n014  0708  29 Apr 78
 
BC-SUN 4takes
(FINANCIAL)
By ANTHONY J. PARISI
c.1978 N.Y. Times News Service
    NEW YORK - The nation will celebrate the sun Wednesday with fairs,
concerts, speeches and demonstrations, all to ballyhoo the potential
of solar power as an alternative energy source. Sun Day, as the
celebration is called, will be rich in dreams of a solar future. What
may be missed in the excitement, though, is the reality of a solar
present.
    Just four years ago the solar energy industry did not even exist;
today it is a $150-million-plus market that practically doubles from
solstice to solstice. The solar companies even have a trade
association, the Solar Energy Industries Association, which currently
boasts a roster of some 1,000 members and a budget of almost $250,000
a year.
    Inevitably this embryonic industry is in the midst of a shakeout.
Many of the smaller companies that jumped into the business early are
falling by the wayside, while larger companies that entered the
market late are establishing important footholds. Right now, both
large and small companies are mainly jockeying for position so they
will be able to move quickly when and if Congress passes the tax
incentives for solar energy purchases. The details of these
incentives have more or less been worked out in conference, but the
measure awaits congressional action on the rest of the president's
energy package.
    Almost all of the companies are convinced that these federal
incentives, by making the formidable initial cost of solar equipment
more palatable to consumers, will lead to a solar buying spree. But,
even without this government-induced surge, solar companies are
already beginning to report profits. ''We've turned the corner,''
says Edward R. Shackelford, vice president and general manager of the
Solaron Corporation. This small Denver-based company chalked up a
$34,000 profit in 1977 after losing a total of nearly $900,000 in the
preceding two years.
    Last year solar companies sold an estimated 5 million square feet of
solar panels, the glass-covered shallow boxes that usually sit on a
roof, trapping solar heat greenhouse fashion. Most of these panels
were installed to provide hot water in homes. The experts say there
are somewhere between 80,000 and 120,000 solar water heaters
operating in this country today. Some went into space heating systems
- several thousand American homes now have solar heating - and a few
were installed for industrial applications such as crop drying or
preheating air for ovens.
    In addition the industry sold 7 million square feet or so of
so-called low-temperature solar collectors for heating swimming
pools. These are little more than sheets of fiberglass that sit in
the sun. The swimming water continually circulates out to the
collectors and trickles down them to pick up heat before returning to
the pool.
    To be sure, all this still adds up to only a minuscule amount of
solar energy - considerably less than 1 percent of the nation's total
energy requirements. ''But it is encouraging, and it keeps growing,''
says Sheldon H. Butt, president of the solar association and director
of marketing and research at the Olin Corporation, which makes
components for solar panels. ''If it keeps growing like this, it will
soon become a significant amount.'' Exactly how soon depends on a
series of factors, the experts say, chief among them the future cost
of fossil fuels and the timing and extent of any federal incentives.
In general, though, proponents are now convinced that solar energy
will start making at least a measurable contribution to the nation's
energy supplies in the early 1980s and that it will become an
important factor in the energy mix by the 1990s. ''It is not
inconceivable to me that solar will account for 10 percent of our
energy needs by 2000,'' says Ronald B. Peterson, President of Grumman
Energy Systems, Inc.
    (MORE)
    
