
ing the sale and use
(registration) of "biologi-
cal" pesticides, such as
bacteria, viruses, and
hormones, so that they
can be exempted from
some of the tests required
for conventional chemical
pesticides. The ability of
the biologicals to control
target pests without
affecting beneficial in-
sects, wildlife, and man
makes them attractive
from an environmental
and crop protection
standpoint.
EPA plans to improve
its handling of biological
pesticides through:
• publication of a
policy statement on the
regulation of biologicals;
• development of
guidelines beginning in
July, 1979, that specify
testing requirements for
these products;
• completion of guide-
lines for companies to
determine whether a
would-be biological effec-
tively controls pests;
• creation of a panel
to recommend methods
for assessing the risks
posed by these products.
34
EPAJOURNAL
-------
This panel will consist of
university, U. S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture,
environmental, and indus-
try experts.
Conditional Approval
For Cotton Pesticides
To help cotton growers
fight the increased
resistance some cotton
pests are showing to
currently-used pesticides,
the EPA is conditionally
approving the use of four
new cotton pesticides.
The new pesticide
products are "Bolster 6"
by Chemagro Corp., and
three "synthetic pyreth-
roid" products—
"Ambush" by ICI United
States, Inc., "Pounce" by
FMC Corp., and "Pydrin"
by Shell Chemical Co.
The sale of the insecti-
cides will be allowed for
23 months while manu-
facturers complete addi-
tional tests on the
products' effects on fish
and wildlife in actual
field conditions to assess
their environmental
impact.
Planned Action
On Pesticide
EPA has completed re-
viewing the risks and
benefits of the pesticide
chlorobenzilate used to
control mites on oranges,
grapefruit, and other
citrus.
At press time, EPA
planned to allow con-
tinued use of the pesticide
on citrus in Florida,
Texas, Arizona, and
California, but with
certain restrictions to
reduce possible risks to
applicators.
Non-citrus uses on
almonds, apples, melons,
cherries, cotton, pears,
walnuts, ornamentals,
trees, and certain outdoor
uses of chlorobenzilate
are planned to be
cancelled.
This action was sched-
uled to be effective within
30 days unless persons
affected by the order
requested a hearing.
R&D
Joint Research Set
On Toxic Effects
EPA and the Food and
Drug Administration
(FDA) recently an-
nounced a $1.2 million
joint research project to
determine what effects
toxic chemicals have on
the human nervous
system.
The research effort
will be directed at
developing short-term
animal and test-tube tests
for rapidly determining
how toxic substances
affect nervous systems.
Scientists also will study
the way in which chemi-
cals in the environment
affect animals and how
the results of such studies
might help in assessing
possible effects on people.
Fire Impact Study
An EPA-state cooperative
study is under way on the
impact of agricultural and
silvicultural burning in
Oregon's Southern
Willamette Valley. In-
volved are EPA labora-
tories in Las Vegas, Nev.,
Research Triangle Park,
N.C., and Corvallis,
Oreg., as well as EPA's
Region 10 office in Seattle
and the Oregon Depart-
ment of Environmental
Quality.
An air monitoring pro-
gram was established last
summer to identify the
levels and sources of air
pollutants. A smoke dis-
persion model is being
developed at the Oregon
State University Air
Resources Center. The
EPA Environmental Re-
search Laboratory at
Corvallis is attempting to
put an economic value
on the visibility loss to
residents and visitors of
the valley caused by field
and slash burning.
Symposium on
Fuel Conversion,
Environment
The fourth symposium
on the "Environmental
Aspects of Fuel Conver-
sion Technology" will
be April 17-20 at the
Diplomat Hotel in
Hollywood, Fla. The
sponsor is EPA's Indus-
trial Environmental
Research Laboratory. The
objective is to review and
discuss environmentally-
related information on
coal conversion tech-
nology. For further infor-
mation, contact Franklin
Ayer (phone 919-541-
6260), or N. Stuart Jones
(919-541-6258). Both
are at Research Triangle
Institute, P.O. Box 12194,
Research Triangle Park,
N.C.27709.
