Word: erda
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...reversal of the previous administration's policy on the breeder was extraordinarily sharp. It seemed as if things might really be different. The Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) ordered more than 25,000 pro-breeder pamphlets destroyed. The speeches coming out of the administration made frequent mention of alternative energy sources...
...there will be burning just like our own little sun." After that, researchers would have to achieve the point at which a fusion reactor produces more power than it uses and then build a demonstration plant that will actually convert the enormous heat produced by fusion into electrical energy. ERDA believes that the first such facility could be ready by the mid-1990s and that fusion plants could begin supplying energy to the U.S. early in the next century...
...energy from those sources. But here too there are serious problems-technological, environmental, political. At present, the mainspring of the Government drive is the Energy Research and Development Administration, a fledgling agency set up in January 1975 to pull together the loose jumble of federal energy research programs. But ERDA's budget for fiscal 1977 totals only $3.1 billion. That outlay, in the view of many experts, is nowhere near enough...
...ERDA and some privately funded research groups are investigating ways to extract oil from shale, tap the energy from the sun and harness the earth's heat. None of these sources is expected to provide the ultimate solution. Combining solar with conventional energy could help cut some fuel use. One problem: methods of storing solar energy are not effective enough to be relied on as the sole source of electric or heating power in the cold winter climates of such areas as New England and the northern Middle West. Prices for getting shale oil or using wet-steam deposits...
With all of these obstacles yet to be overcome, ERDA does not expect solar power to provide more than 1% of U.S. energy needs during the next quarter-century, or even as much as 25% by the year 2020. But solar radiation may yet become a major means of meeting the needs of the earth for energy. Regardless of how great they may be, the earth's supplies of coal, oil and natural gas are finite. Long after these resources have been exhausted, the sun's golden apples will still be ripe for harvesting...