News of the Week
Bard named new editor of JACS The Journal of the American Chemical Society has a new editor. He is Allen J. Bard of the University of Texas, Austin. Named to the post by the ACS Board of Directors, Bard will assume the editorship of ACS's flagship journal on Jan. 1, 1982. He will succeed Cheves Walling, chemistry professor at the University of Utah, who has served as editor since 1975. Bard has been an associate editor of JACS since March 1980. Bard is a professor of chemistry at Texas. His research interests include electroanalytical chemistry, kinetics and mechanisms of electrode reactions, semiconductor electrodes for solar energy conversion, electroorganic chemistry, electrogenerated chemiluminescence, photoelectrochemistry, and heterogeneous photocatalysis and photosynthesis. A native of New York City, Bard received his B.S. from City College of New York in 1955. He received advanced degrees—M.A. in 1956 and Ph.D. in 1958—from Harvard University. Bard has been at the University of Texas since 1958. He was employed as a research chemisl with General Chemical Co. in 1955. In 1977, Bard was Sherman Mills Fairchild scholar at California Institute of Technology, and in 1973 he held a Fulbright fellowship at the University of Paris. He served on the advisory board of Analytical Chemistry from 1973 to 1975. D
Record geothermal well drilled in hot granite A major step has been achieved in exploiting one form of geothermal energy—the hot dry rock system being pioneered at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Researchers there have completed the second of two of the deepest and hottest geothermal wells ever drilled. It is the first successful attempt at precisely controlled directional drilling in hot granite. Los Alamos says that if the system is successful, it will produce not less than 35 million watts of heat at temperatures near 500 °F. It may become the energy source for a small electrical generating power station serving nearby communities in New Mexico. Los Alamos first demonstrated the 10
C&EN Sept. 7, 1981
hot dry rock concept with completion of a geothermal reservoir in 1977. Since then, that system has operated intermittently, producing up to 5 million watts of thermal energy. In the system, cold water under pressure is forced down one hole to hydraulically fracture the hot granite between holes. The fracture acts as a heat-exchange area, superheating the water before it is brought to the surface through the second hole. After use, cooled water is pumped back into the closed-loop system. The new system, when the boreholes are connected by hydraulic fracturing, will have several fracture areas that will be created by splitting the walls of the first borehole and forcing the cracks upward to intersect the second hole. The new reservoir presented a greater drilling challenge than the
first because the larger and hotter system required deeper holes and directional drilling deep underground to connect them. The first borehole was drilled last year to just under 3 miles in hard, brittle, 620 °F granitic rock in the Jemez Mountains near Los Alamos. The just-completed second hole had to be positioned 2.6 miles deep and inclined for its last 3000 feet at an angle of 35° directly above the first hole. The hot dry rock program—which Los Alamos terms a high-risk, highpayoff program—has drawn international attention. Japan and West Germany are now partners in the program with the U.S. Department of Energy. An International Energy Agency agreement has made it possible for the two countries to contribute $2.5 million per year for four years to the program. D
Report criticizes DOE fu< I awards process The Department of Energy's highly publicized selection of alcohol fuel proposals that would help fund plantshas been criticized severely in a report just released by the General Accounting Office. The GAO study, carried out at the request of several members of Congress, claims that irregularities in the selection process resulted in some questionable awards and a limited role for small businesses. Among these were: selection of projects with lower technical merit over more highly evaluated proposals; uneven use of program policy factors to choose projects; altered cost and business management evaluations; and use of criteria that effectively shut out much small business participation. The awards examined were announced by DOE last summer. Of the 110 awards for feasibility studies and cooperative agreements, 46 were for alcohol fuels projects. The DOE technical evaluations teams devised a system in which proposals could be rated numerically. Although the GAO report finds that DOE made a substantial effort to do a good technical evaluation of each project, these evaluations often were ignored. Through excessive application of program policy factors, programs of low technical merit often were chosen. One example cited in the GAO report: the 12th-ranked project was not chosen, but the 150th-ranked project was. One policy was that awards should be dispersed widely, and projects
were selected in 37 different states. Another was that small business ventures, especially for alcohol fuels, could be expected to fare well under the DOE evaluations. But GAO reports that of the awards made, only 25 were to small businesses, which received just 11% of the total funds. A more serious concern is the indicated changing of business management evaluations after consensus had been reached by the DOE selection board. GAO found that about half of the first-round evaluations were altered from "satisfactory" to "unsatisfactory," and says that in at least one instance the altered evaluation was responsible for a project's not getting an award. The changes were made by one member of the evaluating team, who contends the computer system used to give ratings did not give proper weight to business factors and favored small businesses and new ventures too heavily. DOE's feeling was that the rating changes were not alterations but just part of the overall evaluation process. Principal recommendations made by GAO to avoid this kind of controversy in the future include establishment of guidelines to govern the application of program policy factors and the treatment of minority viewpoints during the evaluation process. GAO also believes the Secretary of Energy should strengthen the department's commitment toward enhancing small business involvement. At press time, DOE had no comments on the report. D
