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The DaTTanon
Serving the University community
Vol. 76 No. 28 DSPS 045360 34 Pages In 2 Sections College Station, Texas Friday, October 8, 1982
ition is : K : ; ]
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Hydrogen fuel needs work
m
by Robert McGlohon
• [ Battalion Staff
The hydrogen production
BS3l6 Gall}', breakthrough that was announced
UrnitUre I Thursday is important, but it won’t
>w and Used ' ;chan g e the energy industry over-
fordable pi | ni g ht ’ sa y s Dr - J ohn °- Bockris >
irector of the Texas A&M re-
learch team that made the dis-
■ covery.
! Dr. Marek Szklarczyk, 31, of
. Poland, and Dr. Aliasgar Q. Con-
:»ca (Mi actor, 32, of India, developed the
Tprocess of efficiently and econo-
l* ». k: mically extracting hydrogen fuel
IK III ^ rom water us i n g solar energy.
"11 11 j 11; Research on the process has not
been completed, Bockris said. Sev-
|jbral years of laboratory and en-
i-gineering research, at the very
^ least, are needed before construc
tion can begin on the first pilot
plant, he said.
A commercial power plant
ased on hydrogen fuel will cost
between $3,000 and $4,000 per
ilowatt, he said. Large power
plants are typically about 2 million
Hulowatts in size.
You have to have a pilot plant
before you can get anywhere,” he
" aid. “You have to have a commer-
ial group, a company willing to
|put in the right money and with
he right drive to build all sorts of
auxilary things.
“It (commercial development)
[will take a very long time simply in
respect to the capital investment.
This isn’t particularly for our de
vice but for any new device.”
Contractor agreed that funding
may be a problem.
“It’s basically a problem of
changing the attitudes of the poli
cy- makers,” he said. “There are a
lot of vested interests that stand to
Igain or lose from this process.”
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Dr. Marek Szklarczyk, left, and Dr. A.Q. Contractor
the efficiency of their new hydrogen extraction process.
examine
staff photo by Diana Sultenfuss
a recorder that graphs
ble’s Book,
Bockris said the federal govern
ment probably will not help fi
nance the research if industry does
not.
“They (the federal government)
have a decreasing interest in all
alternate energy resources,” he
said. “Since Mr. Reagan came to
power they have cut back on every
thing except nuclear and coal.
Their attitude is to develop coal ...
and nuclear power. The whole
attitude of the Reagan govern
ment has been to cut back, cut
back, cut back.”
Bockris cited scientific and poli
tical reasons for this policy. The
nuclear industry is advanced and
the United States has abundant
coal deposits, he said.
“You can understand this atti
tude,” Bockris said. “I think it’s an
unwise attitude for the long-term
future, but it is understandable.”
Szklarczyk and Contractor have
been at Texas A&M less than a
year. Both scientists said Bockris,
long an advocate of hydrogen fuel,
was the primary factor in their de
cision to come to the University.
Contractor said: “As an elec
trochemist, it is an obvious thing
(to come to Texas A&M). Dr.
Bockris is the leading electrochem
ist in the world. Naturally I wanted
to work under him.”
Szlarczyk agreed, saying it was
correspondence with Bockris that
persuaded him to come to Texas
A&M.
“He is very helpful,” Szklarczyk
said. “He planned our work (and)
we often discussed our problems
with him. His theoretical know
ledge is vast. So he is able to help
from this point of view, and very
often he has very good advice in
the practical area, too.”
The process the team disco
vered involves three steps.
First, the sun’s energy is
absorbed by a solar receptor. In
this process, the solar receptor is a
silicon cathode.
The energy of the sun then is
used to excite an electron from a
state of low energy to a state of
high energy — where it becomes
reactive.
This electron combines with
hydrogen ions present in water to
produce hydrogen gas.
Bockris was careful to point out
that the Texas A&M team is not
the first one to separate hydrogen
from water. He praised the work
of Dr. Adam Heller of Bell Labor
atories, who recently achieved a 14
percent efficiency rate using in
dium phosphate.
“There is no doubt that his work
is excellent,” Bockris said. “(But he
used) indium phosphide, which is
see HYDROGEN page 12
[Jobless rate may hit 10% today
United Press International
■WASHINGTON — Industry and
labor economists expect the nation’s
jobless rate to break the 10 percent
level today, placing even greater
focus on unemployment in the
November congressional elections.
