letters Federal electricity taxes
DEARSIR: I would like to commend the spirit of Charles F. Luce’s proposals (ES&T, March 1971, page 193) for additional federal support, through taxes, of research aimed at improving the electricity generation industry and reducing its stresses on the environment. At the same time, I would like to make three additional points which I feel are necessary: Any federal excise tax should be on the basis of electrical consumption rather than, as many taxes go, on the bill. Alternatively, it could be levied at the source and added to generating cost. The point is that domestic consumers pay most of their bill for capillary transmission costs and incidentals, and it is not fair or appropriate to tax these charges for research on improved generation. Generating costs are of primary concern to industrial users of electricity, and they should pay their fair share of the research bill. I can contemplate a variety of conceptual benefits from warm water, including more comfortable swim-
ming areas, central-station comfort heat, and exotic aquaculture; I would hope that research on improved cooling methods would cover these benefits and, possibly, research into heat transfer to the earth and subsoil. While my address will show that this point is somewhat self-serving, I should like to comment that the Atomic Energy Commission is already well constituted to manage this research, and that ‘its national laboratories, which are currently laying off personnel, have both the right type of facilities and the proper mix of personnel to perform it. A federal action incorporating the smaller federal research programs on coal and oil into the AEC program, and supplying needed funding at first out of general taxes, might be easier to implement quickly. There might, in fact, be some point in reconstituting the AEC as an “Energy Commission” at the same time as independent status for its licensing and regulating activities (which seems to be in the cards) is achieved. Bernard I. Spinrad Argonne National Laboratory Argonne, 111. 60439
Effluent recycling
DEARSIR: In your Editorial, “Effluents are tasting better and better!” (ES&T, February 1971, page 9 7 ) , I think you may be missing an important point: We are already recycling our water. If this were not so, there would be little need for treatment of water supply and less need for treatment of effluent. Once our discharge standards are stringent enough to enable us to use our supply water with minimum treatment, we will have reached the point that the Editorial envisions. Recycling does not require that we discharge our effluent directly into the intake lines. To put it somewhat differently, if our discharge standards are stringent, it will not be possible for us to choose to use polluted river water as a source of drinking water . . . . The river water will no longer be polluted.
Harry Baum, Director World Meetings Information Center Chestnut Hill, Mass. 021 67
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470 Environmental Science & technology