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n015  0716  29 Apr 78
 
BC-SUN 1stadd
(FINANCIAL)
NEW YORK: Inc.
    This subsidiary of the Grumman Corporation sold a quarter of a
million square feet of panels last year and expects to sell three
times that much this year. A latecomer to the business, it is now one
of the biggest manufacturers in the industry, employing nearly 200
workers. Grumman Energy Systems is currently operating in the black,
Peterson says, though the parent corporation has not yet recovered
its investment in the solar business.
    Another company that seems to have found a permanent niche in the
solar industry is Revere Copper and Brass Inc. Its subsidiary, Revere
Solar, makes solar water heaters and hopes to have a line of space
heating systems available late this summer. The company started with
one plant in Rome, N.Y., added another in Los Angeles and last week
opened a third in Kenly, N.C. - even though it has yet to make any
money. ''There isn't any doubt in the minds of Revere management that
this is a coming business,'' says William J. Heidrick, president of
Revere Solar.''Solar energy represents the one form of alternative
energy that is here today.''
    Not all forms of solar energy are ready for the marketplace, of
course. Devices that convert sunlight into electricity are still
prohibitively expensive, except for certain remote installations
where ordinary power lines cannot reach. But equipment that simply
captures the heat of the sun is already economically competitive for
certain applications in many areas of the country and can only become
more so as alternative sources of energy rise in price.
    Solar water heaters are the pacesetters because, unlike space
heating systems, they are used all year round and thus pay for
themselves faster. They now compete in some markets against electric
water heaters, though they still do poorly against oil heaters (which
are not very common anyway) and they stand little chance against
water heaters fueled by cheap natural gas.
    Surprisingly, the solar heaters do almost as well in the Frost Belt
as in the Sun Belt. ''There is a reasonable amount of sunshine across
the country to permit solar usage,'' says Walter R. Preysnar, a
special assistant in the Department of Energy's solar applications
program. A more critical factor in the equation, it turns out, is the
cost of the electricity that the sun must compete against. Preysnar
says solar energy starts looking more economical than electric energy
when power costs more than 4 cents a kilowatt-hour, although the
precise figure varies from region to region and even from
installation to installation.
    Thus, as might be expected, solar systems fare nicely in the
Southwest, where the sunlight is strong and electricity prices are
moderate. Yet they do almost as well in the Northeast, where the
sunlight is less intense but electricity prices are high. The one big
area of the country that is still basically closed off to the solar
companies is the Northwest, where the skies are often overcast and
low-cost hydro power provides most of the electricity.
    Where they can compete, solar water heaters often pay for themselves
in as little as three or four years. A typical system, capable of
supplying half or more of a home's hot water, might cost $2,000. A
back-up electric system is still needed - the solar heater is usually
installed upstream of the electric heater, where it actually preheats
the water for the conventional system - but the solar system can save
enough power to make the dual investment worthwhile.
    (MORE)
    
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n016  0724  29 Apr 78
 
BC-SUN 2ndadd
NEW YORK: worthwhile.
    Solar companies report, however, that the stiff purchase price of a
solar water heating system continues to discourage many potential
customers. ''It's hard for the average consumer to see the
(long-range) economic advantage,'' notes Richard C. Foote, vice
president and treasurer of the Intertechnology-Solar Corporation,
which started doing research on solar energy 10 years ago but began
selling solar hardware only last year. Intertechnology, based in
suburban Washington, D.C., is currently concentrating its marketing
efforts principally on the Eastern Seaboard. ''Shipping costs are a
material element in our pricing,'' Foote explains.
    Overcoming consumer resistance to the high initial cost of solar
energy is even more difficult when it comes to selling solar home
heating systems. Typically, solar heat costs upward of $10,000 to
install and takes well over 10 years to pay for itself, even as a
replacement for electric heat.
    As a result, the solar energy industry is counting on Congress to
pass the tax credits for solar energy expenditures soon. House and
Senate energy conferees have already agreed that 30 percent of the
first $2,000 and 20 percent of the next $8,000 spent on solar energy
installations should be refunded to homeowners via income tax
credits, up to a maximum of $2,200
    Ironically, though, the companies complain that the tax credit
proposal has hurt business so far. ''We've had the promise of
incentives, and that happens to be worse than none,'' observes
Grumman's Peterson. He and other solar businessmen say sales
temporarily leveled off after the president suggested the credits a
year ago, apparently because some buyers decided to wait and see what
would come of his proposal.
    Still, some kind of federal subsidy seems inevitable, and most solar
companies think this will remove the ''first-cost barrier'' that now
holds many potential buyers back. Solar home heating may start
selling as well as solar water heating, the companies hope, and solar
energy in general may begin to challenge oil and gas, too, not just
electricity. ''A tax credit would make solar competitive with oil
today,'' asserts Bill L. Phillips, president of the American
Heliotherm Corporation, which recently acquired 92 percent of a
well-established Israeli solar equipment manufacturer.
    Like many of the small companies that pioneered the solar energy
business, American Heliotherm is based in Denver and sells mainly
west of the Mississippi. But Phillips points out that his company has
set up a network of 30 distributors to handle its products throughout
the country. He thinks the federal tax credits will have an
especially big impact in the East, where prospective customers tend
to be a bit more reluctant than they are in the West. He says the
company is ready to head East if the tax credits become law.
    The effect that tax incentives may have on the solar energy business
can be gauged in part by what has happened in California. That state
already allows a 55 percent credit on a solar buyer's state income
tax, up to a maximum of $3,000. Largely as a result of this,
California is the nation's leading solar energy state. It has a fifth
or more of all the solar systems installed in this country, according
to Jerry E. Cook, president of the California Solar Energy Industries
Association.
    But there are other, less tangible factors that also seem to account
for solar energy's success in California. For one, the sun plays a
bigger role in the lives of Californians than it does in those of
most Americans, and the solar companies are convinced that this
''solar consciousness'' is an important marketing ingredient. They
also point out that Governor Jerry Brown is an outspoken partisan of
solar energy. With not a little fanfare, Brown had a solar water
heater installed in his apartment, and he has personally requested
the state's leading contractors to offer solar systems in at least 10
percent of the homes they build.
    (MORE)
    