SOLID WASTE
Resource Recovery
Aid
EPA Administrator
Douglas Costle recently
announced that 68 com-
munities across the U.S.
have been selected to
receive funding for solid
waste recycling and
resource recovery proj-
ects as part of EPA's
new $15 million program
to accelerate resource
recovery. The funding
will assist communities
in the planning and de-
velopment of projects to
convert municipal trash
and garbage into energy
and to recover valuable
materials usually dis-
carded in landfills.
The program is part of
President Carter's urban
policy announced a year
ago, designed to help the
Nation's urban areas in
dealing with social,
economic, and environ-
mental problems.
"Up to now," Costle
said, "cities have often
lacked funds to properly
plan and carry forward
the complex task of
developing a resource
recovery system. This
program will help provide
those funds."
Facts Point to
Chemical Plant
The EPA recently said
that available information
continues to suggest that
Dow Chemical Co.'s plant
at Midland, Mich., rep-
resents the major, if not
the only, source of trace
contamination from
dioxin chemicals called
"TCDD's" in Michigan's
Tittabawassee and
Saginaw rivers.
The Agency's state-
ment was made in a pre-
liminary evaluation of
a November, 1978, Dow
report, entitled "The
Trace Chemistries of
Fire," which contended
that the Dow pesticide
making facilities wfcre not
measurable sources of
the TCDD's previously
found in fish taken from
the Tittabawassee River,
and that in fact dioxins
may be a natural by-
product of combustion.
Toxics Group
Has New Member
The U.S. Department of
Agriculture's Food Safety
and Quality Service,
which inspects meat and
poultry products, has
become a member of a
Federal interagency group
to curb hazards from toxic
compounds.
Other agencies in the
Interagency Regulatory
Liaison Group are the
Occupational Safety and
Health Administration,
the EPA, the Food and
Drug Administration, and
the Consumer Product
Safety Commission
Public's Role
Strengthened
EPA has revised its public
participation regulations
to provide more effective
public involvement in
planning and carrying out
water pollution control,
solid waste management,
and drinking water
programs.
One revised rule is
intended to encourage
and assist public partici-
pation in all programs
under the Clean Water
Act, the Resource Con-
servation and Recovery
Act, and the Safe
Drinking Water Act. A
companion rule estab-
lishes more specific re-
quirements to promote
public involvement in
sewage projects built
under the Clean Water
Act's multi-billion dollar
municipal grants program
administered by EPA.
Sewage Treatment
Costs
EPA has estimated that it
will cost $106 billion,
three percent less than
estimated in 1976, to
build the sewage treat-
ment facilities needed to
control water pollution
from municipalities
across the Nation, exclud-
ing pollution from storm
sewers.
The 1978 estimate is
three percent lower than
the estimate of $109
billion (January, 1978,
dollars) reported in the
1976 Needs Survey.
These latest estimates
reflect a better formulated
and more consistent
survey methodology; the
greater amounts of infor-
mation now available
from such sources as new
facility plans, basin plans.
and discharge permits;
and the expansion of the
survey to include all
facilities nationwide.
EPA's Needs Survey is
conducted and submitted
to Congress every two
years. It provides a com-
prehensive estimate of
the cost of meeting the
Act's municipal require-
ments and assesses the
needs of each State to
serve as a possible basis
for allocating construc-
tion grant funds among
the States. D
APRIL 1979
35
-------
Around the Nation
Pittston Appeals
The Pittston Company
has appealed EPA's deci-
sion to deny its request
for a permit to discharge
wastewater from its pro-
posed 250,000 barrel per
day refinery and marine
terminal in Eastport, Me.
A hearing date had not
been set at press time.
