catalytic systems permit new operational concepts such as zone heating systems distributed through a building. Development of such systems for oil though, involves solving further and perhaps more difficult research questions. Research in this area will explore these new system concepts through development of computer models, design approaches, building of conceptual devices and characterizing them for important functional parameters, and further identifying benefits and drawbacks of such new approaches. For instance, the real potential for pulse oil-fired systems may be as a condensing flue gas system -- an incredibly efficient combination in which some of the problems of condensing operation are mitigated by the benefits of pulse combustion and vice versa! This work may utilize results from several of the other research elements, particularly diagnostics, heat exchangers and oil burning technologies. Improved Control Strategies Conventional control systems and strategies have not benefitted from recent advances in sensors, microprocessors and systems engineering. Burner on-off cycling causes significant heat loss during the burner off-period that reduces the overall seasonal heating efficiency of the unit. Because burner modulation is impossible with current designs heating systems turn on and off far more than ideal, and cannot be adjusted to only heat occupied portions of a building. Improved control of combustion equipment, once combined with knowledge of building and distribution system thermal control, will lead to up to 40% fuel savings, particularly when combined with improved burners that permit modulation. Research needs for control strategies include work to understand the way buildings and their occupants interact with equipment as well as work on the best way to control the equipment itself. The former work is part of a separate ECEP project, especially insofar as it is independent of the type of cooling or heating equipment involved. Research areas under investigation here include strategies for controlling equipment based on the thermal and mechanical behavior of the burner, heat exchanger and other parts of the equipment. This requires measurement of thermal time constants of components and correlating these with heat losses in order to develop guidelines for the best possible control strategies. C) The final grouping is critical for this type of large, multifaceted research effort, and has thus been put in a separate category. Actually technology transfer is an integral part of every research area discussed above; this effort has additional goals and funding over and above such work. Education/Technology Transfer Conventional oil-fired systems, though technically simple, require considerable attention in order to perform at their best. Although their best is not very good, the level at which they actually perform given haphazard and ill-informed attention is much worse. In the near term, as much as 25-30% fuel savings can be reached by simply coordinating educational efforts of the heating oil community. Department of Energy involvement, for instance, means a great deal, and costs very little. In addition, such efforts give researchers valuable contacts within the user community that are the key to providing usable, effective new concepts. These contacts will help facilitate technology transfer as research results are achieved, as it is axiomatic that the best transfer occurs between industrial and research practitioners rather than managers. Key educational and technology transfer activities will include a large number of laboratory visits, production of special documentation, and holding industry workshops. All such efforts will be tied to specific technical research elements outlined here. PROGRAM RESOURCES AND MANAGEMENT This section outlines possible program management and preliminary resource plans. MANAGEMENT The liquid-fueled equipment project should become one of several key elements of the Energy Conversion Equipment Program (ECEP), which is in the Office of Buildings and Community Systems in the Department of Energy. A decentralized management plan is used in ECEP, whereby the technical resources of the national laboratories are used for program management functions and performing research, while program direction and policymaking is the responsibility of DOE headquarters. Brookhaven National Laboratory should have program management responsibilities for this oil-fueled equipment research. Brookhaven will issues Requests-ForProposals, evaluate proposals, execute contracts and monitor contractor performance, and otherwise perform the bulk of the interaction with universities and manufacturers. It will also perform a variety of in-house research which it is best suited to do, and coordinate technology transfer on work done in-house and by others. Finally, Brookhaven will continually interact with DOE headquarters, serving as the primary information channel for program control as well. This activity is typical for ECEP and other DOE research programs. RESOURCES This project as outlined will develop a large number of improvements to current capabilities of oil-fired equipment and its use. Some of the planned improvements should be completed within one or two years; others will take longer. All work is expected to take place within a funding scenario of approximately $2 million per year in real dollars. Funding on specific research elements is expected to shift somewhat as various stages on the various elements progress and trade off against one another. The Departments of Fuels Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering, and Chemical Engineering of the University of Utah have been conducting research for the development of U.S. tar sands for the past 12 years (see chart). As far as we know, our program is currently the only active program in the U.S. researching mining and above-ground technology recovery. Over the past 12 years we have achieved notable success in developing the scientific and engineering data necessary for commercialization of this important resource. The faculty members working on the program possess extensive industrial experience and are highly regarded. We have been called upon frequently by government and industry to supply information for their studies and to assist in their decision-making process. No less than a dozen major energy and engineering companies have visited our facilities to obtain information for in-house programs and for assisting in corporate decisions regarding leasing and development. At least one significant company merger can be directly attributable to the results supplied by our work. We have no good way of valuing other less tangible benefits. However, over 20 M.S. and PhD. degrees have been granted in our tar sand program and the list of scientific publications resulting from the program now number more than 60. The state of Utah, which with its major tar sand resources makes it the 2nd largest petroleum resource state in the union, has an active interest in tar sand development. Since 1981 Utah has matched $1 for every $2 in research funding provided by DoE for our program. We have recently learned that the DoE budget proposed for FY '87 calls for no further funding of tar sand research. We feel that discontinuing funding of tar sand research would result in significant adverse impacts for the country. First, it must be understood that domestic tar sand resources are petroleum-like in nature and products from this resource are more readily refinable than would other unconventional sources of hydrocarbons. Tar Sands could contribute to our nation's energy supply in the shortest period of time, but additional research is required before this will happen. Second, economics of commercialization do not appear to be necessarily the major constraint to development. A far greater constraint in our judgement is the fragmented lease positions in which logical development units have never been delineated. This has resulted in a situation, especially in Utah and perhaps elsewhere, in which leases are generally held by speculators with no research ability while major industry, with the research ability, does not hold the leases and has little incentive to either block up the leases or invest funds in research. Third, the technological research needs relate principally to the variability in the resource, both geological and chemical. These variations prohibit direct adaptation of technology developed for Alberta, Canada resources. As a matter of interest, Alberta has consulted with us on various occasions regarding our findings to assist in their future developments. We feel there is a high probability that some of our technology will prove applicable to their developments. The current DoE program, as modest as it is, represents the one focal point of information and expertise currently available on U.S. tar sands that could serve as a nucleus for future developments. Discontinuing funding would effectively stop tar sand research and would result in a disbanding of the expertise currently available. The state of Utah would also be effectively taken out of the program because Utah could not carry on significant tar sand research alone without the federal government contributing to this work. In our judgement a slightly accelerated program from FY '86 would result in a commercial plant of modest size in as little as 5 years. The primary product would be asphalt which we feel is currently profitable. We have recently learned that the U.S. is importing significant quantities of asphalt produced from Canadian tar sands and there is an appreciable market for such products in Utah and surrounding states. Asphalt is expected to become an increasingly important commodity as our current generation highways require resurfacing. An unconventional hydrocarbon commercial plant would greatly assist our state and national confidence that such development could contribute to our nation's energy security. It is our consensus that the current downturn in world oil prices is temporary and partly artificial and could portend a swing in the opposite direction of equally major proportions. Now seems to be the most opportune time to conduct the necessary research so that the technology is ready when needed. In our judgement the venture pool approach proposed by DoE will not work with tar sands. The research is not sufficiently advanced nor is information available for the ventures to be successful even if participants could be identified. If the base research program is discontinued there would be no central place for ventures to gather information. Maintaining the current research effort at a comparable level to FY 86, but shifting the focus slightly toward shorter term commercialization is the best way |