ENERGY FLASHES

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UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA RESEARCHERS HAVE BUILT A "SOLAR OASIS" consisting of a canopy of seven water-filled plastic envelopes mounted on metal poles over 3,000 square feet of desert land. Solar-heated water circulated through the envelopes slows heat dissipation below it by as much as 85%, thus keeping the ground (which normally chills drastically at night) at a warm, plant-pleasing temperature 24 hours a day. Scientists are now successfully growing grass, flowers, corn, strawberries, tomatoes, and herbs in the experimental oasis, and the system is expected to be in use by commercial farmers within a couple of years.

THE OWNER OF THREE MILE ISLAND'S INFAMOUS UNIT 2 REACTOR, General Public Utilities (GPU), has come up with an unusual method (although one familiar to MOTHER'S readers) for offsetting the estimated $1 billion cost required to clean up its mess: barter. At the time of the accident, the tools and technology required for a massive nuclear cleanup simply didn't exist... so GPU has been forced to pioneer the field. The company is now offering to trade its newfound expertise for cash, services, or products from other utilities and companies. Some examples of the savvy GPU is putting up for swap: how to use arm extenders to fasten a hose to a nozzle 40 feet away... and how to employ a remote-controlled robot to scrub down radioactive rooms.

THE TYPICAL NUCLEAR REACTOR IN THE U.S. REPORTS AN AVERAGE OF 5.5 EMERGENCY SHUTDOWNS PER YEAR, which explains in part why the industry operated at only 56% capacity in 1983, and why some 108 power plant projects have been canceled since 1979's Three Mile Island incident.... HYDROPOWER NOW SUPPLIES ONE-FOURTH OF THE WORLD'S ELECTRICITY , and the number of dams (particularly small-scale facilities, which can have less environmental impact) is growing rapidly. In China alone, more than 90,000 small hydro systems have been built in the past three decades.... AN AIR-CONDITIONING SYSTEM THAT STORES WINTER'S COLD FOR SUMMER COMFORT is being used experimentally to cool a building at Illinois State University. A chemical solution distributed through underground plastic tubes freezes the soil to a depth of 10 to So feet and maintains the frozen condition, so that the earth can be used to cool the building during warmer weather.... A SMOKESTACK-SCRUBBING TECHNIQUE INCORPORATING ULTRAVIOLET TECHNOLOGY MAY HELP REDUCE ACID RAIN and produce a usable plant food, too. The process, which costs approximately 75% less than conventional scrubbing, uses ultraviolet rays to convert nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide to ammonium nitrate and sulfate, both of which can be sold as fertilizer components.

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