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Press Conference of Frank Zarb, Administrator of the Federal Energy Administration; Robert Seamans, Administrator of the Energy Research and Development Administration; and Robert Fri, Deputy Administrator of the ERDA
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Press Conference of Frank Zarb, Administrator of the Federal Energy Administration; Robert Seamans, Administrator of the Energy Research and Development Administration; and Robert Fri, Deputy Administrator of the ERDA
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Digitized from Box 12 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JUNE 30, 1975
OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY
THE WHITE HOUSE
PRESS CONFERENCE
OF
FRANK ZARB
ADMINISTRATOR OF THE
FEDERAL ENERGY ADMINISTRATION
ROBERT SEAMANS
ADMINISTRATOR OF THE
ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION
AND
ROBERT FRI
DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR OF THE
ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION
THE BRIEFING ROOM
10:33 A.M. EDT
MR. GREENER: The Energy Research and Development
Administration is today transmitting to Congress, as
required by law, a comprehensive plan for energy
research, development and demonstration dealing with
the Nation's near-term, mid-term and long-term energy
needs.
I believe all of you have an ERDA press kit
which contains Volume I of the report which lays out
the energy plan. Volume II, which is a more detailed
analysis of the energy programs themselves, will
be forwarded to Congress in a few weeks.
Here today to review the highlights of the
report with you and to answer your questions are Frank
Zarb, the Administrator of the Federal Energy Adminis-
tration; Dr. Robert Seamans, the Administrator of the
Energy Research and Development Administration; and
Bob Fri, the Deputy Administrator of ERDA.
Frank?
MR. ZARB: Last fall, when ERDA was in the
process of being legislated into being, the President
reviewed -- in looking at a total energy program --
really three dimensions. He looked at the near-term
conservation necessities, he looked at the general
mid-term bringing on of additional resources, or that
which we could do within sight, and then examined the
overall research, development and demonstration program
that we had within Government.
MORE
- 2 -
His analysis led to the conslusion that we
were dispursed throughout Government, and the enactment
of ERDA was essential. As you know, he supported that,
and Congress did enact it. It became effective January 1.
At that time, the President directed the
Energy Resources Council and the Administrator of ERDA,
particularly, to develop a revised and comprehensive
energy research, development and demonstration program
taking from AEC, from the various elements of EPA, the
Department of Interior and so on, all of the various
principles and coming back with a recommendation for a
balanced program.
Bob Seamans and his staff have completed
that, the first cut, within the six months allotted
to them. The Congress' simultaneous enactment of ERDA
asked for a six month-report. Dr. Seamans has briefed
the President right along.
He did last week, and this morning presented
him with Volume I of a balanced energy research and
development program. Dr. Seamans will go over it
with you this morning. I gather he has had some back-
grounders during the course of last week, and he will
make available other technical people for subsequent
background during the course of today on some of the
more technical elements.
Bob?
MR. SEAMANS: Thank you, Frank.
This willjust be a brief summary of what
is in the report using charts that we used to brief the
President. Some of the charts are in the report itself.
This shows you what the problem is.
We have been increasing our use of oil and
gas so that now it is up to around 75 percent of the
total energy that we use. You can see right about in
here, in 1970, our domestic supply started going down.
This is our domestic production.
The question is, what is going to happen
in the future. We know there is going to be increasing
demands at the very same time that our domestic supplies,
which are limited, will be going down.
There will be some increase, of course, as
we come in from the Alaskan north slope, and there can
be some additional increase through advanced technology,
giving us better techniques for recovery from our
existing fields.
MORE
- 3 -
The same problem with gas. Take a look at
what the alternatives are. On this chart, you
see -- depending on the size of the square -- the
amount of energy that either we are using or that is
available.
This square here is the amount that we are
using annually. This is shown in quads. It happens
to be 73, but divide by two to get millions of barrels
a day so it comes out to 36 and one-half million
barrels a day.
Here, using the same scale, is the amount of
gas and oil that we have available. The little cross-
hatched area shows what we might develop with these
new recovery methods. From oil shale, we can get more
energy than we can from either the oil or the gas, if
we really learn how to retort it properly. Again, it
is a technical problem.
With coal, we have ten times as much again
that is wailable, maybe even more than that, if we
learn how to get the energy out without actually
hauling the coal to the surface so we can mine thin
seams and things of that sort.
