Martin Agronsky: Evening Edition; 35

b You from Washington. This is evening

edition. Now here is Martin Ogransky. Good evening. Back in 212 BC Archimedes, the Greek mathematician and engineer, used the energy of the sun to set fire to a Roman fleet, besieging the city of Syracuse. Today's solar energy is being used to heat and cool homes and schools, and the energy research and development administration, Irda, says that by the year 2020, solar energy could be supplying 25% of the energy needs of this country. With tonight a discussion of solar energy and its potential, with Dr. John Team, assistant administrator for solar geothermal and advanced energy systems at Irda, Dr. George Zago, the president of Inter-Technology Corporation,

which built the world's first solar-heated high school in Warrington, Virginia, and Dr. Carl Walsky, who is president of the Atomic Industrial Forum. Gentlemen, solar energy is kind of an esoteric subject to most ordinary people, and let's say we can begin very, very simply. I think of solar energy as energy that is derived from the sun. Is that what it is and what else is it? Dr. Walsky? Well, that's certainly the original source of it, but then it has to be converted in some way so that it's useful, so it can be then converted either by having a central station electricity plant, or by heating homes, as you've suggested, cooling homes, or as Dr. Zago is interested in by biological means. No, also that's a team. You can make electrical energy from the sun in more than one way. You can use a

sun's energy directly in a solar cell, such as we've seen from the space program, or as Archimedes did concentrating the sun's energy and producing heat, getting electricity, as you do in a nuclear reactor, or use it indirectly using the wind, or energy absorbed in the oceans to produce electricity. Dr. Zago. Well, of course there are, as we've said, many ways of harnessing the energy of the sun for man's use. There are however two right now, which are presently economically competitive and useful today, in competition with conventional fuels. And this is the solar heating and cooling of buildings, which is presently in most areas somewhat cheaper than the use of electricity for that purpose, and the raising of a fuel crop specifically for its heat content or its combustion value. These two are presently competitive. Explain that further, the raising of a plant specifically for its energy value. What else is that? This is a technique which we call the energy plantation.

Relying upon a modest amount of rainfall or more, about 20 inches a year, and using specifically selected crops will call by the generic name the BTU bush, man can, but it was a non-generic definition. I'm afraid it is that it depends very much on the climate, for example, in Georgia, it would be something like a poplar or other deciduous wood that would be grown not to its full-height on maturity, but would be cropped every three to five years. And wood, in a perpetually renewable fashion, served to supply, let us say, the electrical needs of the city of Atlanta, from an area of the order of 80 or 100 square miles of energy plantation. The crop itself would be sun-dried and burnt in a boiler, and then on the technique is entirely conventional making steam, rotating turbines, alternators, and electricity in its normal form. The difference being that we are harnessing the energy of the

sun and we are upgrading its temperature by using fuel for its combustion values. Which the sun brings into being. At Georgia, this is very attractive, but it's also true that the economics of that system has not really been shown, because it takes such a large area, and we've got to do some more research and development to decide whether or not this is an economic system. John, I don't think it's a matter of research and development. Some very serious economic analysis have been carried out for the last five years. We are presently under contract to study this question for a consortium of utilities, primarily from the standpoint of generating gas rather than a straight solid fuel. But the costs look like they are of the order of $1.30 to $1.50 a million BTU, which is somewhat less than we're presently paying for overseas oil, FOB, the Near East. Let me ask you this. Wasn't this a method of yours used at one point in running a railroad in Brazil? Yes. In the 1890s, a railroad was built to São Paulo in Brazil

from, excuse me, Rio de Janeiro. And this is called the Polyster Railroad. For quite a long time, the steam locomotives in this railroad were fired by a random use of the energy plantation concept from the Eucalyptus trees found along the right of way. This was abandoned in the 30s because of the then very low cost of diesel fuel and the entire railroad was desolized. I think there's a high likelihood that that railroad may consider very seriously presently re-energy plantationing from having desolized in the 30s. And it's practically used in this country. It would certainly improve the right away along most railroad that I know. Well, I'm not sure that railroads are the most useful application, but the energy plantation concept is one which does not compete for a road-crop land. It uses steep land, it uses land not useful for other purposes, and the whole technique does not use plowing and erosion is avoided. Let me get it down to something that all of us are enormously interested in. Can you

