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a020  0022  28 Jun 80
PM-Scientists-Energy,440
Persian Gulf Oil Cutoff Would Mean Harsh Measures, Scientists Say
By PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press Writer
    CHICAGO (AP) - A cutoff of oil supplies in the Persian Gulf could
force energy conservation measures more extreme than those during
World War II, according to scientists pressing for an emergency energy
plan.
    And international events could lead to such a cutoff within a few
years, they said.
    Both predictions were made Friday during the second National
Conference on Energy Advocacy, which continues through Sunday. The
group released an outline it is recommending to the federal government
for the development of a national emergency energy plan.
    ''We are in a far worse position with regard to planning (for
energy) than we were in 1940 with regard to mobilization plans for
World War II,'' said John McCarthy, professor of computer sciences at
Stanford University.
    Edward Teller, the Nobel Prize-winning atomic scientist often called
the father of the hydrogen bomb, said the free world has ''no plan''
to deal with a cutoff of oil supplies from the troubled Persian Gulf
area.
    ''It is a possibility - and I assert more than possibility - that in
the near future, possibly in five years hence, the Kremlin will find
a way to take hold of the oil spigot'' in the Persian Gulf, Teller
said.
    The cutoff would result in a 35 percent reduction in U.S. oil
supplies, according to Miro Todorovich, professor of physics at the
City University of New York.
    McCarthy said such a cutoff would mean Americans would be unable to
heat their homes and would have to close off some rooms, families
would have to share houses and young people would have to turn to
dormitory living to save on heating and transportation costs.
    The group's plan for the government to ''minimize the consequences''
of an oil cutoff included:
    - Government support of development of domestic energy sources such
as coal, gas, nuclear power and shale oil.
    - Decontrol of oil and gas prices and abolition of entitlements.
    - Reconsideration of environmental laws.
    - A speedup of licensing for nuclear power plants.
    - Prompt replacement of liquid fuels in non-transportation uses.
    - Development of a conservation plan that could include rationing.
    - Tripling of the rate of additions to the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve to more than 300,000 barrels a day.
    - Providing assistance and encouragement to Japanese and European
allies to shift from use of oil to coal and nuclear power for
generating electricity.
    
