ENERGY FLASHES

By the Mother Earth News editors

“NUCLEAR POWER CANNOT AT THIS TIME BE CONSIDERED A VIABLE OPTION ON WHICH TO BASE NEW ELECTRIC GENERATING CAPACITY IN THE U.S." No, that's not a quote from an anti-atomic power group, but from a report commissioned by the nuclear industry's own promotional arm, the Atomic Industrial Forum. The product of a 31-member panel of top utility executives and investment analysts, the report concedes that some nuclear plants "have not worked as well as their designers believed they would." The panel places much of the blame for the industry's ills on uncertain licensing and regulatory procedures, but also says that "until construction lead times have been reduced and until there is greater public consensus in favor of nuclear power, the private sector cannot take on the open-ended financial risks that now attend the nuclear power option."

PHILADELPHIA'S CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT HAS CUT ITS ANNUAL ENERGY EXPENSES BY SOME $3.3 MILLION, USING ONLY NO-COST CONSERVATION METHODS. Called the Save Energy Campaign, the program provides incentive by returning 40% of each participating school's energy savings to the school for its own use. In addition to such conventional practices as reducing space heating, lowering the settings of water heaters, and turning off lights in unoccupied rooms, many schools have devised some rather unconventional energy-saving methods. One principal directed the cafeteria staff to serve a cold lunch instead of hot fare one day each month. At another school, where the heating system left some classrooms colder than others, teachers who felt comfortable in cooler rooms switched with those who preferred warmer rooms. Students participated by forming "energy cheerleader" squads, appointing energy wardens responsible for observing and reporting waste, and bringing houseplants to their schools to raise humidity levels. Savings of $4.3 million are anticipated for the 1984-85 school year.

USE OF SOLAR, WIND, HYDRO, AND OTHER ALTERNATIVE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES IS GROWING RAPIDLY, according to the Annual Renewable Energy Report issued by the Renewable Energy Institute (REI). Wood and hydroelectricity already provide some 8% of the country's energy needs. And other approaches to the "soft path" are also making great gains: Active solar heating and cooling system installations in the U.S. now total almost 700,000 . . . the efficiency of photovoltaic systems has increased some 400% over the past decade, while costs have been cut 500% . . . the total rated capacity of the country's wind energy systems had reached 230 megawatts by the end of 1983, and the figure is expected to rise to 1,000 megawatts in the near future . . . and alcohol fuel production in this country burgeoned from 105 million gallons in 1981 to 400 million gallons in 1983. Copies of the Annual Renewable Energy Review are available from REI (1516 King St., Alexandria, VA 22314, 703/683-7795) for $17.50 plus $8.00 postage.

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.