Our present type of light water reactors
have tremendous amounts of energy compared to petroleum,
about two and one-half times as much remaining. And
we certainly ought to avail ourselves of that possibility.
If we go to the breeder, which means using a great
deal more of the uranium ore than we currently use
with our light water systems, why, we can go to just a
tremendous resource that could take this country 300 or
400 or 500 years into the future.
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- 4 -
You say what are the alternatives to the
breeder. The answer is solar, just a tremendous
amount of energy falling on the United States each
year. But there are some tricks in gathering in
that energy and converting it to electricity. Again,
we get into the technology and ultimately there is
fusion and there are a variety of ways of extracting
the energy in the fusion process, and we are working
on several.
Either of these two, essentially, give you
limitless supply. The breeder takes you, as I say,
for hundreds of years.
Now you get into the question of time.
We don't have much time. You notice from the first
chart that our present domestic supply of oil and
gas is going to run out in 35 years or SO.
If you look at this chart you can see that
back in the 1850s, we were using essentially nothing
but wood. Sixty years later we were using essentially
coal as 80 percent of our energy.
Now here we were with our oil and gas up
around 75 to 80 percent. But we have not got 60
years to convert to something else. As a matter of
fact, I don't think we should convert to just one
other possibility. I think in the future we should
have a number of options and that is the part of
the theme of this report.
Now, I won't take you through this in
detail, but this is part of a detailed analytical
study we carried out. We looked ahead the next 25
years and we projected how many passenger miles would
be needed each year and how much floor space and how
much you would have to heat and cool and all the rest
of it.
If we take no new initiatives we are going
to have to import increasing amounts of oil and gas
and these amounts will be clearly not satisfactory.
If we decide we want to conserve, which we certainly
must do, but do nothing else, we find we help ourselves
out the first 10 years but then again we start running
out of resources.
We can do things like come in with synthetic
fuels or electrify and we find that when we do that
we use too much coal. We could not mine all the coal
that would be required. We also find we have energy
in the wrong form.
MORE
- 5 -
We can't drive cars today with anything
but gasoline or diesel fuel. We can't drive with
electricity.
Some time in the future we believe we may
very well have electric cars and that is something
we are working on. But to bring the imports down,
we find we must have a comprehensive program where we
are bringing in lots of new technology, both the
conservation side, heating and cooling buildings
or more efficient automobiles, more efficient
methods for industrial processing, using our waste,
our municipal waste, and so on.
On the resource side, we have to get moving
with our nuclear program. You can see it is just
getting started down in this bottom chart, and use
it to generate electricity, use our coal in part to
increase our electrical output, but use the coal
primarily for synthetic fuels and for processed heat
for industry, and bring on our geothermal and
obviously do what we can to recover from our oil
and gas fields what is there.
For the long-term, when you get out here
and beyond, we want to be in a position to use some
combination of the breeder, fusion and solar electric.
We are going up to the Congress with a budget amendment
that calls for increased effort in fossil fuel, the
work I described -- in solar electric, geothermal,
in advanced energy systems and conservation, both of
which are getting at using our energy more efficiently
as well as with the fusion program.
In the nuclear area, we are reducing our
effort somewhat on the breeder this coming year and
using some of those funds to work on the fuel cycle.
This, as you know, takes you all the way from mining
to enrichment, to use, to taking care of the spent
fuel, recycling and waste management.
So out of this exercise we are coming in
with quite specific recommendations to the Congress,
and I am sure they will have lots of questions when
we get into it. But I think this does improve the
balance of the program and will get us on the road to
an effort that will give us more energy options in
the future than certainly we have today.
That completes my remarks, and if there
are any questions I would be glad to try and answer
them.
MORE
- 6 -
Q
Dr. Seamans, this appears to be a
very elegant framework for a policy that has been
evolving for some time. From a policy point of view,
is there anything significantly new in what you are
sending to the Congress?
MR. SEAMANS: Well, I think what you say
is true, that there has been a lot of discussion on
what we ought to do, and I think we have quantified
the need for conservation. I think the most immediate
gain we can get is to conserve and only part of it --
what I am talking about here -- is to conserve by
being more efficient, using our technology. Obviously,
there is a lot more to it than that.
It involves all the citizens in the country.
I think we now see clearly what the balance should
be between coal and the nuclear. We see the importance
of using our solar energy for heating and cooling of
buildings. I think we see more clearly the long-
range -- that we have got to come in in a 25-year
period with some form of energy that is going to be
available for a long, long period of time.