today build a solar energy system for your house, you own a house? That will heat your house, it will cool your house, it is practical, and that is economically viable in relation to using an other fuel like gas or electricity, coal oil. Well, it is possible to build such a home today, and these homes are being built, and it's more economic in some sections of the country than it is in others. For example, if electricity is perhaps five to seven cents per kilowatt hour, this is clearly economic now. If it's compared with oil prices in most sections of the country, it is not economic with the current prices of oil, but if oil would get up to the

order of 60 cents a barrel, or 60 cents a gallon fuel oil, then it becomes economic. We may not be very far away from that, and that is one of the reasons we're trying to push forward to demonstrate this technology widely across the country and to help develop the industry that needs to produce it. I think it might be interesting to observe in addition to purple mountain majesties, and fruited clans, and many minimal resources, and a thousand and one other advantages of the United States happens to enjoy because of its location. The United States happens to be located also in that belt of latitudes, which make it most economical to use solar energy. In fact, solar energy in Boston is somewhat cheaper than solar energy in the tropics, primarily because the heating load and the cooling load must be balanced so that you get a year-round use of the solar collectors. In the tropics, of course, there isn't any heating load, and you do have a cooling load. How would you relate it to nuclear energy? Because all of the thrust that we get popularly

in terms of the greatest alternative source of energy for the future always seems to relate to nuclear energy. How does solar energy compare with nuclear energy in terms of how fast it can be developed, how it can provide an alternative source of energy for our needs today? Well, in order to put this into perspective, you have to look at different time periods. Solar energy, as you mentioned, when you started the program, may account for a quarter of our total energy consumption in the year 2020. I think it also said seven percent in the year 2000. We're faced with a problem between now and the year 2000 of very likely having energy shortages in this country, either having energy shortages or importing more foreign oil than we would like to import. We're faced with it today, not a face with it today, but it's going to be more aggravated as time goes by. The only two domestic sources that we have are really augmenting our energy supplies across the next 20 years are coal

and nuclear. Coal is very important in this picture, and nuclear is the second very important fuel for augmentation across the next 20 years. I would agree with that Carl, but I think that it's also true that in eventually we're going to have to find all the sources of energy that we can, and we're going to need solar energy, nuclear power, and much expanded use of coal coming into use to make up for the fact that the oil is being depleted, and we have other uses for oil. No question about it, John. It's not a situation where we can have one thing or another thing. We really don't have choices. We really have to exploit every usable source of energy that we have, and then we're going to have hard going, even so. But there are enormous problems, though. They're not with nuclear energy that don't exist with solar energy. There are problems with nuclear energy. There are problems with every form of energy. I was thinking of it in terms of nuclear waste and damage to the environment and hazard to our health. Well,

nuclear power is really quite compatible environmentally. As far as the waste goes, that is a very actively discussed question publicly, and there's a lot of confusion about it. What we don't have with regard to nuclear waste is our final way that we're going to dispose of it. But there's a lot known about how to dispose of it. We've had nuclear waste after all for, I think, some 30 years now from our earliest reactors that we're operating in this country. We've held it up in a temporary sort of way. What we're looking for, though, is the decision on the way that we should have it for the long, long haul. If nuclear energy is safe and essential, as you suggest, how do you explain that 2300 scientists chose to send a petition to the White House and the Congress on the dangers of nuclear power, which they said were so grave the United States should drastically reduce the number of all the new nuclear reactors that we're now constructing. I mean, they think that it's that imminent,

that dangerous, that real. Well, we've had statements by groups of scientists on the other way too. These things go back and forth. That was an organized campaign by some very serious critics. I'm sure that some of the people that signed that petition were very well informed on it. I'm sure that many of the others were emotionally involved in the question. But the fact of the matter is that there is a very large scientific community that supports nuclear power. I think that predominantly scientists do support nuclear power. I think it's also a great public interest, though, in solar energy, because it's something that the average person can really feel friendly about. The Sun is a friendly source of energy, and most people are concerned about nuclear energy because they don't understand it or they associate it with the weapons where it first made its appearance. And this sort of psychological difference, I think, is a very real.

