Page 3893 - 1970S

only become more expensive in the
future, but increasingly scarce. Al–
ready serious doubts exist about
the avai lability of sufficient ura–
nium reserves after the turn of this
century.
Disposal of atomic wastes is an–
other major problem that continues
to nag the industry. Over 400,000
ga llons of highly toxic material
have already leaked from contain–
ers that were expected to last for
hundreds of years at the Hanford,
Washington, site. But perhaps the
greatest drawback to nuclear en–
ergy is th e ominous threat of
wholesale weapons proliferation.
Currently 2 1 nations have nuclear
power facilities and many of these
have a lready produced enough plu–
tonium to arm a mínimum of three
to six weapons. Other countries
such as Austria, Brazil, South Ko–
rea, Yugoslavia, Egypt, and Mex–
ico-to name a few- are clamoring
for adm iss ion to the wor l d's
"peaceful " nuclear club.
Even if the monumental prob–
lems of proliferation, theft, sabo–
tage, waste disposal and increasing
sca rcity of uranium could somehow
be overcome, nuclear power would
still be a poor energy choice. lt per–
petuates the use of centralized sys–
tems where major losses occur in
conversion and transmission of
power.
The money the government is
currently pouring into this area of
research and development would
be much better spent by improving
conservation standards for exis ting
and future buildings, by improving
the state of the art in coa! tech–
nology. and solar heating systems.
5) Upgrade America's most
abundant energy resource. Un–
like petroleum, the United States
has enough coa! to burn for 400 to
600 years at present usage rates.
For years it was the primary energy
fue! that powered America's indus–
tries. As late as 1940 it supplied
over 40 percent of the total supply.
But artificially low natural gas
prices, industry mismanagement,
lack of proper health and safety
standards, and labor problems have
plagued the coa! industry over the
last few decades.
Currently the main interest in
coa! centers around production of
14
synthetic gas and oil. Although coa!
gasification and liquefaction are
technically feasible (as the Ger–
mans demonstrated during World
War U), they have a number of
drawbacks. Thirty to forty percent
of the thermal energy of coa! is lost
in conversion. Necessary capital in–
puts would be high but fue! output
would be low. lt would take twenty
conversion plants, each costing
1Yz billion dollars and using one–
quarter of current coa! production,
just to produce six percent of the
nation's total energy demand.
More progress could probably be
made if the technology of direct
burning of coa! were upgraded in–
stead. Efforts in this direction have
already been made in Sweden and
Russia. Stal-Laval, a Swedish firm ,
currently offers a system that con–
sists of eight coal-fired gas turbines
that produce both hot water for
space heating and electricity. The
gas turbines would cost half as
much money, use roughly 40 per–
cent of the coa!, and produce thc
same amount of energy as a bil–
lion-dotlar gasification plant.
Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD
for short) is another relative ly
clean-burning coa! technology that
is currently being pioneered in the
Soviet Union. Recently a Russian–
built MHD generator was able to
supply power to 100,000 Moscow
homes during a 30-minute tria! run .
The MHD is relatively clean burn–
ing, requires little water and has a
60 percent thermal efficiency, as
compared to 40 percent for a nor–
mal coa! power plant.
Coa! could also be used to grad–
ually replace petroleum and natu–
ral gas as a boiler fuel in many of
America's power plants. lf half of
the oil and gas now used in power
plant operations were replaced by
coa!, more than 200 million barreis
of oil and 1.9 trillion cubic feet of
gas would be saved.
6) Produce power organically.
Unlike money , energy can be
grown on trees, or more accura tely.
in the form of trees. The state o f
New Hampshire, for instance, anx–
ious to alleviate its 85 percent de–
pendence on imported oil , has
recently initiated a pilot program
a imed at producing wood as a
power fue!. The key to this unique
process is a mechanical monster
known as the Chipaharvester. which
can devour whole trees, including
wood, bark, roots, and branches,
and spit out wood chips in uniform
size. According to one estímate, the
state of Vermont produces enough
culls (trees not suitable for lumber)
every year to provide for all of its
electrical power needs.
Another overlooked source of en–
ergy is the nation's garbage piles.
On a pound-for-pound basis the
material found in ordinary garbage
contains more energy than coa!. l f
all metropolitan areas in the
United States recycled and burned
thei r garbage for power. the total
fue! savings would come to a lmost
10 percent of present domestic oil
production. And for an added
bonus, sorne one billion dollars'
worth of recyclable materials could
be recovered. St. Louis, Baltimore
and Nashville are just a few of the
cities that have a lready begun to
cash in on this renewable form of
energy.
Ordinary sewage is yet another
source of organic fue! currently
"going to waste." The Chinese have
already mastered the technique of
producing methane fue! from their
own sewage on a localized basis.
And one enterprising Englishman
even went so far as to run a car off
methane produced from ch icken
manure. According to the Stanford
Research Insti tute, enough meth–
ane could have been produced
from California wastes in 1975 to
have supplied all of its gas-powered
electrical generators, with a suf–
ficient quantity left over for all in–
dustrial gas users in the Los
Angeles area.
Recently conducted tests have
also revealed that climbing fue!
consumption can be noticeably re–
duced through the use of methanol
in the gas tanks of automobiles. A
15 percent mixture of methanol can
result in a 5 to 13 percent increase
in gasoline mileage with no me–
chanical problems and no engine
modifications necessary. Methanol
can be produced from solid refuse,
coa!, garbage. wood or farm wastes.
lf America's annual supply of solid
refuse were converted to methanol,
enough fuel could be produced to
(Continued on page 41)
The PLAIN TRUTH March 1978