I Although President Reagan ack
nowledges the rate may climb into
double figures for the first time since
the Great Depression, he says — at
most — he should have to shoulder
only part of the responsibility.
1 In talking with GOP candidates at
the White House Wednesday, the
president pinned the bulk of the
fblame on policies of past Democratic
administrations.
I “I know lately there’s been a nice
game of saying, ‘Well, the tack today is
to blame those over the last 20 years
that caused these things and we don’t
take the blame for anything,” he said.
“No, I want to be fair. Unemploy
ment is 9.8 percent. When we took
office it was 7.4 percent. OK, I’ll take
blame for 2.4 percent of the unem
ployment.”
If it goes to 10 percent, he said,
“well, then I’ll take blame for 2.6 per
cent.”
For the past two months, the na
tion’s jobless rate has been at a post-
World War II high of 9.8 percent.
Throughout the industrial Mid
west, unemployment is the main issue
in the congressional elections, and a
major concern in races in other areas
of the nation.
In Peoria, Ill., where Caterpillar
Tractor Co. has laid off 8,000 work
ers, House GOP Leader Robert
Michel faces a serious challenge from
Democrat G. Douglas Stephens, a for
mer attorney for the United Auto
Workers union.
In Rockford, Ill., which had the na
tion’s highest jobless rate at 18.5 per
cent in August, Democrat Carl
Schwerdtfeger has focused on unem
ployment in his bid to unseat Republi
can Rep. Lynn Martin.
Throughout Michigan, the state
with the highest unemployment rate
— 15.2 percent — Democratic candi
dates are harping on joblessness as a
main campaign issue.
Lay-offs at International Harvester
in Indiana is a big focus of the cam
paign in that state, where four-term
Democrat Rep. Floyd Fithian is trying
to unseat Republican Sen. Richard
Lugar.
The Lugar campaign points to a
poll showing Lugar with a wide lead
even among the unemployed, and a
spokesman says: “It takes no talent to
moan and groan about how bad
things are. It takes a lot of talent to fill
up that factory.”
In Minnesota, unemployment of
near 20 percent in Duluth and near
40 percent among miners and steel
workers in the Iron Range has made
that the major issue in the race be
tween Sen. Dave Durenberger, R-
Minn., and Mark Dayton, the Demo
cratic-Farmer-Labor candidate.
Joe Smargia, president of a United
Steelworkers union local at Virginia,
Minn., thinks the wrong election is
being held in November.
“The problem is we can’t vote on
the right guy because Reagan isn’t
running,” he said.
Longshoremen’s union official E.
L. “Buster” Slaughter of Duluth was
blunt in his assessment.
“You hit a worker in the pocket-
book and you are asking for trouble,”
he said.
California Gov. Edmund Brown
Jr., who has attacked Reagan’s econo
mic program, believes his own Senate
campaign has felt the pinch of unem
ployment when he appeared in cities
with singer Kris Kristofferson and
comic Andy Kaufman.
Project
to aid
research
by Hope E. Paasch
Battalion Staff
A proposed Texas A&M research
park will give faculty and students the
opportunity to gain industrial re
search experience at Texas A&M
University, the chairman of the park
development committee says.
Dr. Frank W.R. Hubert said the
park will be owned by the University,
but research operations primarily will
be run by private companies.
Research at the park, which is in
the early developmental stages, will
support and enhance research at the
University, he said.
“Tenants will have operations that
find a counterpart in the University,”
he said. “Types of research will in
clude basic science, engineering, agri
culture and both human and animal
medicine — anything that would fit in
with research at the University.
“It’s an interesting project. Over
the long term, the park will increase
support for research and teaching
programs at the University.”
While companies at the park will
hire professional scientists and en
gineers, Hubert said, faculty will have
frequent opportunities to consult
with them.
“There also will be opportunities
for University faculty to invite resear
chers in for lectures on the current
state of the art in industry,” he said.
“Once the professional staff is in
place, the companies will probably
employ, on a part-time basis, gradu
ate students or maybe even undergra
duates to assist with the execution of
research activities.”
The real-world experience stu
dents gain from working at the park
will increase their chances of getting a
better job after graduation, Hubert
said.
A park site has not been found, but
the committee will make a site recom
mendation by January. The site will
be between 500 and 600 acres and will
be near the campus, he said.