According to the Regional
Office the permit would
violate the provisions of
both the Endangered
Species Act and the Na-
tional Environmental
Policy Act. The denial
was based on information
from the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service that
showed the project would
have serious adverse
effects on the bald eagle.
The eagle is endangered
in the northern United
States. EPA determined
that nothing short of deny-
ing the permit would
mitigate the adverse
effects of the project on
the eagles and their
habitat.
Landfill Cited
Based on a request from
the Region 2 office, the
U.S. Attorney for New
Jersey recently filed a 69-
count complaint against
the owner and operators
of a landfill in Edison,
N.J. The complaint is
being made under the
"imminent hazard" pro-
visions of the Resource
Conservation and Recov-
ery Act of 1976. The civil
action seeks an injunc-
tion, penalties, and dam-
ages against Scientific,
Inc.; SCA Services, Inc.,
and a number of their sub-
sidiaries, as well as three
officials of those firms.
Regional Administrator
Chris Beck hailed the
action saying, "This case
is a prime example of how
chemical waste landfills
even after they are closed
can go on like ticking
time bombs threatening
the public health and wel-
fare. This particular land-
fill was closed by the N.J.
Department of Environ-
mental Protection two
years ago, but it is still
leaching material that we
believe is endangering
valuable groundwater
resources."
Action on PCB
Violations
EPA's New York office has
initiated six civil actions
recently for alleged viola-
tions of PCB regulations
that govern disposal and
marking of the toxic com-
pound. At press time two
settlements had been
reached. A General Elec-
tric facility in Waterford,
N.Y. paid $25,000 in pen-
alties for four days of
burning PCB's without
EPA authorization. SCA
Chemical Wastes Serv-
ices, Inc.. in the Town of
Porter, N.Y. paid $15,000
for improperly storing
PCB wastes in an un-
authorized area on their
property. The Regional
Enforcement Division
cited four other compa-
nies: New Jersey's Public
Service Electric & Gas,
the International Dis-
mantling and Machinery
Corporation, Edison, N.J.;
Atlantic Electric in New
Jersey, and Newco Chem-
ical Waste Systems, Inc.,
Niagara Falls, N.Y., for
similar violations.
Economic Aid Pro-
gram Set
EPA's Philadelphia office
is working with three
other Federal agencies on
a program to lessen the
impact of pollution con-
trol costs on industry.
Cooperating agencies are
the Small Business Ad-
ministration, the Eco-
nomic Development
Administration, and the
Farmers Home Adminis-
tration, which offer low
interest, long-term direct
loans. EPA has started a
program to make busi-
nesses aware of those
financial assistance pro-
grams by funneting in-
formation through State
pollution control agencies
and through notices about
the program that accom-
pany every Federal envi-
ronmental permit issued
in the Region. The pro-
gram is part of the Presi-
dent's Urban Initiative
because many eligible
small businesses are lo-
cated in cities. EPA Head-
quarters Economic Anal-
ysis Division and the
Enforcement Program will
determine which indus-
tries are most likely to be
affected by pollution con-
trol regulations so the
program can be tailored
to their needs. Studies of
individual plants will de-
termine enforcement and
assistance options.
Sewer Needs EIS
Region 3 will prepare an
Environmental Impact
Statement for the pro-
posed wastewater treat-
ment facilities of the
Borough of Nazareth and
the Bushkill-Lower Le-
high Joint Sewer Author-
ity in Northampton
County, Pa. The borough
and the sewer authority
have asked for Federal
financial help to build the
facilities. EPA can pro-
vide 75 percent of the
funds for the project if it
is approved. The Impact
Statement is needed be-
cause of considerable
public controversy over
the project. Some of the
major questions raised by
concerned citizens in-
clude: whether the re-
gional collection system
is the best method of
solving the sewage dis-
posal needs of the area;
what the social, eco-
nomic, and environmental
impacts of the project
will be, and what alterna-
tive treatment methods
are available. The Envi-
ronmental Impact State-
ment will address the
environmental aspects of
these questions.
