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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 13, 1980)
THE BATTALION Page 11 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1980 lectric car industry Carter eyes nuclear waste plan no funds to run on United Press International KLAHOMA CITY — Saying lie is tired of the Department of Energy’s “no action attitude, ’ the ^president of an electric car manu- facturing company has asked Congress to demand an account ing of the DOE’s handling of funding for alternate energy sources. K Pat Jacobs, president of JMJ Electronics Corp., sent a tele- Jjgram to each member of Con gress harshly criticizing the ' DOE. ■Jacobs' firm, one of several de- , veloping electric-powered vehi- 'Idles, has applied for $4 million in |federal funds. The DOE is pro- cessing paperwork authorizing $700,000 for JMJ, but the funding ; has been caught up in red tape for six months. ■JMJ Vice President Phil Lyon is convinced there is “someone in the Department of Energy that wants to see it (electric car con cept) fail.” Lyon said Tuesday he has talked with representatives of six other electric car manufacturers in the United States and all have had the same difficulty. He said JMJ, which has been working on the electric vehicle for more than a year, has received $10,000 in federal money. Research and development on the electric car costs an “enor mous amount” of money, Lyon said, and the DDE s failure to ex pedite funding has slowed the process. JMJ is turning out an average of one car per week and it should be producing 100 cars a day, he said. In a telegram sent to the more than 400 members of Congress, Jacobs said his firm is weary of the “total inadequacy, waste and basic ignorance of the Depart ment of Energy. “We are tired of spending more than 50 percent of our com pany’s time and money to help solve this nation s energy crisis,” Jacobs wrote. “Had the Department of Ener gy acted in an expedient manner two years ago to support the elec tric vehicle industry, we would today be saving thousands of bar rels of oil,” Jacobs said. The company purchases small car bodies from Chrysler and equips them with motors po wered by several large batteries. “Two years ago they (DOE) said they wanted to help small industry develop the electric car,” Lyon said. “We want them (cars) on the street.” United Press International WASHINGTON — President Carter Tuesday asked Congress for authority to establish the nation’s first comprehensive radiocative waste management program, saying it is needed “to protect the health and safety of all Americans. ” In a special message to Congress, Carter requested a go-ahead to pur chase a permanent disposal site for dangerous radioactive waste in some geological underground area and a storage pool for burned-out nuclear fuel. “Our citizens have a deep concern that the beneficial uses of nuclear technology — including the genera tion of electricity — not be allowed to imperil public health Or safety now or in the future,” Carter said. Carter said he will select by 1985 at least one permanent repository for high-level radioactive wastes from among 11 potential sites and have it operational by the mid-1990s. Carter also proposed a repository for spent nuclear fuel by 1983, and for legislation by 1981 allowing the government to buy at least one site away from reactors for storing spent fuel now accumulating at reactors. Possible sites for this facility are Barnwell, S.C., Morris, Ill., and West Valley, N.Y., officials dis closed. Carter said he is establishing a State Planning Council. It will have 19 members. Nuclear wastes are extremely dan gerous because overexposure to them can cause cancer and other biological damage. Administration officials said that among the 11 sites under considera tion for a waste depository are the Nevada test site where underground nuclear weapons tests are now con ducted; the Hanford, Wash., site where military nuclear wastes are currently kept and eight under ground salt domes in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. FOR YOUR VALENTINE Music boxes, jewelry and other gifts to say "I Love You" tumbleweeds could solve nergy problem, prof says j HAPPY COTTAGE (Across from Luby's) BEFORE THE BALL. Tuxedo and Shirt Rental and Sales United Press International EL PASO — The answer to the eBBon’s energy woes could be tumb ling along with the tumbling tumb leweed, one researcher says. r. Garry Hawkins, an assistant Jneering professor at the Univer- ofTexas-El Paso, says the lowly bleweed, trash dumps and old- ioned stills may offer a cheaper Bition to the gasoline shortage than ■ohol made from corn and other l r expensive farm crops. I 1- Blawkins said tumbleweeds, dis- ■ded wood, food wastes, paper and amnnber of other materials buried at , ... .