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n017  0732  29 Apr 78
 
BC-SUN 3dadd
NEW YORK: build.
    Such exhortations can have a surprisingly strong effect on solar
energy investments. A lot of people seem to buy these systems just
because they like solar energy, the manufacturers say. Part of the
appeal is environmental, of course. But solar energy also apparently
touches a deeper nerve; those who have made marketing studies say
solar systems represent for many people an independence - whether
real or symbolic - that is worth paying extra for.
    ''The overwhelming majority of people buying solar today are not
economically motivated,'' says A. Louis Shrier, general manager of
solar heating and cooling for Exxon Enterprises, a division of the
Exxon Corporation. Shrier is also a director of the Daystar
Corporation, an Exxon subsidiary that makes solar heating and hot
water systems. ''But people are buying anyway,'' he says, ''for
environmental reasons, for self-sufficiency, because this is a small,
alternative technology.''
    One attitude test also showed that some people are buying on the
premise of a very rapid rate of inflation in fuel costs, he added -
more rapid than most oil experts now predict.
    Shrier suggests that most of the growth in the solar business will
continue to come from these ''non-economic buyers'' for the next two
to three years. Consumers will then start insisting that solar
heating pay its way in the usual sense, he says, but by that time the
industry should have reached a critical mass.
    Important technological improvements may be achieved by then as
well. ''We're counting on having commercial solar cooling technology
in the early or mid-1980s,'' he says. The same system that heats the
home in winter would air-condition it in summer and therefore pay for
itself in half the time. Thus, enthusiasts such as Shrier think that
all-solar homes, with solar panels providing half or more of the
dwelling's heat, hot water and air-conditioning, will be economically
viable within seven or eight years.
    However, just about everyone involved in today's solar energy
industry points out that consumers are not likely to see the kind of
sharp drop in prices associated with the emergence of calculators,
for example. Regardless of technological improvements, only so much
glass, plastic, copper and aluminum can be eliminated from solar
panels and solar systems.
    ''I see prices coming down,'' says InterTechnology's Foote, ''but
not drastically.'' Others think the solar companies will merely hold
the present price line while gradually improving the efficiency of
their products and absorbing, at least for a while, most of the
inflationary increases in their materials and manufacturing costs.
    Meanwhile, the experts say the solar market should continue to
broaden as it grows in volume. Some companies already sell systems
for commercial use - schools are a prime target - and many observers
believe the industrial market, in particular, is ripe for
exploitation, especially where factories are being cut off from
natural gas.
    ''At the moment solar energy is cost-effective depending on where
you are and what you use it for,'' notes Anthony W. Adler, a solar
industry analyst with Wall Street's Muller & Company. ''But within a
year you will certainly be able to make the blanket statement that
solar is economical compared to electricity nationwide. And to date
the solar industry has not actively gone after the commercial and
industrial market.''
    
