five years ahead that would affect resolving the nation's problems. And OSTP would have a positive involvement in deliberations on federal R&D program. The bill also directs the OSTP head to name a 10-member panel to provide the OSTP director with advice on state and local science and technology affairs. Title III sets up a Presidential committee on science and technology, which is to survey, examine, and analyze tjie overall context of the federal science, engineering, and technology effort including missions, goals, personnel, funding, organization, facilities, and activities in general. The Presidentially appointed committee is to produce an interim report within a year, and a final report in two years. The President has the option of retaining the committee after its survey chores are completed. Title IV of the bill sets up a Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering &• Technology (FCCSE&T). This, in effect, renames and gives statutory status to the coordinating function of the old Federal Council for Science & Technology. FCCSE&T would have the same chores as its predecessor and would be headed by the OSTP director. Finally, Title V of the compromise bill contains funding and what might be called catchall provisions. The bill provides $750,000 for OSTP for fiscal 1976 (which ends June 30), $500,000 for the July 1-Oct. 1 transition quarter, and $3 million for fiscal 1977. •
Disposal of nuclear wastes re-examined As the debate over nuclear power safety continues to smolder in scientific and public forums, an ancillary question is receiving closer scrutiny: what to do about the radioactive wastes that nuclear reactors produce. Recently, the federal government began looking deeper into the problem on several fronts. For one, the Interior Department's U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has set out to find safer burial grounds for radioactive wastes. The main thrust of the survey's latest efforts will be more intensive study of the hydrology and geology of present and planned nuclear waste burial sites. In testimony before a House committee in February, Government Accounting Office investigators criticized choice of three current burial sites—West Valley, N.Y., Maxey Flats, Ky., and Oak" Ridge., Tenn.— for lack of adequate planning (C&EN, March 1, page 6). A USGS spokesman 8
C&EN April 19, 1976
denies a direct link between the Congressional hearings and USGS's stepped-up research program, and points out that it has been conducting field investigations at burial sites since .1975. At the same time, USGS also is stepping up its research into the theoretical and laboratory behavior of nuclear materials in groundwater at its research centers in Reston, Va., Lakewood, Colo., and Menlo Park, Calif. Meanwhile, another means of radioactive waste disposal also is getting a closer look. At Sandia Laboratories, Albuquerque, N.M., investigators are studying deep-sea disposal of highlevel radioactive wastes from nuclear reactors for the Energy Research & Development Administration. The focus of the Sandia studies will be the seabed beneath major oceanic gyree —mid-ocean cylindrical masses of water hundreds of kilometers in diameter. These large ocean basins are a kind of mid-ocean desert that appear to be devoid of life, according to Sandia, where water currents are slow and sediment accumulates at less than 1 mm every 1000 years. In addition, the roughly 20,000 feet of water that cover these areas would make intentional or accidental intrusion into burial sites virtually impossible. These seabeds also are geologically inactive with no major earthquakes or volcanic activity to disturb slumbering nuclear material, Sandia notes. Preliminary studies, says Sandia, indicate that radioactive waste burial in the seabed would prevent migration of transuranium elements. At the same time, it appears that radioactive wastes will have to be buried in the sediment, and not just placed on top of it, since water transport from the seabed to the surface is more rapid than previously believed. All things considered, however, Sandia scientists say, it is still too early to recommend ocean disposal of nuclear material. •
Du Pont profits level off at three-year high A broad-based business recovery is sparking a sharp upsurge in Du Pont's operations this year. For the first time in any quarter the company's sales have moved above $2 billion to total $2.1 billion during the three months ended March 31. And the company estimates that profits for the latest period were about $2.80 a share, a marked contrast with the anemic 39 cents a share it netted during the like recession-wracked 1975 period, on sales of $1.6 billion
Shapiro: most lines are doing weil
and the most profitable first quarter Du Pont has turned in since 1973. The first-quarter figures also show further, if much more modest, gains from 1975's final three months. Sales were up about 7% from the preceding quarter, with increased physical volume accounting for a 5% gain and higher selling prices for 2%. Earnings, on the other hand, were 2% lower— but only because the $2.87 a share that Du Pont earned during the end quarter of last year included 16 cents stemming from nonrecurring accounting adjustments. "Most of our product lines are doing well," Du Pont chairman Irving S. Shapiro told stockholders at the company's annual meeting in Wilmington last week, singling out in particular elastomers, finishes, photo products, instruments, pigments, plastics, and some industrial chemicals. Shapiro noted some continuing pockets of weakness, however. Business abroad has not recovered as quickly as in the U.S., although some signs of improvement are evident there and Du Pont's sales in Europe hit a record $100 million in March. Problem spots remain in fibers, too, especially for polyester textile yarn. Although the polyester staple business is firm, the company's polyester filament plants are running at only about 75% of capacity, and prices, especially in Europe, continue to be disappointing. Nevertheless, Shapiro expects Du Pont to produce 15% more fiber this year than during hard-hit 1975 and looks for a long-term growth of about 8% a year for the noncellulosic fibers industry. And for the company as a whole, he forecasts "strong years in 1976 and 1977." D
