Answer: The 10MWe Pilot Plant at Barstow has completed one and one-half years of the planned two-year test and evaluation phase. The three year power production phase will being in August, 1984. R&D? Central Receiver R&D Question: Explain the reduction in central receiver Answer: Central receiver R&D is funded in FY 1984 at $19.98 million and the request for FY 1985 is $15.33 million. The major reductions result from decreased funding requirements during FY 1985 for the 10 MWe Pilot Plant and Repowering activities. Research associated with addressing longer term uncertainties regarding central receiver concepts has received increased emphasis in the FY 1985 program proposal. Solar Buildings-Heat Transfer Analysis Question: Explain the reduction in heat transfer systems analysis? Answer: Research activities which can affect the control of solar gain, light admittance, and heat loss were among the highest priority recommendations of the Building Energy Research Workshop held in January 1983 at Carmel Valley, California, and jointly sponsored by the House Science and Technology Authorization Committee and organizations of the building industry. The proposed budget for the Solar Buildings Energy Systems shifts the primary emphasis from heat transfer systems analysis to aperture and thermal storage materials research which responds appropriately to recommendations of the Workshop. Solar Energy Research Institute Question: What role does SERI play in the overall Solar and Renewable Strategy? Are there plans to expand this role? Answer: The Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) began operation in July 1977 and functions as a Government-owned contractor-operated DOE laboratory to perform research, development, testing, and related functions as necessary to establish solar energy technologies as viable components of the national energy supply network. Over the past few years, SERI has made substantial contributions to an increased understanding of the basic solar energy phenomena and the potential viability of several promising solar energy conversion technologies. SERI has matured significantly and is rapidly progressing toward national and international preeminence in solar energy and the related sciences. SERI will continue to serve as a solar research center of excellence for the foreseeable future. Geothermal Loan Guaranty Program Question: What is the status of the Loan Guaranty Program? Answer: In a March, 1982 Federal Register Notice, the Department noted that pending applications exceeded the remaining loan guaranty authority of the Department, and therefore suspended applications for new projects for the foreseeable future. The Department has now made decisions on 9 of the 11 applications then pending, bringing the Government's total commitment and loan guaranties issued to $289.4 million under this program. Two applications are still in process, totalling $101 million. In addition, follow-on guaranties for the construction of revenueproducing power plants may be required for two existing Governmentguarantied projects. Current planning thus anticipates the possible use of all available loan guaranty authority. Hot Dry Rock Question: Comment on the recent developments in the Hot Dry Rock project? Answer: In December 1983, a massive hydraulic fracturing experiment was conducted at the Fenton Hill Hot Dry Rock Site in New Mexico. Nearly 6 million gallons of water were injected into 240° C crystalline rock at a surface pressure of 7,000 psi and at pumping rates in excess of 1,000 gallons per minute. Although the resulting fractures did not intercept the other well and thus produce a circulation loop, the total fractured region is very large, approximately 800 meter by 400 meters by 300 meters, and probably contains interconnected cracks throughout a volume of about 1/10 cubic kilometer. Plans are now underway for establishing a flow connection with this man-made geothermal reservoir, which could sustain a heat-removal rate of as much as 40 thermal megawatts over a 10-year period. Deep Scientific Well Question: Explain the importance of research involving the deep hydrothermal well. Answer: The Department is proceeding with a competitive solicitation to drill or deepen a well in the Salton Sea geothermal area for scientific investigations with funds provided in FY 1984. Geothermal technology experiments and reservoir engineering studies are to be supported with FY 1985 funds requested. The total activities thus funded will include the engineering aspects of providing the deep hole and a number of cores, fluid samples, and measurements to characterize the geothermal potential of the borehole. This well provide the opportunity to gain understanding of the nature of potential reservoirs beneath known high-temperature hydrothermal reservoirs, and a chance to study rock-fluid interactions under physical and chemical conditions never before explored. Additionally, an increased knowledge of the genesis of ore forming minerals through analysis of high temperature, high-salinity brines is offered. Geopressured-Methane Question: What is the status of the Geopressured Methane program? Answer: Two of the Department's geopressure design wells in Louisiana are undergoing flow testing. A third well, in Texas, is undergoing remedial work. The Department is negotiating with the Electric Power Research Institute for a cooperative experiment to generate electric power from heat content of the geopressured brine produced from one of these wells. Energy Storage Question: What is the reason for the reduction in thermal and mechanical storage? Answer: The normal budget constraints dictated that the highest priority projects be funded. The hydrogen and thermal storage projects ranked highest; funding is proposed for these in the Department's FY 1985 request. With respect to the other unfunded energy storage projects, our generic flywheel research has recently been completed, and other agencies are considering further work for their particular application (NASA and DOT). Regarding compressed air, the Compressed-Air Storage Facility at Pittsfield, Illinois, was transferred to the Electric Power Research Institute in FY 1984 for their confirmation testing. As a result, funds were not requested in FY 1985 for compressed-air storage. We now know that the concept of seasonal thermal storage appears doubtful in practice for large-scale applications mainly because of very uncertain environmental impacts. As a result, this project ranked lower in priority and funding was not requested to continue this work. The projects on hydrogen and thermal storage still show the potential for significant petroleum energy savings and were recommended for funding in FY 1985. ELECTRIC ENERGY SYSTEMS RESEARCH Question: Explain your plans for the phase down of the Hawaiian deep water cable project? Answer: We are continuing the development of the Hawaiian deep water cable project. As you noted we have