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a201  0900  29 Apr 78
AM-News Digest,
                               AP NEWS DIGEST
 
                               For Sunday AMs
 
    Here are the top stories in sight for AMs at this hour. General desk
Supervisor sam boyle can be reached at (212) 262-6093 for questions
about the news report, Photo Supervisor George V. Mikulec at (212)
262-8100 for those about photos.
 
                        THE COLLAPSE: WHAT HAPPENED?
 
    WILLOW ISLAND, W.Va. - John Peppler may never forget the day 51
bodies fell under a tangled mass of steel at a construction project.
Slug AM-Disaster Recap. New, will stand. Laserphotos staffing.
 
                          MORO PLEADS FOR HIS LIFE
 
    ROME - Another letter attributed to Aldo Moro pleads with fellow
Christian Democrats and Pope Paul VI to bargain with his terrorist
kidnappers for his life. Slug AM-Moro. New material, may stand.
Laserphotos ROM1, NY7.
 
                           ENERGY AIDE'S DONATIONS
 
    WASHINGTON - President Carter's choice as the Energy Department's
top lawyer donated money indirectly to congressmen who generally back
the oil industry, even though his Senate confirmation process was
well under way, government records show. Slug-Coleman. New, Should
stand.
 
                            PILOT PLEADS GUILTY
 
    MOSCOW - The Soviets say the pilot and navigator of a South Korean
jetliner downed in Russia admit disobeying warnings to land but have
been pardoned and are being released. Slug AM-Korean Plane.
Developing. Laserphoto covering.
 
                              CARTER COUPLES
 
    WASHINGTON - The husband and wife teams working for President Carter
have a lot in common. They work long hours and schedule their lives
tightly. And they make big bucks. Slug-Carter's Couples. New, will
stand.
                              WORLD AFFAIRS
 
    SALISBURY, Rhodesia - Maverick black cabinet minister Byron Hove
quits Rhodesia, leaving behind a potentially fatal split in the ranks
of the internal settlement team. Slug AM-Hove. New material, shouldd
stand. Laserphoto NY10.
 
    MEXICO CITY - The United States proposes measures to increase the
role of the International Monetary Fund in world currency operations,
a move that could prevent future erratic declines in the value of the
dollar. Slug AM-IMF. Developing.
 
    JERUSALEM - Unhappy days have befallen Israeli Prime Minister Begin,
who leaves Sunday for the United States amid signs of growing
impatience in the U.S. and at home with his policies. An AP News
Analysis by Arthur Max. Slug AM-Begin, New, will stand.
 
                                SPY TRIAL
 
    ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Constitutional issues that parallel and may
eclipse those of the Watergate era will be aired this week in the
trial of two men indicted on charges of spying for communist Vietnam.
New, Will stand.
 
                              PROTEIN DIETS
 
    WASHINGTON - Ninety-five percent of 200 obese rats died within a
month of being subjected to a liquid protein diet and another highly
restricted protein diet, and their deaths appear to bear striking
similarities to those of 16 women. Slug-Fat Rats. New, Will stand.
 
                              ELECTED OFFICIALS
 
    NEW ORLEANS - Ernest Morial, who will be sworn in Monday as the
first black mayor of this Deep South city predicts ''some people will
hate me, but most of the people of this city are going to be crazy
bout me.'' Slug AM-Morial. New, will stand.
 
    With undated rdp of primary elections in North Carolina, Indiana and
New Jersey.
 
