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