Energy From Solid
Waste
The City of Memphis is
using an innovative ap-
proach to solve two envi-
ronmental problems and
to produce energy at the
same time. City garbage
and sludge from two city
sewage treatment plants
will be incinerated at a
city-owned Energy Con-
version Center that was
recently approved. The
idea was first proposed in
1969 when the sewage
treatment plants were be-
ing built because there
was no appropriate site
for sludge disposal. At
the same time the city
landfill was reaching ca-
pacity and officials were
having difficulty finding a
new site. The idea of a
joint incineration facility
was explored repeatedly,
but encountered numer-
ous problems. The sludge
and garbage difficulties
continued. The new $143
million Energy Conver-
sion Center will be lo-
cated near a refuse proc-
essing facility, which
separates the metal and
glass from city garbage
and grinds the remainder
into fuel. The fuel will fire
a multi-hearth incinerator
that dries dewatered
sludge and then burns it.
A boiler will convert the
heat to steam, which the
Memphis Light, Gas, and
Water Company will sell.
The Center will have a
standby supply of coal or
gas to ensure uninter-
rupted supply to energy
customers. The part of
the project dealing with
sludge, about one-third,
is eligible for 85 percent
funding from EPA con-
struction grant funds un-
der the Clean Water Act
because it uses innova-
tive and alternative
technology.
EPAJOURNAL
-------
Fumes Waste Energy
Region 5 Enforcement
recently took action
against 13 oil company
sources to reduce sum-
mer ozone levels in Ohio
and to save gasoline. Re-
gional Administrator John
McGuire noted that a
cleanup of current proce-
dures at the loading racks
of these facilities would
take gasoline, which is
now evaporating, out of
Ohio's air and put it back
into Ohio's automobiles.
Improved handling of
petroleum materials could
save an estimated million
gallons of gas per year.
The oil companies that
received violation notices
for organic emissions are
six companies owned by
Standard Oil Co., four
owned by Union Oil, and
one each by Ashland Pe-
troleum, Shell Oil, and
Atlantic Richfield. EPA
estimates that approxi-
mately 3,600 tons of pol-
luting hydrocarbons are
emitted by the 1 3 sources
each year, more than four
times the legal limit of
877 tons.
grant that will help the
city train employees to
respond to critical envi-
ronmental problems. Re-
gional Administrator
Adlene Harrison said,
"This kind of innovative
project has my complete
support. We will continue
to work closely with New
Orleans Mayor Ernest N.
Morial and his staff to
find practical environ-
mental solutions that will
benefit the area and its
citizens."
DDT Use Approved
EPA has given the
Louisiana Department of
Health and Human Re-
sources a crisis exemp-
tion to use DDT for con-
trol of fleas carrying mu-
rine typhus. The exemp-
tion is authorized under
the terms of the Federal
Insecticide, Fungicide,
and Rodenticide Act. One
case of typhus has been
reported in a Shreveport,
La., warehouse and dis-
eased rats have been
found in thearea. A large
number of employees in
the warehouse may have
been exposed to the dis-
ease and officials acted
quickly to prevent it from
spreading further.
licize the final draft of
Iowa's Areawide Water
Quality Plan under Sec-
tion 208 of the Clean
Water Act. The meetings
featured a panel of radio,
television, and newspaper
people who, showed ways
to get local media inter-
ested in stories about the
208 plan.