                           SUN DAY IS WEDNESDAY
 
    NEW YORK - Millions of people around the world will celebrate ''Sun
Day'' this week in programs designed to nudge governments toward
providing additional aid to brighten the future of solar energy. Slug
AM-Sun Day. New, will stand.
 
                        BRAILLE BOOKS FOR THE BLIND
 
    ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The apartment is small. On a folding table, a
goose-neck lamp hovers intently over a Braille typewriter. Elsewhere
in America by AP Special Correspondent Jules Loh. Slug AM-Braille.
New, Will stand. Laserphoto NY12.
    
ap-ny-04-29 1203EST
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a213  1018  29 Apr 78
AM-Sun Day, Bjt, 2 Takes,490-780
Eds; Story also moved in advance on financial circuits
 
By MARTIN MERZER
AP Business Writer
    NEW YORK (AP) - Millions of people around the world will celebrate
''Sun Day'' this week - an observance that organizers say they hope
will ''launch the solar era'' much like ''Earth Day'' has helped bring
attention to the environment.
    Sun Day, devised as a one-time observance to encourage federal
officials to increase support for development of solar energy-related
technology, will be primarily observed on Wednesday, but solar energy
fairs, seminars, talks and tours of solar-powered homes and
facilities will continue throughout the week.
    ''This is definitely a citizens' event,'' said Peter Harnik,
assistant Sun Day coordinator for Solar Action, Inc., a
Washington-based public interest group that is official sponsor of the
affair.
    ''It was initiated by citizens, planned by citizens and the momentum
was generated by citizens,'' he said.
    Several important government agencies promised an estimated $2
million worth of exhibits, speakers and information to help make Sun
Day a success.
    ''The average program might include a sunrise ceremony of some sort,
a solar fair, demonstrations of technology and equipment . . . maybe
some music,'' said Harnik, 28, and a veteran of the Earth Day
movement, first observed in 1970. ''There also might be some gimmicks
like a 'Run for the Sun' jogging race, or a Sun Day art show.''
    In New York, a 5:57 a.m. ceremony called ''The Dawning of the Solar
Age'' will be held at the United Nations Plaza to symbolize the
worldwide observance that Sun Day organizers say will have activities
in 28 countries.
    Film star Robert Redford, an environmentalist whose Utah home is
solar-heated, his wife, Lola, and U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young will
headline the event.
    ''Solar energy is a great equalizer,'' said Mrs. Redford, president
of Consumer Action Now, Inc., a group founded to focus on
conservation and renewable resources. ''No one has fought wars with
it.''
    She said the U.N. program aims to demonstrate that ''renewable
resources are available to all nations.''
    Organizers of Sun Day are promoting heating and cooling through the
use of sunlight, photovoltaics (the production of electricity from
sunlight), wind power and biomass (the use of wood, grain and other
agricultural products as fuel).
    Administration energy officials can be divided into two basic
groups: Those who believe the answer to the nation's developing energy
crisis lies in more production of oil and gas and enhanced
development of nuclear power (called the ''hard alternative''), and a
smaller group which supports greatly increased development of solar
power (called the ''soft alternative'').
    ''Let's face it, this is a lobbying effort to put greater emphasis
on soft technology and people in the solar group are tickled to death
to see it,'' said one government official who asked not to be
identified. ''They got to (Energy Secretary James) Schlesinger and got
him to support it.''
    MORE
    
ap-ny-04-29 1321EST
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a214  1024  29 Apr 78
AM-Sun Day, Bjt, 1st Add,290
NEW YORK: support it.''
 