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n031  1204  28 Jun 80
 
BC-ENERGY-U.S. 2takes
(Review of The Week)
By RICHARD D. LYONS
c. 1980 N.Y. Times News Service
    WASHINGTON - One of the last pieces of the energy program proposed
by President Carter a year ago fell into place last week when
Congress approved his Synthetic Fuels Corp. bill. But another piece
fell out of place when the House rejected the proposed Energy
Mobilization Board, a crucial element in the president's program to
make the United States less dependent on foreign energy sources.
    Even as the energy package was being wrapped up, however, a
committee of scientists that includes seven Nobel Prize winners
issued a dire warning: The multibillion dollar program isn't nearly
enough. If the United States doesn't mount a crash program for energy
production immediately, the scientists said, the national economy -
indeed, the American way of life - will be in deep trouble between
now and the 21st century. ''Our security requires a crash program in
energy production, including nuclear energy, oil shale, synthetic oil
and gas from coal, and enhanced oil and gas recovery,'' the group
said.
    Such warnings were high in Carter's considerations when he met in
Venice last week with leaders of the other leading Western nations
and joined in a commitment to restrain oil imports and increase the
use of other energy forms, principally coal. The views of the
scientific group, Scientists and Engineers for Secure Energy, reflect
a growing body of opinion that the United States is already in
serious trouble because it has not achieved self-sufficiency in
energy. On Capitol Hill, these are known as ''doomsday scenarios'' of
what would happen to the American economy should the flow of Persian
Gulf oil be either sharply cut or stopped altogether. The more
draconian estimates foresee 10 million more Americans joining those
already on unemployment lines and losses to the gross national
product of hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
    For years now, the rhetoric from the White House has been about
projects that would end the nation's energy jitters, like Project
Independence, which President Nixon launched almost a decade ago. The
result: Since his announcement, the United States is importing twice
as much OPEC oil.
    Carter's energy program, even without the Energy Mobilization Board,
is broad, innovative and multifaceted. But defeat of the mobilization
board, which was to cut through the thicket of red tape that
confronts major energy projects, means such things as synthetic fuel
plants could face delays of years. An assortment of opponents -
Republicans out to embarrass the president, conservatives concerned
over states' rights, liberals concerned with threats to environmental
laws, representatives from Rocky Mountain states concerned with water
supplies - combined to defeat it by a vote of 232 to 131.
    Still, the basic question remains whether the substantive answers
that have been proposed are sufficient to resolve the nation's energy
problems over the next 20 years. Those answers include mining more
coal; distilling synthetic crude oil from tar sands, oil shale and
coal; a trans-Alaska pipeline to bring North Slope natural gas to
consumers in the lower 48 states; greatly expanded production of
gasohol; conversion of oil-fired electric utilities to coal; a
limited number of new nuclear plants; production-line payoffs from
research into solar energy; electric engines for cars, and fusion
power.
    The United States truly does have enormous coal resources, enough,
at current rates of production, to last several centuries. Even
without new technology, a great deal more could be produced. The main
obstacle to greater use of coal is its possible effect on the
environment. Will the phenomenon known as acid rain kill forests and
ruin farmland? Will more air pollution have a serious effect on human
health? Are the savings from conversion of oil-fired boilers at
electrical generating plants to coal-burning worth the costs? With
such questions in mind, the Senate last week cut Carter's request for
$10 billion for 107 such conversions to $3.6 billion for 80 units at
38 plants, and thus quickly undermined his call at the Venice
economic summit for a doubling of coal consumption to offset oil
imports.
    ''Synfuels'' is another case in which realism tempers optimism.
There is no doubt that the use of blank check tactics would create a
synthetic fuels industry that could, in theory, produce 2 million
barrels a day by 1992, the target contained in the bill passed by
Congress last week. But the costs would be staggering. A
congressional report released last week set the cost at $70 billion;
several corporate estimates are even higher. A reasonable production
estimate would be 400,000 barrels a day by the end of the decade,
much less than Carter's goal.
    (MORE)
    
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n032  1208  28 Jun 80
 
BC-ENERGY-U.S. 1stadd
NYT WASHINGTON: goal.
    The natural gas pipeline from Alaska also would be highly expensive,
perhaps $25 billion, and at the snail's pace at which planning for
the project has gone in the last several years, it might never be
built. Gasohol production, another Carter energy goal about which
there has been much talk, also has been proceeding very slowly. By
one administration estimate, the nation was going to produce 500
million gallons of gasohol this year, mainly from corn not sold to
the Soviet Union. Yet this is now realized to be a gross
exaggeration, and it is unlikely that alcohol from vegetation will
meet even one percent of national gasoline demand for many years.
    Solar power, which many experts believe is the energy source of the
future, got a boost last week when the House added $107 million in
research funds. But in most areas it still costs several times what
conventional fuels do, and the General Accounting Office, Congress'
investigative arm, complained last month that the government wastes
money by installing solar power plants in federal buildings. Other
projects, such as hydrogen-powered cars and fusion power, also appear
to be a long way from meeting significant shares of national energy
demand.
    The administration was able to get the energy program it did only
after enormous struggles that brought into play political, economic,
sectional and environmental opposition, all of which were in evidence
when the House shelved the Energy Mobilization Board on Friday. With
the decontrol of oil prices, the windfall profits tax and the
Synthetic Fuels Corp., Carter may feel entitled, when he signs the
synfuels bill Monday, to cast modesty aside in his remarks. In the
minds of those taking the longer view, however, the potential gravity
of failure in the struggle for energy self-sufficiency means the
Carter program still falls short of the need.
    
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