MORE
- 7 -
Q
Dr. Seamans, it looks like, based on
this chart, imports of oil and gas, with your different
scenarios -- and also they are outlined in the booklet --
that no matter how you slice it, we are not going to
be able to achieve the President's Project Independence
goal of no longer relying on foreign oil by 1985. Is
this right?
MR. SEAMANS: I think one thing that has to
be recognized -- and I perhaps did not make that clear
enough in this brief discussion -- that this is only
showing what you can do with your technology and it
assumes that you are going to keep our lifestyle and
our growth pattern the way it has been.
The President's program calls for doing a lot
more than bringing in new technology. There are other
ways of minimizing our imports. As a matter of fact,
if I am not mistaken, the President's plan still has
some imports in 1985. I believe the number is in the
order 3.5 million barrels a day.
Q
And you think that is a realistic goal?
MR. SEAMANS: Yes, I believe that is definitely
a realistic goal and one we should be working as hard
as we can toward for obvious reasons.
Q
Why does your report not show an equal-
ization or reduction or disappearance of imports until
1995?
MR. SEAMANS: What I show here are a number of
possible ways of proceeding with the technology. The
purpose of doing this is to show the trade-offs between
different technical efforts so that this should be
viewed that way, not in sort of absolute terms.
But the other part of the answer is that we
did not get into any econometric studies. We did not
get into what happens in the marketplace. We did not
get into market elasticity, and so on. That was all
contained in the independent study, and is really
more in the purview of the Federal Energy Administration.
Q
Is it more realistic to assume we are
going to be independent in 1995 or in 1985?
MR. SEAMANS: I think we can definitely achieve
the President's goal, as I just stated in 1985, and
we should be working toward it.
MORE
- 8 -
Q
Dr. Seamans, can you detail what is
happening to the fast breeder reactor, how much you are
going to cut it and the direction it takes you into.
MR. S EAMANS: When you get into the details
of this, we cut the budget in 1976 $71.4 million in
the breeder program. This is to get a better handle,
take the time to get a much better fix on the organ-
ization, to assemble a hard hitting project team for
Clinch River, definitely a review of the environmental
impact statement thoroughly and come up with my finding
on that which I will be announcing later today,
incidentally, and take the time to really put that on
solid ground and move out with the development which
we must carry out.
The purpose of the breeder is not to have a
commercialization by 1987 or 1989. The important thing
is to have an option in the 1900s -- 1990 and thereafter --
as to whether we go ahead and commercialize with the
breeder or commercialize with fusion or commercialize
with solar electricity or some combination of the
three.
Q
I missed the nature of your announcement
later. What are you going to announce?
MR. SEAMANS: There is an environmental impact
statement required by law before we do any construction
work at Clinch River. This was filed by the Atomic
Energy Commission back in December as a final proposed
environmental impact statement.
We have set up a team to review this, a review
team for me. They are coming in with their findings,
and I am about to make a determination and the deter-
mination in effect will say we believe that the environ-
mental impact statement serves as a basis for going
ahead with the research and development, but it does
not serve, in its present form, as a basis for making a
determination as to whether we should commercialize the
breeder.
More information will be required, and that
information will come out of the research and development
program.
Q
So, in part, your cutback is due to the
environmental impact statement?
MR. SEAMANS: It is due to a variety of
reasons. That is part of it. Part of it is management.
Part of it is our need to be moving more aggressively
with the whole fuel cycle.
Q Now you leave us up in the air. Does that
mean you are adopting as final the proposed final
statement or you are not?
MORE
- 9 -
MR. SEAMANS: It means I am accepting it as
a basis for determining whether to go ahead with the
research and development.
Q
Does that mean the drafting of that
statement is complete and it is a final statement?
MR. SEAMANS: There will be a requirement for
some additions to the environmental impact statement.
I will be calling on the Nuclear Program Office for
more specific details on how the research and develop-
ment is going to provide the information that will,
in the future, permit an adequate determination to be
made on commercialization.
Q
So that is not a final statement?
Q
In the past, though, you have talked
about 1987 as a target date for introduction of commer-
cialization of the fast breeder reactor. You do
now seem to have abandoned that as far as being a
firm target date.
MR. SEAMANS: That is correct. It is not a
firm target.