    But Department of Energy officials also hasten to point out that
government spending on solar energy technology has doubled in each of
the last four years, and funding for 1978 is set at $390 million.
    Among the most promising of the various experiments is a $120
million facilty planned for construction soon in the Mojave Desert
near Barstow, Calif. Some 2,000 sun-tracking mirrors, mounted on the
desert floor and controlled by a computer, will reflect sunlight to a
boiler 300 feet above the ground.
    Steam produced in the boiler then will generate electricity, which
will be included in the resources of Southern California Edison,
serving about 3 million customers in Los Angeles and elsewhere. If all
goes well, within three years utility customers - for the first time
anywhere - will be using electricity partially generated by the sun.
    ''Photovoltaics also is rapidly approaching the kind of price
breakthroughs that ought to help it make it into the market,'' said
Rhett Turnipseed, a DOE solar-energy expert. ''We expect to see some
explosive market development within a few years.''
    The market has already been developing. Sales of residential solar
heating and hot water systems more than tripled between 1976 and 1977,
and industry officials said that the results will be even better in
coming years if Congress finally breaks a year-long deadlock on a
federal tax-incentive program.
    Denis Hayes, an energy analyst for the non-profit Worldwatch
Institute who started Earth Day and came up with the idea for Sun Day,
has estimated that with effort, the world can abandon its dependency
on oil, gas, coal and uranium and derive 83 percent of ts energy from
the sun within the next 50 years.
    He said Congress should support a solar energy bank bill that would
set up $5 billion in revolving loans and a solar energy transition
bill to commit the federal government to using solar energy in new
construction and design changes in equipment already in use.
    
ap-ny-04-29 1327EST
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n054  1212  29 Apr 78
 
BC-CALIFORNIA I 3takes
This is the first of two articles on environmental developments in
California.)
    Man assuredly needs to rise above this humdrum ''world''; wisdom
shows him the way to do it; without wisdom, he is driven to build up
a monster economy, which destroys the world, and to seek fantastic
satisfactions, like landing a man on the moon. Instead of overcoming
the ''world'' by moving towards saintliness, he tries to overcome it
by gaining pre-eminence in wealth, power, science...
E. F. Schumacher
''Small is Beautiful''
By JOHN J. FIALKA
c.1978 Washington Star
    SACRAMENTO, Calif. - It has been three-and-one-half years since the
late E. F. Schumacher, a British economist and something of a guru to
the environmental movement, came to the United States and made his
first important convert, Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.
    Since then there have been a great many jokes about Brown's devotion
to ''woodchips and windmills.'' There has been a lot of Republican
hilarity over Brown's symbolic gestures to the cult of smallness, his
battered old Plymouth, his shunning of this city's palatial new
governor's mansion for a small apartment where the water is heated by
solar energy and where, it is said, the governor sleeps on the floor.
    But the laughter is beginning to subside because Brown appears to
have the backing of more than a few fellow converts in the state
legislature. The legislature is in the midst of approving funding and
programs that will mean that the philosophy of ''Small is Beautiful''
will have some not-so-small monuments here in the near future.
    Schumacher's philosophy, a combination of the teachings of Gandhi,
Buddhist economics and the metaphysics of Roman Catholicism, calls
for a rethinking of the nation's economy. Large scale, automated and
environmentally harmful technology is frowned upon; small scale,
simple, labor-intensive development is to be encouraged.
    ''Any third-rate engineer or researcher can increase complexity; but
it takes a certain flair of real insight to make things simple
again,'' wrote Schumacher in ''Small Is Beautiful.''
    One thing Brown has never lacked is flair. ''This is my platform,''
Brown said, waving Schumacher's book at skeptical reporters during
his short-lived campaign for the presidency in 1976.
    Brown continues to have his skeptics. However, while other
Schumacher disciples tinker with organic gardens, solar water heaters
and composting toilets, Brown has been tinkering with an
''ecologically sound'' government office building, a plan to heat a
sizable part of downtown Sacramento with gas from wood chips and a
new, permanent offshoot of the governor's office to ''lobby'' the
public and other government agencies to think small.
    A few blocks from the Capitol building, bulldozers are preparing the
ground for Site One, which will be one of the most unusual government
office buildings in the world. Initially designed by architects of
former Gov. Ronald Reagan to be a 16-story glass and steel tower,
Site One fell into the hands of Sim Van der Ryn, a former teacher of
architecture at Berkeley, who was named state architect by Brown.
    Van der Ryn, perhaps the most passionate supporter of ''small is
beautiful'' within Brown's inner circle of advisers, knew what he had
to do.
    ''Some people associate 'small is beautiful technology' with the
backyard,'' Van der Ryn recently noted. ''It's up to us to change the
perception. We have to make these ideas attractive to the
mainstream.''
    In short, he decided, things had to be built to show people that
Brown's commitment was both serious and reasonable. In Van der Ryn's
hands, the building intended for Site One underwent an amazing
transformation.
    Soon a squat, block-square, four-story building will rise on the
land; an odd, but not unpleasant-looking assemblage of concrete and
laminated timber. By using a variety of simple and unconventional
devices, it will require only 18 percent of the electrical energy
that a conventional office building would consume, according to Van
der Ryn.
    (MORE)
    