not requested funds for FY 1985 but that will not slow down this project. To date $10.8 million has been appropriated and the project has spent less than $2 million. Delays have slowed the spending, but they have also allowed a strengthening of the research and development plans. We will soon have the basic parametric studies from Hawaiian Electric Co. which will show the cable options as they relate to the potential choices for ships to deploy or retrieve the cable, and also as they relate to the sea route and its characteristics. We are optimistic that this work will produce a new level of technology useable in other deep water submarine cable installations. Question: How much is requested for EMP research? What is the total cost of this effort? Explain in detail any action to ensure that this work does not duplicate other federal efforts. Answer: The Department has requested $3 million for the electromagnetic pulse research in FY 1985. At this time I cannot tell what the total program will cost, but for a very good reason. We have designed this EMP research to be a careful, deliberate effort with numerous check points. After we understand how this unusual transient couples and interacts with the electric networks, we will assess what might be the probable damage level of such an event. From this we will adjust the program up or down to reflect that assessment. If it is shown that major damage could occur on certain electrical equipment, a test program with commensurate funding will be required to evaluate the impact and explore remedial options. In a similar way we have painstakingly sought out the federal agencies involved, and interested, in EMP research. As your question implies, we also do not want to duplicate the work of others, but we did find that no other federal or private group is looking at the impact of EMP to the nations's transmission, distribution or electrical control facilities. Each agency we've talked to has encouraged us and supported our research plan. To date we are in contact with the Defense Nuclear Agency, the Air Force Weapons Lab, the Corps of Engineers, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Oak Ridge and Sandia National Laboratories, numerous universities, and all of the EMP research groups supporting the Defense Department. We invite these people to our contract reviews; they keep us informed on their work and provide the results of past research which may be relevant to the DOE effort in power systems impacts. Increased Management Attention Question: Discuss the Department's "increased management attention" to environmental and safety functions. Answer: The recent realignment of functional responsibilities within the Department placed the Office of Environment, Safety and Health under the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Safety, and Environment. This change eliminated the previous split in management focus whereby the Assistant Secretary was responsible for both safety and environmental oversight as well as for several major outlay programs which required substantial management attention. The change has resulted in increased management attention to the Department's environmental programs and its nuclear and operational safety functions in headquarters by the Secretary and Program Assistant Secretaries and in the field by Operations Office Managers and Laboratory/Production sites' Directors. This in turn is expected to bring about an increased awareness and emphasis Department-wide on the safe, and environmentally sound operation of DOE activities. the Nuclear Safety Program Increase Question: Comment on the need for the $5 million increase over Answer: Of the total $5 million increase for the Environment, Safety, and Health Program, $4.7 million is directed to the nuclear safety component. To further amplify on what I said in my formal statement, this increase provides some expansion of the efforts in all categories of the nuclear safety component. These categories are identified in the breakout I have provided for the record and the principal increases are discussed below. The largest increase is the $1,510,000 for emergency preparedness, which will go to expand the operational capability of the unique resources maintained by the Department to monitor and assess any accidental release of radioactivity from a nuclear operation. The increase will be directed largely to the comprehensive integrated remote sensing effort, which will provide extensive multispectral scanning, large format aerial photography and airborne nuclear radiometric information to characterize all DOE sites and to serve as baseline data for comparison in the event of an emergency. The protection of the radiation worker is directly keyed to our ability to accurately measure his radiation exposure and environment. At the present time, some serious problems in the measurement technology continue to exist. Further, a scientific data base is necessary Department-wide to assist in countering the impracticability of recently proposed national/international standards and regulations. The experience of DOE at the laboratory level must be brought to bear to bring about more realistic standards and regulations. Finally, performance standardization in dosimetry instrumentation is essential to an upgraded DOE radiation protection program. The $1,220,000 increase in health physics will permit greater efforts in these critical areas. The $940,000 increase in criticality safety is needed to establish a nuclear criticality safety program which has Department-wide applicability. Specifically, the funds would be used to update nuclear safety guides and documents, some of which are over 20 years old, to develop and maintain state-of-the-art computer computational techniques, and to validate an improved measurements capability. We believe these efforts have the potential for permitting significant reductions in safety conservatisms, without compromising the level of protection provided, as more reliable criticality safety information is developed and validated. Initial efforts in the training program area after the Three Mile Island accident were directed at improvements in policies, requirements and guidelines for selection and training of reactor operations personnel. These efforts are to be continued with emphasis on improving the quality of reactor operator training programs. The $505,000 increase will be used to expand our efforts directed to the training of operating personnel for nonreactor nuclear processing facilities, which is equally important as those for reactor operations. Initiatives in this area will include the application of performance based training methods to chemical process operator training programs, development of generic training materials, and workshops for contractor training managers. Funding for Operational Safety Question: Please provide for the Committee additional justification for the increase in operational safety. |