^fcl dumps can be converted into ^ e J ac , ^ , ®anol using technology similar to officials evai jjjgj use( j bootleggers to foil the l £ e ’ “revenooers.’’ orkereintktwpthanol, the same type of alcohol ■xcept for str- at a neighborhood tavern, can control room ivpepixed with gasoline to make gaso il, and at a lower price than ethanol ■bduced from corn, sugar cane or crude oil m'4ther such cash crops, Hawkins said. :al plant. The!r| b aw kj ns j s heading a group of cessing crude ili|JXEP researchers who want to tap •els perdaysiijlocal vegetation and other resources 'egan Jan. 8, Tit for use in an El Paso ethanol manu- have been fat Jturing plant. ■■The researchers already have ■ted the idea on a farm near Marfa, pxas. The farmer wanted to clear flush and tumbleweeds from about 250 acres he planned to cultivate. Rather than burn the weeds and brush and pollute the air, Hawkins said the farmer purchased equip ment for his group to use for grinding up the weeds and brush, for extract ing sugar from the plant material and for the still which makes alcohol out of plant sugar. “Really, what we wanted to do is show people how easy it is to make the alcohol,” Hawkins said. “It’s an immediate solution to the problem, not something that’s 500 research projects down the road. The researcher said he opposes us ing corn to make gasohol because it is a food staple and Americans ulti mately might be forced to choose be tween driving less or eating less. “That is going to do nothing but drive the price (of gasohol) right up, ” he said. This arid West Texas area has little corn, but it does have a bountiful supply of tumbleweeds which heret ofore have been in zero demand and require little water to grow. Hawkins suggests wild tumb leweeds and waste materials can be turned into ethanol at roughly half the current $1.60 a gallon cost for ethanol produced from corn. 823 tons of trash is dumped at El Paso landfills each working day and Hawkins estimates about one third of the trash contains cellulose, the key to making alcohol. The scientist projected that 10,473 gallons of ethanol could be produced from the daily load of trash and is attempting to locate about $50,000 in research funds to join with the city in starting an alcobol demonstration plant. STOP SCROUNGING for class notes* readings and quizzes. Ask your prof if his/her notes* etc. are on file at KINKO'S — all copied and ready for you — or call us to check. KINKO’S COPIES 846-9508 SURPRISE YOUR VALENTINE. . . 846-1021 formals 111 College Main 846-4116 ORDER NOW 16”tax/doz. MKtax/idoz. FREE DELIVERY HOUSE 846-8422 OF 846-8386 ROSES 1901 BRIAR OAKS BRY. Kitchen and Bath Accessories in many prints & colors AT DISCOUNTED PRICES y 7996 FREE FRENCH FRIES ALLTHISWEEK. . . WITH THE PURCHASE OF A HOT HAM OR ROAST BEEF SANDWICH! THIN SLICED HAM AND ROAST BEEF PILED HIGH AND DRESSED THE WAY YOU LIKE IT AT DANVER S FAMOUS SALAD BAR. DANVER S ALSO OFFERS AN "ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT” SALAD PLATE AND FULL Vb LB. GROUND CHUCK HAMBURGERS AND CHEESEBURGERS. X TLr-i “FIXIN’S ARE FREE’ 201 DOMINIK COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS 693-6119 Joseph Francis Coates Tom Lawson McCall Langdon Winner Samuel C. Florman JS :iety lions may The 25th MSC Student Conference on National Affairs presents “TECHNOLOGY: TOOL OR TYRANT?’ February 13-16,1980 Rudder Theatre Wednesday, February 13 2:45 p.m. “Technology: It’s Past and Future” Thursday, February 14 10:00 a.m. & 2:00 a.m. “The Effects of Technology on the Environment Friday, February 15 10:00 a.m. i 6 55 JOSEPH F. COATES former Senior Associate of the Congres sional Office of Technology Assessment TOM LAWSON McCALL former Governor of Oregon & Environmentalist of the Year; 1974 “Implications of Technology for the Individual” LANGDON WINNER Associate Professor at MIT • Contributing Edi tor to Rolling Stone The Appropriate Technology Debate” SAMUEL C. FLORMAN author of “In Praise of Technology” and HAZEL HENDERSON author of creating alternative futures and formerly on the Advisory Council of the Office of Technology Assessment Saturday, February 16 11:00 a.m. “Technology is the Answer But That’s Not the Question MELVIN KRANZBERG editor of the journal Technology and Culture