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n055  1219  29 Apr 78
 
BC-California I 1stadd
SACRAMENTO: Von der Ryn.
    The building undoubtedly will become a prime tourist attraction
because it will perform various functions in harmony with the weather
outside. When the sun comes up in the morning, for instance, a
computer will cause bright orange plastic shades to unroll on the
outside of the building, covering the windows facing east. In the
afternoon, as the sun swings west, the shades will go down on the
building's west side and roll up on the east side.
    Several thousand tons of rocks will be installed in the basement as
the main air-conditioning system in the summer, and as an adjunct to
the heating system in the winter. During Sacramento's cool summer
evenings, large fans will exhaust the day's heat from the building
and blow the night air through the rocks, lowering their temperature.
    During the day, the reservoir of coolness in the rocks will be
circulated through the building. ''We think we can provide up to 75
percent of the building's cooling needs by using that rock bed
intelligently,'' explained Scott Matthews, one of Van der Ryn's aides.
    The process will be reversed in the winter when the building's large
skylights will admit solar heat at midday to be stored in the rock
bed. ''In the morning we'll use it to preheat the building,''
Matthews added.
    The building will feature a large atrium and many balconies with
areas for growing plants. It will also have something called an
''ambient task lighting system,'' which will drastically cut electric
bills by substituting desk lamps and indirect lighting for overhead
fluorescent fixtures.
    Those who enter the structure will find themselves headed toward
attractive stairways. The building will have only three elevators and
those will be concealed from view to discourage their use.
    ''We don't want to be Machiavellian about it,'' explains Matthews,
''but we want people to know that it's healthier for them if they
walk up.''
    Critics have asserted that Site One will be ughly, dark and stuffy -
criticisms which Van der Ryn and his associates have rejected. The
state architect sold the legislature on the concept by telling them
the building will save $18 million in energy bills during its 50-year
lifetime.
    That, the legislators decided, was an appealing concept. At the
moment, Van der Ryn has five more state office buildings on the
drawing boards. Some of them will feature such things as sod roofs,
solar collectors and, undoubtedly, make Site One seem rather tame by
comparison.
    Another schumacheresque thrust began last year when state heating
plant technicians attempted to see whether they could make natural
gas out of walnut shells in a device called a gassifier, which can
turn organic wastes into a natural gas substitute by cooking them in
a high-temperature low-oxygen atmosphere.
    Like many Brown experiments, it may have started small, but it is
rapidly growing larger. The latest plan pending before the
legislature is a $2.5 million gassifier to heat 16 downtown state
office buildings with gas made from wood chips, corncobs, walnut
shells or any other wood-like wastes that can be obtained cheaply.
    According to Wilson Clark, Brown's principal energy adviser, the
gassifier will not only reduce the state's increasingly large gas
bills, but will also demonstrate ''a range of energy resources that
are unique to the state.''
    If properly used, according to Clark, California's plentiful supply
of agricultural wastes can offset the need for as many as 15 large
nuclear power plants.
    Clark also has been riding herd on a variety of Brown's solar energy
programs, including one that would encourage homeowners - through a
55 percent tax credit - to install solar heating devices.
    The Brown administration's goal is to convert 20 percent of all
homes and commercial buildings in California to solar water heating,
heat and air-conditioning by 1985.
    (MORE)
    
