ENERGY RESEARCH $EVENTY FOUR

Phase I of Nixon's proposal to accelerate energy research and development (Sept. AtE) was spelled out in detail by the White House last month. An additional $115 million is to be committed to energy R & D in fiscal 1974, bringing the total up to $1 billion.

Almost half of the proposed increment goes to coal, and of that, $19 million is planned for coal liquefication; environmental control and environmental effects are increased by more than $17 million, and from $5 to $7 million each goes to geothermal energy, energy conversion (including solar), energy conservation, nuclear reactors, automotive energy, nuclear fusion, and other programs.

The total proposed R & D budget presents a different picture. More than half of the total $1 billion is alloted to nuclear fission, most of it for the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor; a far behind second is coal with $165 million; then comes environmental control with about $59 million, nuclear fusion ($58 million), study of environmental effects ($44 million), and the other groups range from $11 million to $23 million each, not counting electric transmission, distribution and storage, which is down for only $6.5 million.

The proposed budget has been criticized on several grounds. The total of $1 billion, with the energy crisis threatening national security, is not very much (it is about as much as what is spent on welfare in NesYork State); but considering merely percentages, there is the question of whether half of the available money should be gambled on the success of the liquid metal breeder, and whether some of the $44 million alloted to environmental effects (excluding environmental control, such as detoxification of stack gases), most of which will probably end up in controversial reports, had not been better spent on nuclear fusion with its vast potential for a very low environmental impact.

Conspicuous by its absence is hydrogen technology; and perhaps the greatest single eye sore in the budget is oil shale, which is down from the 1973 level to a meager $2.3 million.

Nevertheless, the proposed R & D budget is a step in the right direction, and one wishes it good luck when it faces the Proxmires and Muskies.