Environmental
Office Opens
The Dallas Regional
Office has provided funds
to help New Orleans es-
tablish a new Environ-
mental Affairs Office. EPA
provided a $200,000
Iowa Public Partici-
pation
Region 7 is always look-
ing for a better way to tell
people about environmen-
tal programs and regula-
tions. To help get the
word out and to make sure
that the message is under-
stood, the Iowa League of
Women Voters presented
a series of six environ-
mental training meetings
for about 25 Iowa county
representatives. The train-
ing, which was sponsored
by an EPA Public Partici-
pation grant, helped the
representatives to pub-
Rail Emergency
The Region 8 Emergency
Response Team recently
was called to the scene of
a train derailment near
Tie Siding, Wyo. Fire
erupted from two phos-
phorus filled tank cars,
which cracked open when
the Union Pacific train
went off the tracks. Farm-
ers and ranchers in the
area were evacuated be-
cause of fumes from the
fire. Federal, State, local,
and railroad representa-
tives at the site agreed to
the solution proposed by
Army officials. They det-
onated an explosive in
one of the cars to speed
up the burning, and
drained the remaining
phosphorus out of the car
into a containment area
so that nearby Dale Creek
would not be contam-
inated. Farmers were
allowed to return to their
homes and cleanup
operations began the
next day.
Conservation Pro-
gram Funded
Two California projects
used EPA water quality
management funds to
encourage local farmers
in the use of soil and
water conservation prac-
tices. The Association of
Monterey Bay Area Gov-
ernments coordinated the
projects through the
Gloria Resource Conser-
vation District, which
hired a soils specialist to
give technical assistance
to their farm educational
program. In a comple-
mentary arrangement with
the Soil Conservation
Service, EPA paid for pro-
gram development and
the SCS provided trans-
portation, off;ce space,
and technical equipment.
With the help of the proj-
ect, Monterey Bay farm-
ers invested over
$250,000 in farming
methods designed to de-
crease soil erosion and
conserve water. The soil
specialist also helped two
farmers near King City,
Calif., to control a serious
irrigation runoff problem
that was causing flooding
in parts of the city. They
built a $40,000 water
recovery system that di-
verts irrigation runoff into
a holding pond where
sediment settles out, then
recycles the water into
the farms' irrigation net-
works. The projects were
so successful that a
neighboring resource con-
servation district has co-
operated to rehire the soil
scientist to continue
the program.
Lab To Open
Region 10 laboratory per-
sonnel plan to move into
new quarters in Manches-
ter, Wash., next month.
The $2.1 million labora-
tory will support EPA pro-
grams in Alaska, Idaho,
Oregon, and Washington
with chemical, biochem-
ical, biological, and mi-
crobiological analyses
and evaluations. The lab,
which will eventually have
a staff of 40, is located
across Puget Sound from
Seattle. It will provide
assistance to other gov-
ernment agencies and
private laboratories as
well.
Water Penalty Set
The chief judge of the
U.S. District Court in
Boise, Idaho, has as-
sessed $11 4,640 in civil
penalties against the
Bunker Hill Company's
lead and zinc smelter
complex in Kellogg,
Idaho. The penalties were
set after a court trial for
violations of the com-
pany's wastewater dis-
charge permit, which took
place between 1974 and
1977. The bulk of the
penalties, $84,500, was
assessed at the rate of
$500 per day for un-
authorized discharges
from one of six outfalls.
Unauthorized discharges
from the other five out-
falls were fined at rates of
$10 or $100 per day. n
APRIL 1979
37
-------
People
Michael Cook
He has been named Director of
the Facility Requirements Divi-
sion inthe Waterand WasteMan-
agement Program. His job is to
guide, assist, and evaluate plan-
ning for construction of fed-
erally-funded municipal sewage
treatment systems, and to
analyze long-range policy for
the construction grants pro-
gram. Cook has been Acting
Division Director since Septem-
ber, 1 978. He was chief of the
Facility Requirements Branch
from 1975 to 1978 and of the
Permit and Policy Branch in
1974 and 1975. He joined EPA
as a program analyst in 1973.
His previous government serv-
ice was with the Department of
State in various positions from
1966 to 1 973. Cook received
his B.A. from Swarthmore Col-
lege in 1963, was a Woodrow
Wilson School Fellow at Prince-
ton University in 1963, and was
a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford
University, England from 1964
to 1966. He was awarded the
EPA silver medal for superior
service in 1976, and the EPA
gold modal in 1978.