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n056  1229  29 Apr 78
 
BC-California I 2dadd
SACRAMENTO: 1985.
    Two years ago Van der Ryn, Clark and other members of Brown's inner
circle decided that setting up specific projects would not be enough
to implant small-scale ''alternative'' technology. What was needed
was ''a lobby inside government,'' a kind of Schumacher think tank
and experimental shop that would develop new ideas and prod other
agencies into using them.
    And so the Office of Appropriate Technology was born in a converted
former Mexican restaurant near the Capitol. OAT has had its ups and
downs. In the beginning there was a tendency toward ''adhocracy,'' as
one Brown aide put it. A flurry of projects was initiated. Fifty used
bicycles were purchased and parceled out to state agencies to
encourage office workers not to take cabs.
    Six solar heating experiments, including the one in Brown's
apartment, were hastily put up in a project that used federal funds
to train ''solar technicians.'' In the beginning the systems
frequently broke down, but Brown encouraged OAT by pointing out that
''the significance is not whether each project has reached the
pinnacle of perfection.''
    The solar devices, he said, promised many jobs in the future. It was
a small beginning, he admitted, ''but that is the way everything
begins. . . small is beautiful.''
    At the moment, all of OAT's solar devices are working, especially
the one in Brown's apartment. ''We're damn sure that one works,''
notes Bob Judd, director of OAT.
    Currently OAT manages the state's community gardens program and
parcels out small energy grants to inventors from funds donated by
the federal Department of Energy. (The largest grant in a recent
batch of $640,000 in DOE funds was awarded to a firm proposing to
build an aqua-powered barge to be anchored in a fast-moving current
and using water wheels to generate electricity for small communities.)
    OAT is also working on a water re-use program that would change
local building codes to allow composting-toilets and other devices
that do not dump sewage into municipal systems. Another OAT project
is to encourage local waste treatment plants to raise fish on the
algae created during the later stages of waste water treatment.
    Among OAT's future projects, as outlined by Van der Ryn, are ways to
''return to cottage-based industries such as greenhousing, animal
raising, personal services and handicrafts.''
    At the moment, however, one project overshadows the rest. That is to
convince the legislature that OAT, which up to now has been funded
out of the governor's office, should become an official arm of the
state government with an $800,000 annual budget and an authorized
staff of 30.
    Judd and some of the other OAT people have been worried about the
legislature's reaction. Republicans have made fun of some of OAT's
programs. ''Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or cry,'' Paul
Priolo, the State Assembly's minority leader, once remarked.
''California is facing tremendous problems. . . and what do we get
from Jerry Brown? Wood chips and windmills.''
    Under Ronald Reagan, of course, such an office would have been
unthinkable, but in the current political context, OAT may well be a
modest proposal. Tom Hayden, defeated in his 1976 bid for the Senate,
has recently attacked Brown for not going far enough in the pursuit
of alternative technologies.
    Hayden, currently the head of a group called the Campaign for
Economic Democracy, has presented the legislature with SolarCal, a
package of 13 bills which would give massive state aid to solar
energy - enough aid to solarize the entire state by 1990.
    Asked about the prospects for legislative funding for OAT, the wood
chip heating proposal and the other Brown proposals, Priolo admitted
they are good, despite Republican opposition.
    ''It appears he is going to get his way. It's mystique on the part
of the governor. Some of them (Democrats) are embarrassed by him, but
when it comes right down to push and shove, it looks like the
Democrats will give him what he asks for.''
 
    (NEXT: Big (and nuclear) ugly.
 
    NOT FOR USE IN BOSTON HERALD, QUINCY, DETROIT AND SAN FRANCISCO)
    
0429 1530pes
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