n111  1733  02 May 78
 
BC-SUN DAY 2takes
By GLADWIN HILL
c.1977 N.Y. Times News Service
    NEW YORK -''It is now possible to speak realistically of the United
States becoming a solar society. A national goal of providing
significantly more than half of our energy from solar sources by the
year 2020 should be achievable if our commitment to that goal and to
conservation is strong.''
    With these words from the Federal Council on Environmental Quality
as a keynote, the United States, along with many other nations, will
interrupt accustomed pursuits Wednesday to mark Sun Day with
observances organized $+environmentalists and others to extol the
earth's oldest, and potentially newest, major source of energy.
    The council's judgment, published a few days ago, represents the
latest and most comprehensive assessment of the status of an
incipient revolution in the nation's power supplies.
     It is a development fraught with uncertainties and controversy.
    Nonrenewable energy sources, chiefly the oil and gas that now
provide 75 percent of the nation's energy, are steadily shrinking.
Coal and uranium, to fuel atomic power plants, are relatively
plentiful but face eventual exhaustion.
    It is generally conceded that eventually man will have to rely
heavily on limitless power sources: the various forms of solar
energy, wind power, ocean heat and ''biomass'' conversion, the
extraction of energy in the vegetation.
    Fifteen thousand times as much energy as the world currently
consumes reaches the earth from the sun daily, so the conversion of
only a small fraction of what is available would meet current needs.
    The Council on Environmental Quality says that facilities to
completely solar-power the United States would require only 1 percent
of its land area, or one-seventeenth the amount of space devoted to
crops.
Currently, solar energy is competitive in price with established
fuels only in a very limited number of applications and situations.
    Authorities say that solar water heating in homes, costing as little
as $1,500 a unit, can pay for itself fairly soon, and that
solar-assisted building heating and cooling can make economic sense.
Supplementary solar space heating for homes, lacking mass production
economies as yet, costs from $6,000 to $20,000, making it a doubtful
proposition.
    But conventional fuel costs are rising, and costs of solar equipment
are being reduced rapidly. It seems inevitable that the two curves
will cross each other, with solar heating becoming more advantageous
on the basis of expense alone.
    Accordingly, the main points of the current uncertainty and
controversy are the factors of time and cost. How far off is general
solar feasibility: 10 years, 30, 50? To what extent can the time be
shortened by spending money? How much money is it worthwhile to
spend? Are current cost comparisons between solar energy and
conventional fuels, with the latter's invisible charges and the
hidden subsidies, valid?
    Federal officials, many people in industry and many laymen have
tended to consider solar power as a ''long-range'' matter.
    But there are already 30,000 homes, from Florida to California, with
solar water heating; scores of buildings with solar-assisted heating
and cooling, and hundreds of companies making solar-energy hardware.
    The differing outlooks are illustrated in contrasting forecasts. The
Solar Energy Industries Association estimates that 11 million homes
will have solar heaters by 1985; James R. Schlesinger, the Secretary
of the Department of Energy, foresees only one-tenth that many.
    Consequently, solar energy enthusiasts are accusing the Government
and big business of dragging their feet. They contend that ''solar is
here'' and with adequate financing and support could be a fixture in
just a few years.
    (MORE)
    
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