Donald E. Hamer
He has been appointed Director
of Budget Operations in the
Office of Planning and Manage-
ment. In this position he pro-
vides advice and guidance to
the Administrator and staff offi-
cials on budget policy; develops
and issues budget policies sys-
tems and procedures for EPA;
directs and coordinates prep-
aration of the EPA budget and
helps present it to Congress.
Hamer comes to EPA from New
York City's Human Resources
Administration where he was
Commissioner of the Depart-
ment of Employment, directing
the administration of its $364
million employment and train-
ing program. He began working
for the Human Resources Ad-
ministration in 1971 as Director
of the Public Works Project, and
subsequently served as Assist-
ant Commissioner for Planning
and Program Evaluation and for
Comprehensive Employment
and Training. For several years
he was a consultant to Federal,
State, and city governments and
private businesses in the devel-
opment of training programs.
Hamer began his education at
MacMurray College, Jackson-
ville, III., and continued it at
Columbia University, and the
New School for Social Re-
search, Center for New York
City Affairs.
Sheldon Novick
He has been appointed Regional
Counsel for EPA's Philadelphia
office. Novick joined EPA as
Special Counselor to the Re-
gion 3 Administrator in Octo-
ber, 1978. Before coming to the
Agency he was an attorney for a
New York City law firm. For
more than 1 0 years Novick
edited and published Environ-
ment magazine, which moni-
tored the activities of Congress,
the Courts, and Executive agen-
cies on environmental matters.
He has written three books and
numerous articles for national
newspapers and magazines.
Novick received his law degree
from the Washington University
School of Law, St. Louis, Mo.
Martin Luther King III, son of
the slain black civil rights
leader, was a featured speaker
during EPA's Black History
Week observances. He outlined
in a talk at EPA Headquarters
important events in the early
civil rights movement and spoke
about the tremendous strides
made by black people during
the last 25 years. King said, "all
the decisions shaping our lives
come through those elected.
We must support those who will
represent us.
"Now many cities have black
leaders," he continued, "but
our quest is not over." He
pointed out that economic jus-
tice is a necessity. King spoke
about the establishment of the
Martin Luther King, Jr. Center
for Social Change in Atlanta to
address the concerns his father
raised about poverty, racism,
and war. He is a senior at More-
house College in Atlanta and
plans to go on to iaw school
before pursuing a political
career. King works parttime at
EPA's Atlanta Region in the
Civil Rights Office, where he
works with contract compliance
and equal employment oppor-
tunity programs. He says one
reason EPA interests him is be-
cause of its large public works
program and the impact it can
have on minority and small
businesses.
EPAJOURNAL
-------
Letters to the Editor
A Reply from the
Steel Institute
The subject of the January 1979
issue of the EPA Journal, the
impact of the environmental
cleanup on the-economy, is one
with which the American Iron
and Steel institute, a trade as-
sociation whose 63 member
companies represent 92% of
the nation's steel production
capability, is very seriously
concerned.
In general, I thought that the
presentation was good and well
balanced.
The article, "An Economist's
View," an interview with Dr.
Paul Samuelson, in discussing
the steel industry, presents a
distorted viewpoint of the in-
dustry, of the place of our in-
dustry in the nation, and of the
place of the United States in
the world economy. It made me
angry. It is out of place in a pub-
lication like the EPA Journal.
In response to a question
ajsout the steel industry, he
says, "And so an extremely
filthy industry . . . simply ought
not be in the middle of a pros-
perous suburb or in the middle
of a prosperous country." His
whole argument centers around
"letting the industry move
abroad." He talks about "the
old Pittsburgh and Gary Ind.
approach." He talks of "the old
1919 methods of polluting the
environment."
