8
Wednesday, August 20. 1975
University Daily Kansan
Future of solar energy clouded by doubts, delays
By JACK McNEELY Kansas Staff Reporter
The United States will spend a trillion dollars in the next 10 years to make its economy able to withstand another foreign oil embargo.
It will be the largest undertaking in the nation's history. It will cost four times as much as a century of research.
But how that trillion dollars will be divided is a source of bitter dispute between the people who are building nuclear power reactors and people who think nuclear power is an unacceptable way to generate electricity.
ONE EXTREME SAYS tapping energy (or the energy we can be economically feasible for) the system.
The other extreme says a practical solar power plant to produce electricity could be built within seven years at a cost cheaper than the current cost of nuclear power.
Both sides claim to have the figures to back up their assertions.
Each side agrees that the United States must somehow break the hold of the foreign oil companies on our world's oil. They generally agree that the U.S. energy supply must not remain susceptible to an embargo like the one induced by nine Arab nations in October 1973.
But they disagree on how we should achieve energy self-sufficiency.
The dispute comes to Kansas because Kansas City (Mo.) Power and Light Co. (KCPL) and Kansas Gas and Electric Co. (KGE) of Wichita are seeking permission to build a nuclear power plant near Burlington, 80 miles south of Topeka.
PEOPLE WHO OPPOSE the plant say nuclear power is too dangerous, expensive and wasteful.
They want the trillion dollars spent on nonpolluting, inexhaustible energy sources, such as the sun and wind. Until the nation's power grid is inundated with energy opponents say, we should reduce our
dependence on oil by incre-ing the use of
energy, vastly reducing our energy consumption.
Nuclear power advocates say we can't increase the use of coal fast enough nor reduce our energy consumption far enough t. free ourselves from the cartel without making wrenching changes in our way of life.
NUCLEAR POWER IS safe and reliable,
the say, and is the cheapest of the energy option.
It must be used, at least as a stoppage measure, until after the turn of the century, because solar power won't be economically feasible until then, they say.
The nuclear advocates admit that nuclear power as it exists now isn't the ultimate solution to the nation's energy woes. They agree with the nuclear opponents that solar power holds promise as a long-term solution.
"I'm not fighting solar," Don McPhee, vice president of productions for KCPL, has said. "If it works out for me to go into the field of maintaining and selling solar systems."
A SPOKESMAN FOR KGE said, "We believe that solar power is not only a desirable thing to develop, but it's necessary."
But KCPL and KGE agree that solar power isn't worth the cost yet, and won't be until we've used up some of the low cost uranium and coal.
Mobile-Tyco, a company engaged in solar research. disareses.
Mobi-Tyco estimates that a solar power plant using silicon cells, which convert sunlight into electricity, could be built by 1982—the年 KCPL and KGE expect to have their nuclear power plant working near Burlington.
And Mobil-Tyco estimates that its solar plant could be built at a cost of $600 per kilowatt capacity. KCPI estimates that the solar plant will cost $25 per kilowatt capacity.
"1 QUESTION WHETHER we could win the 1962 Cincinnati cinder box in 1854," the KGE spokesman says.
And McPhee says he hasn't seen any comprehensive studies that tell him solar power is an option.
Why solar power imit't yet practicable is a question of some dispute.
Joseph Lindmayer, a scientist working with solar power, said in 1974, "It is the unavailability of money which limits all of us in the solar cell field. It's not a technical problem that can be solved to start mass production. Solar cells and panels are still made practically by band."
"I if I could get an injection of just a half a million dollars of capital this year, I could start automating right now and achieve a production in production during the first year."
SINCE THE EARLY 50s the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) has allocated percentages of the nation's energy budget towards nuclear, solar, wind and geothermal such as nuclear, solar, wind and geothermal.
Invariably, the AEC allotted a huge percentage of the energy budget for nuclear fuel.
According to critics, that was because the AEC had a vested interest—namely, its own survival as a bureaucracy—in development of nuclear power.
In October 1974 Congress split the AEC into the Energy Research and Development Administration(ERDA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
The NRC was to handle regulation and licensing of nuclear power plants and was to guard nuclear materials. The ERDA was to oversee all energy research and divide the nation's energy budget among the energy areas.
Sen. Abraham Ribicoff, D-Comm., said the reorganization was "a response to the growing criticism that there is a basic regulation of NCP's regulation of the nuclear power industry and its development and promotion of new technology for the industry."
FALL SEMESTER CALENDAR
August 18—Monday
Orientation period begins
September 27—Wednesday
Registration and enrollment begin
August 25—Monday
Semester classwork begins
September 1—Monday
Veteran Day holiday
October 27—Monday
Veterans Day holiday
November 25—Tuesday
Thanksgiving recess begins at 5:30 p.m.
December 1—Monday
Gework resume
 December 10—Wednesday
Last day of classes
December 11—Thursday
Semester examinations begin
Semester examination end
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THE ERDA HAS AN administrator and a deputy administrator, who are supposed to be "energy generalists," well-versed in all forms of energy. It has six assistant administrators, one for each of these areas: solar, geothermal and advanced energy, renewable energy, environment and safety, conservation, fossil energy, and defense programs.
During House debate on the reorganization bill, Benjamin Rosenthal, D-N-Y, offered an amendment that would have created an assistant administrator for the U.S. Embassy and another for geothermal research. The amendment was defeated by a vote voice.
Rep. Frank Horton, R-N.Y., said the answer to the Election would be overweight leaders.
REP. MORRIS UDALL, D-Artz., offered an amendment to require the ERDA to conduct an aggressive program in unauthorized use of computer equipment. The amendment was defeated by a voice vote.
The Senate voted 79-0 for an amendment to establish a non-nuclear energy research policy. The Senate amendment was deleted in conference committee.
administration and the AEC died, about 6,000 c' the ERDA's 7,124 employees came from the ABC. For fiscal 1976, the ERDA had 90 per cent of its money to nuclear power.
When the ERDA became a full-blown
As Paul Johnson, a member of the People's Energy Project of Lawrence and Topeka, said, "It's essentially the same people doing the same thing."
MARK KAPLAN, ANOTHER member of the People's Energy Project, said, "Virtually no money has gone into solar power. Since 1970, some money has gone in. No money has gone into alternatives because they are not as cheap to buy out the wind and can't hay out the sun."
ANOTHER REASON FOR the expands on nuclear power is that the companies
A corporate need for profit has overshadowed the people's need for safe energy, which is why nuclear power has been emitted. The expense of solar power, Kaplan said.
currently producing energy need to keep hold of the means of producing energy if they are to continue to exist, and they can't buy the sun, he said.
Westinghouse and General Electric have a large part of the market for nuclear power plant equipment. Westinghouse will supply the reactor and General Electric will supply the turbine and generator for the Burlington plant.
McPhee, of KCPL, said, "That's a lot or nonsense. We have no reason for being in business if we don't serve the best interests of the consumer."
KCPL and KGE want to build a nuclear plant instead of some other kind of plant because it costs less and will save consumers money, McPhee said.
"IF WE WERE ONLY interested in the stockholder and not the rate fare, we could't stay in business and shouldn't stay in business," he said.
McPhee also disputes critics' statements that solar research isn't getting enough money.
McPee says enough money has been spent on solar power to know it won't be economically feasible for the foreseeable future.
“It’s wishful thinking, as far as I can see, to say all you have to do is spend a bunch of money and solar will come in,” he said. “There is no point in pouring a lot of money into something in which there is no reason to believe.”
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