In fact, if you are building now, your corporation is involved now, is it not? In building this elementary school in Charlottesown, West Virginia, this model demonstrated, doesn't it? Now, can you tell us, how does it work? And tell us, is this in the process of being built? Are you about to build it? Where is it at what state? This is the Page Jackson Elementary School, just about a mile and a half south of Charlottesown, West Virginia, on U.S. 340. The design you see here is one of the several models we have contemplated. But I think from it we can see just how it works. These dark appearing surfaces are these solar collectors. And they are coated with a special substance that is very attractive to the energy of the sun and

is very miserably about giving up any energy from the collective plate itself. The light or back surfaces are the reflectors, which enhance the summertime insulation or solar energy so that the plates can generate very hot water to run the absorption chillers, which is a way of using heat to cool, in fact most of the large buildings in America are cooled by this process, but using either steam or direct gas fired or oil fired hot water. What is your source of power here? Is it steam? The source of power is hot water, which is made by the absorption of the rays from the sun, which are diffuse to the palm of the hand, but are rather intense when with proper engineering design they are collected and trapped by a solar collector with an absorption plate. What about when it snows or rains? We use substantially sized storage tanks where we store the hot water in the times. The tanks are located in this structure right here and

there supporting the collectors at the ends and they are about four gallons in size for each square foot of this collective plate. What are you collecting in there? We are collecting solar energy which we transmit to hot water. We heat water with solar energy, store them in the tank, store solar energy in the form of hot water. In the form of hot water. And then in the winter time we circulate that water to the rooms to warm them. In the summer time we circulate that hot water to an absorption chiller system, which is like a miniature distilling plant, which manufactures refrigerant by heat instead of by mechanical compression. Variations and temperature don't affect the effectiveness of the system. On the contrary they do, the system is more effective when the water is at its lowest. But in order to make this even clearer, let me say, whether it's for house, factory or school, it is not economic to carry 100% of the load by the means of solar energy but a backup system is required for purposes of economy. We can design the system to heat this school 100%.

You have a supplemental backup system in here? Yes, we are planning in this system either to use oil-fired supplemental heat or off-peak power, power is cheaper at night when fewer people want to use it than at two o'clock in the afternoon. You must have made a projection on how much it would cost to heat the school and cool the school in this fashion as related to conventional method. How do you come out there? Well, we are right now in the middle of these trade-off studies, but roughly speaking we find that in this area, solar energy will cost between four and five dollars a million BTU, which is indeed very comparable with the price of oil in this area. That depends upon the time over which you amortize or average the cost because the initial cost of putting in the solar system such as this or heating cool is higher than that of a conventional plant. But the fuel is not needed. The fuel comes from the heat from the sun so that over time you get this trade-off. This is a school that translating it to a city. Well, translating it to a house. Could you

do it to a city? This is one of many of these demonstration projects, Martin, that were engaged in supporting under the IRDA program. And we are another one which we are in the design stage is in New York City. It's a 70 story office building, the city court bank building. And there are buildings that exist or building construction at the moment. We would not provide the entire cooling for that building, but a fraction of the cooling. And this is under design, as I said at the moment. Well, if you want to translate this to a home, Mr. Gronsky, consider that average across the United States about one third of the floor area of the house that you want to heat and cool should be approximately the size of the solar collectors. And this would cost the homeowner. I would say in about two or three years when we begin to see the first inception of mass production

in solar collective manufacture, approximately three or four or perhaps five dollars a square foot of house. So if you have a thousand square foot house, you should think in terms of three to five thousand dollars additional a two thousand square foot house about twice that. How does that compare to the installation of the conventional heating system? It depends very much on where you're located. For example, in Pueblo, Colorado, this is a notably good place for solar energy because the high amount of sun energy available throughout the year, the high cooling loads in the summertime and the high heating loads in the wintertime make that a very appropriate place. And there actually today, I think one would find that in mass production that the solar heating and cooling system would be considerably cheaper than oil. Listen, is our government taking this with sufficient seriousness? Are we putting enough money into it? We're certainly putting more money