We certainly acknowledge
that the steel industry has the
potential to put a lot of dirt into
the air and a lot of pollutants
into the water. But we recog-
nized our problems long ago,
and we have come a long way
toward solving them. The Amer-
ican steel industry has in place
today environmental control
facilities worth over $5,000,-
000,000. We have commit-
ments to spend and are spend-
ing additional capital at a rate
of over $500,000,000 per year
to provide further controls. Our
modern up-to-date plants are,
environmentally, as good as any
in the world.
Yes, we still have a long way
to go. Yes, we disagree with
some of the regulatory policies
of EPA, largely because we
believe that they are not cost
effective. Yes, a number of steel
companies have been sued and
have even paid fines for non-
compliance. But, no, we are not
an extremely filthy industry.
And, no, we should not be
banished from the United
States.
The Solomon Report stressed
as a U.S. government objective,
"to assist the steel industry in
a manner which will stimulate
efficiency and enable the indus-
try to compete fairly." The EPA
was encouraged to investigate
to see if "it may be possible to
achieve our goal of a cleaner
environment at a reduced eco-
nomic cost." Since that report
was issued, EPA has been work-
ing with the American Iron and
Steel Institute to try to develop
regulatory policies to achieve
that goal.
Must we again have rhetoric
calling us a filthy industry and
suggesting we be banished from
the country? For shame. EPA
Journal should not foster this
sort of thing.
E. F. Young, Jr.
Assistant Vice President
Environmental Affairs
American Iron and Steel
Institute
Washington. D.C.
News Briefs
Steel Cleanup
Agreement
EPA, three States and Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation,
the eighth largest U.S. steel producer, have reached a major
agreement on a program to bring the company into compliance
with air and water pollution control regulations. The
agreement, which covers all of the company's plants will
protect nearly 15,000 jobs in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West
Virginia. EPA Administrator Douglas M. Costle announced the
agreement will mean compliance by all Wheeling-Pittsburgh
plants between now and 1982 with clean air and water
standards.
Calendar of
Regulations
The new Regulatory Council recently published the first
Calendar of upcoming Federal Regulations. The Regulatory
Council is composed of the Departments and Agencies that
regulate. The calendar, to be updated and re-issued by the
Council every six months, shows 109 important rules in five
general areas being considered by 20 Federal departments.
"I believe this first edition of the calendar marks a
significant milestone in the collective ability of the
regulatory agencies to examine their actions and produce
the most cost-effective rules possible," said Council
Chairman Douglas M. Costle.
APRIL 1979
39
-------
The Oil Outlook
Continued from page 27
if we are to efficiently meet our national
goals for both health and energy.
The idea of Prevention of Significant
Deterioration, or PSD, has also caused
much emotional stirring. These rules are
stricter than the secondary standards,
which, according to the Clean Air Act, are
supposed to protect public welfare, includ-
ing "effects on soils, water, crops, vegeta-
tion, manmade materials, animafs, wildtife,
weather, visibility, and climate, damage to
and deterioration of property, and hazards
to transportation, as well as effects on
economic values and on personal comfort
and well-being."
Beyond that, there seems little left to
protect. So, many in industry have raised a
question about the need for PSD rules in
wide areas of the country. For raising the
question, they are labeled "despoilers of
our national parks." In the case of parks,
wilderness regions, and wild and scenic
rivers, no one quarrels with the intent of
the PSD rules. Certainly, the petroleum
industry has neither the need nor the desire
to plop a refinery down in the middle of a
national park. By focusing on those truly
pristine areas, the emotional debate does
the Nation a disservice. It draws attention
from the much larger PSD areas farther
away, where much of the Nation's energy
potential may lie.
Finally, and perhaps predictably, people
tend to get emotional when they talk about
money for pollution control. Environmental
advocates argue that because health is
involved, we must have "clean air at any
cost." The business community, on the
other hand, has found it too easy to label
much environmental spending as
inflationary.