Q
How does your figure of $131 million
additional authorization compare with what the House
passed a week or so ago?
MR. SEAMANS: The House figures were roughly
$200 million over our request, and the Senate so far
appears to be about $300 million over our request.
Q
Does the plutonium have anything to do
with your decision to get away from this firm date on
the breeder a nd put it off?
MR. SEAMANS: Yes, we believe more medical
information is required.
Q
Are you going to go into that in detail
in discussing this later?
MR. SEAMANS: Yes, I think perhaps on another
occasion than this it will be more appropriate to go
into those details.
Q
Are you planning a public announcement
this afternoon on your breeder decision?
MR. SEAMANS: Yes, I am.
Q
What time?
Q
Where?
MORE
- 10 -
MR. SEAMANS: It will be over at ERDA head-
quarters, about four o'clock this afternoon.
Q
Can you tell us from this how much would
you expect -- are we going to be paying more for energy
wherever it comes from and how much more in the year
2000 and how much is this program going to cost to
develop?
MR. SEAMANS: I don't have all the run-out
costs for the year 2000 so I can't give that to you.
Our experiences so far in this country is that there
have been substantial reductions in the cost of energy
when going to nuclear.
When we go to solar, the energy itself, or
the geothermal comes free but obviously there are capital
costs involved. I don't think anybody can really answer
that question of yours.
MORE
- 11 -
Q
Dr. Seamans, a moment ago you said that
one thing this plan does is that you now see more
clearly the balance that has to be struck between coal
and nuclear. Would you tell us more about that? What
is it you see now that was not seen in this Government
a few months ago?
MR. SEAMANS: The thing that was not seen
is how you interconnect the sources to the end use.
One of the problems we have is our supplies of oil
and gas are depleted and there are certain uses that
are very, very dependent on energy in that form, as
for example, the automobile and the airplane and the
truck.
So this means we have to get moving
aggressively with a synthetic fuel program, a program
that the President had in his message, of getting
to one million barrels a day in the year 1985. That
is the start.
We have to move beyond that and in our plan
we talk about 8 to 10 million barrels a day, synthetic,
in the year 2000. This is to get energy in the right
form for certain of our end uses.
This means a tremendous load on our coal
mining industry, and that being the case, we can see
the need for electrification, using other than coal
to the extent that we can, and this is where the
nuclear program comes in, because it is a natural
for generation of electricity.
Q
Dr. Seamans, ERDA seems to be carrying
out a systemmatic campaign to convince us that you
are de-emphasizing and slowing down the breeder and
this report talks about how solar is taking on all
these dramatic new proportions and yet the budget
figures really don't reflect that, and your report --
when you point as specifically as it gets to where
energy will come from in the year 2000 -- you predict
far greater output from the breeder than from solar
or fusion, either one, so is this really a cosmetic
change or a real change?
MR. SEAMANS: It is a very real change, and
it seems to me that $19 million increase over $70 million
that we originally had in there, or about a 25 or 30
percent increase, is really very substantial.
When programs are just starting you really
have to look at percentage increases because it takes
time to build up the research capability in this country.
MORE
- 12 -
You really spend the money wisely, it takes
time to build up the project teams, it takes time to
really put the project together, so I consider that
we are going in the direction of substantially increasing
our solar and our geothermal effort even though the
numbers, absolute numbers, are still small compared
to absolute numbers for nuclear.
The nuclear program has been around a lot
longer. We can't turn these programs around in just
a matter of months. It takes years to build up a
good, sound program and that is what we are doing
in the non-nuclear area.
Q
Have you given any concern to environ-
mental matters in putting together your various options?
MR. SEAMANS: We have given a great deal of
thought to the environmental area and actually you
will notice in this report in the appendices we have
worked out not only data on supply and demand but also
on the environment itself, and the impact of these
various programs on the environment.
It is still preliminary but it appears that
the program that permits us to reduce our imports
to a maximum extent, it also looks to be the best from
an environmental standpoint.
Q
Dr. Seamans, the budget amendment requests
$26 million for fossil energy. What is that, specifically?
MR. SEAMANS: Fossil energy, of course,
includes work and coal. This particular item also
includes advanced recovery methods. If you want to
get the specifics on it, Bob Fri is here and he is in
charge of our budget task force and he can tell you
about that after the session.
THE PRESS:
Thank you very much, Dr. Seamans.
END
(AT 11:00 A.M.
EDT)