“Once the site is selected and
agreed upon, the next step will be to
develop a master plan,” Hubert said.
“A master plan will include where the
roads will be, gutters and utilities. It’s
not an overnight operation. I estimate
it will be a minimum of a year to 18
months before the site is ready for
occupancy.”
Industries that move into the park
will lease a lot from the University,
pay for construction of facilities and
pay a monthly income to the Universi-
ty. At the end of the lease period, the
property and any permanent Fixtures
on it will revert to the University.
Police stumped in Tylenol case
Poison records seven deaths
United Press International
I CHICAGO — Police admit they
don’t know how cyanide got into the
ExtraStrength Tylenol capsules that
killed seven people, and the head of
the 130-member task force says the
investigation is “not close” to the
! killer.
j Officials Thursday ruled out any
^ connections between the April death
• of a Philadelphia graduate student
'.and the Chicago deaths blamed on
tylenol capsules filled with poison.
“We are not close to making an
arrest,” said Illinois Attorney General
Tyrone Fahner, head of the 8-day-old
[investigation.
Fahner said although no signifi-
ant developments had been unco-
jjvered since Wednesday, he still was
inside
Around town 4
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What’s up 13
forecast
Today’s Forecast: High in the
high 80s, low in the upper 60s. Six-
1 ty percent chance of rain later
today.
“personally optimistic” about finding
the killer.
Among the most recent leads being
looked at were telephone calls from
“four or five psychics whose informa
tion has been duly noted,” he said.
More than a dozen other deaths
and illnesses in California, Wisconsin,
Ohio, Kansas, Tennessee and Texas
also have been discounted.
“The evidence indicates there is no
connection with our problems and
any place else in the country,” Fahner
said.
Chicago Police Superintendent
Richard J. Brzeczek said he was confi
dent the case would be solved, but
admitted officials were left with no
hard suspects and few promising
leads.
“As times passes from the initial
event, it becomes more difficult,”
Brzeczek said.
Authorities narrowed a list of 24
suspects to “eight or nine.”
“We’re still in the process of trying
to understand the scenario of events
as to how the cya
ide got into those bottles,” the super
intendent said. “That’s what you need
to do to tie it in with a specific person.”
Philadelphia police said they in
tended to continue their investigation
into the April 3 death of William Pas-
cual, 26, a University of Pennsylvania
graduate student.
The case was reopened when
cyanide was discovered in an Extra-
Strength Tylenol bottle found in Pas-
cual’s home.
“All these people are doing the best
they can to see their communities are
safe,” Fahner said.
Chicago police abandoned plans to
send officers to Philadelphia to ques
tion a friend of Pascual’s after the FBI
and Philadelphia police administered
a lie-detector test and released him.
The friend reportedly had a brother
in the Chicago area he visited in April.
Industrial sabotage at manufactur
ing plants also has been ruled out be
cause the capsules were in different
locations and in containers carrying
differing lot numbers, Fahner said,
making such sabotage “a mathematic
and physical impossibility.”
3 Aggies chosen for state
high court staff positions
by Dawson Clark
Battalion Reporter
Three Texas A&M graduates are among the 18 state
Supreme Court briefing attorneys recently chosen from a
field of 170 applicants.
“It’s a credit to Texas A&M that we graduate such
superior students who go on to law school and do so well,”
Justice C.L. Ray said. Ray, a member of the Class of’52,
was elected to the Texas Supreme Court in 1980 — the
first Texas A&M graduate to serve on the court.
Briefing attorneys usually are involved in legal re
search.
The three former students chosen are Robert Seibert,
who attends South Texas College of Law in Houston;
Thomas Lyles, from Southern Methodist University
School of Law; and Jay Henderson, from Baylor School
of Law.
Seibert and Lyles graduated from Texas A&M in
1979; Henderson graduated in 1980.
The students will begin their tenure as briefing attor
neys in August. Ray said the appointments will greatly
enhance the students’ careers. Seibert agreed: “It’s a defi
nite plus for my future. It puts me in the limelight with
other attorneys.”
Lyles was equally pleased.
“It gives me a chance to see a lot of different areas of
law and gives me one more year to decide which area I
want to go into,” he said.
staff photo by Irene Mees
Decisions, decisions
Julia Sloan, a freshman journalism major from Hurst,
casts her ballot in Wednesday’s freshman class elections.
For results, see story page 4.