in than we have in the past. The government program for solar energy is a fairly new program as far as the juice on the earth on the ground. The program is only about four years old and we're four years ago we were putting about a million dollars a year into that effort. Now this year we will be putting closer to a hundred million dollars a year. And so we're increasing the level of effort and we feel that this is a very important technology to make available to the country. Could you use more money sensibly? Well, I think so and I think that's one of the reasons we are. Right now you could use more money than the hundred million dollar program. I think that's a level in which we can work very effectively this year. Have you gentlemen looked all the way down the road to the potential economic impact of this on our way of life in our economy? I think one impact is that it's going to

cost more for the initial installation and this is going to change the whole way in which we finance homes and so forth because the cost of the heating system will need to be financed in the initial construction over averaged over 30 years. And let me raise another. Let us assume that somewhere along the line this thing becomes so sophisticated and so viable and potentially so possible in an economic way that the average homeowner, the average American, in effect becomes the producer and the owner of his own energy system. What happens is the public utility? One of the possible. What amount of business? Well, I'll let you answer. Yeah. I think you have to keep this in perspective. I believe that home heating and cooling amount to only something like 10% of our

national energy consumption. Another 10% is consumed in the homes and it's electrically for other purposes lighting. You can't light with this at the moment and not with this type of unit. Well, can you assume that somewhere along the way we will learn how to use that too? That would be another application of solar energy. You would have to have some kind of an electrical conversion scheme and that's being worked on too. It's further down the road than home heating. It's probably something for post 2000 for its earliest application and maybe later than that in a big way. As a matter of fact, there are some utilities that are very interested in showing it to help lighten their peak loads. This is how we find this in Latin America. One of the things that you're not competitive with nuclear, for example. Well, as George mentioned, the sun shines at the time for the load peaks for the electrical system. And therefore, the solar energy is a natural match to the peaky loads.

But not as good a match for the base load that is needed during the entire day. So we expect to see a mix of electrical sources in the energy system in the country in the future. Solar will have its role, coal fired, nuclear plants will also have their role for the base load. There are solar systems, those that use the ocean's thermal gradients, for example, that look as though they could be potentially useful for the base load. But we have a problem of economically getting the energy from a floating plant, electrical plant out in the sea, to where it is needed. Let's dream a little bit more. What about the prospect of a solar plant in space generating electricity for the generating power of the use of Earth? That's a system in which there is some interest. We're not looking at this as being probably as economically viable at this time,

and then some of these more conventional systems that could be used on the ground. One of the problems with that is you have to put an entire very large system into operation before it begins to get to economics. So this problem that exists even on a home becomes even greater from that for a space solar power system. You run a city of a million people with solar energy. Let's assume that it could be done. How much space do you need for your solar energy plant? You need perhaps a total of 20, 25 square miles. Part of that could be in the city itself, or it could be out in an isolated place. The different solar technologies will match different geographies. You can transport it. You can transport electricity. Over a considerable distance, as same as you do from a nuclear or coal far behind. But there are limitations.

It's difficult to ship electricity from the southwestern part of the United States up to New York, for example. We see wind energy generators, though useful throughout portions of it. I'm going to give one of you gentlemen 30 seconds to say something profound about the future of solar energy. Well, we believe that there is a very sharp limit to the ultimate use, though not the near-term use of the fossil fuels, particularly coal, on which a great deal of hope has been resting. And solar provides at least a partial alternative to reducing the consequential problem, and we think, of the very large output of carbon dioxide if our whole national economy moves in the direction of coal. And this is one balancing influence, I think, for the near-term. They will be a great deal of coal use. But solar has a great environmental balance we'll affect with respect to fossil fuels. Thank you, gentlemen. Good night for evening edition. Monday on evening edition

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