Environmental controls are indeed ex-
pensive. They are also necessary. But this
does not mean we can afford clean air at
any cost. The reason, ironically, is found in
the cornerstone phrases of the environmen-
tal movement: "Everything is related to
everything else"; and "There is no free
lunch." These phrases are absolutely cor-
rect, and they apply absolutely to pollution
control.
Quite simply, to get cleaner air, we give
up something else. And this is especially
important for improvements beyond health
protection. Each dollar spent on pollution
control is unavailable to be spent on social
services, mass transit, vacations, housing,
or whatever else people want or need.
Clearly, those who advocate clean air at any
cost are making a lot of important decisions
for a lot of citizens.
Our Nation has a long way to go to
resolve its energy and environmental prob-
lems, but I am much encouraged by some
of the trends I see. More attention is being
paid to cost-benefit studies. There is a
greater recognition of the need for flexibility
and the potential for improved efficiency in
emission control.
One example of such flexibility is the
"bubble concept," which would set overall
emission limits for a plant—as if it were
under an imaginary bubble—rather than
regulating each separate stack or piece of
equipment. Thus, a company could find the
most efficient way to reduce plant emis-
sions, and innovation would be encouraged.
Another example is the idea of "banking"
emission offsets. Banking will give a com-
pany future credit for shutting down an
older, polluting facility and thus will speed
the cleanup today and help provide a
margin for growth tomorrow.
These ideas are long steps in the right
direction. Just as important is the spirit
they represent—the will to determine the
proper goals and set up flexible, efficient
ways to achieve them. With that spirit, all
interested Americans can cooperate, make
the Clean Air Act work and enjoy its
benefits. D
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i
H
-------
TVA's New Look
Continued from page 20
is not in the public interest. You
know, we still have a major
need to clean up the air. And
TVA just issued a report en-
titled "Where the Water Isn't
Clean Any More."
The Tennessee Valley is full
of troublesome water quality
problems that the enforcement
powers of EPA and State agen-
cies have not cleaned up yet.
It's not our job, under the law.
We're not the enforcement
agency, but we could "smell
it."
We're trying to change the
tone of the debate, to get the
polluters on the defensive
rather than the people who are
trying to clean things up. I have
been troubled at the irrespon-
sible comments by people in
high office, in my administra-
tion, saying environmental pro-
tection is inflationary.
1 think people who have
soaked themselves in the facts
know better. Some of the best
investments that we're making
in this country are investments
in air pollution control where the
data show that the benefits are
enormously great. And these in-
vestments are anti-inflationary.
If you add years to someone's
life, that is productive. There
is just a lot of loose talk that
somehow has painted invest-
ments in environmental pro-
tection as being inflationary
and nonproductive. It is invest-
ments in power plants to heat
the outdoors that are inflation-
ary investments.
It's the unnecessary waste of
capital, the waste of gasoline,
that is causing us to pay these
enormous prices for new energy
sources and is inflating the
economy. And I think it must
be recognized that the strongest
weapon we have in the fight
against inflation isconservation.
The conservationists and the
environmental protectors are
identical, practically, in terms
of their perspective, and they
are often the same person. I
know from having been in this,
way back before there were any
"energy czars," the people who
were environmentally sensitive
were among the first in this
country to raise the conserva-
tion option.
They knew that conservation
was the most fundamental way
to protect the environment, be-
cause there weren't any alter-
native sources available that
really were benign. So, I would
hope that the people responsible
for environmental protection
can stand up proud. We have a
powerful message that needs to
be delivered to the American
people. We need to reverse the
tables and get the people who
are inflating the economy to
defend their practices, rather
than making offensive remarks
about the programs that I think
may lead this country out of its
economic problems.
Water vapor is discharged from
cooling towers in foreground at
TVA's Paradise Steam Plant in
Western Kentucky.
Back Cover: Spring flowers
bloom near a stream in the
Rocky Mountains.
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Pioit'i-tio
Atjency
EPA 33B
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