I hav~ been asked to be on such review teams and believe the government pays tihe review teams themselves $200 per day plus expenses. That is much more than the amount he disapproves of. (~his may be unfair criticism. Judd may donate all his.time and the same with the rest of this peer panel-but I'm very curious). What is Judd's salary as director of the Office of Appropriate Technology? It is my hope that peol?le will think about their relationship to government and the problems they face. I believe if they give all this some thought they will prefer to work on their problems directly rather than through agencies as the D.O.E. or the California Office of Appropriate Technology. These agencies are not giving away wealth that they have created; they are giving away your money which they collect under threat of confiscation of your possessions if you refuse to pay, and they are paying themselves good salaries as they do it. Steve Baer Dear Lee: I am writing this letter in response tq an article in the Oregonian entitled "Boeing May Bring Oregon Big Windmill." I am writing a similar le.tter to Oregon's U.S. Senators and Representatives, as well as President Carter and James Schlesinger. Several months ago, it came to my attention that the Columbia Gorge would be an excellent site for large-scale windelectric power generators. Installing these generators to tie in with the existing Bonneville Power hydroelenric grid sys- .tern would be an ideal opportunity for Oregon to pursue. This concept is well known and has been developed by Dr. E. Wendell Hewson of Oregon State University. (See undated Oregonian article enclosed.) My purpose for writing is this: I wonder why the U.S. Department of Energy is granting Boeing of Seattle $10 million to "design, test and build the first unit" to test "the econom- . ics of wind-gei:ierated electricity." (Please see attached article.) I wonder if most people are aware that another firm,.Wind Powe.r Products of Seattle, is ready to go on line ~ith a large- ·scaie-wind generator right now? (See article from the Sacramento Bee, enclosed.) I would like to know why the federal government is giving Boeing so much money, for essentially the purpose of re-inventing the wheel, in this case a wind generator. • Charles Schachle, the head of Wind Power Products (who, like myself, runs a small family business) has built a prototype wind generator that has been supplying power into the Grant County P.U.D..lines for over a year now. The model Schachle proposes will be the same'as the prototype, only it will supply 3,000 kilowatts of electricity instead of only 125 kilowatts. The Office of the Governor of California is already considering investing in this generator,'and Southern California Edison is in th·e final stages of purchasing one. Why can't Bonneville and/or Pordand General Electric (who is also-considering the Boe'ing/DOE model) buy a system that already • exists and is ready to go into mass production? Why should they wait for several more years for the Boeing model to be completed? This seems like a waste of tax dollars merely to benefit Boeing. It would appear that Senator Henry Jackson has used his influence again to get federal tax dollars to support Boeing. My questions for the tax-paying publi'c are t_hese: Why couldn't BPA or PGE'. be persuaded to buy wind generators that already exist in prototype form; and could very easily be made in Oregon (the propellers are made of laminated wood)? Why should a small businessman such as Mr. Schachle have to compete with government-subsidized big business like Boeing? Why can't Boeing come up with their own money for the research and development, like Mr. Schachle did? Creating this artificial competition only makes it more difficult for the small businessman to stay in this market. July 1978 ~AIN Page 9 My personal interest stems from the possibility of selling Schachle our speed gear trains for the wind generators. I would benefit from the mass production of this renewable energy source, as would many other Oregon businesses. I think it is high time the federal Department of Energy sto.p funding projects to study technology and equipment that already exists. I think the Department of En.ergy should try to help the small busi·ness people like Schachle, instead of trying to hinder his progress. Dear Lee: Sincerely, Frank W. Seifert Frank Seifert Company P.O. Box 16638 Portland, OR 97216 • Just finished reading your a.t. article ("Side-Stepping the Sun") in the April '78 issue. Good job. RAIN should do more of this kind of article. I share your frustration with dealing with the Feds. If you have found some "bozos" at DOE, sometime you should take a look at some of the people at the D.epartments of Transportation and Agriculture. It may ,be a sad commentary on the state of the bureaucracy; DOE has, by far, the best staff that .I have found in D.C. On the federal budget process. The program directors at DOE have little control over what they get each year f9r funding. Within Schlesinger's office and at the Office of Management and Budget, there are anonymous individuals who decide just what budgets will be ~equested from Congress each year. In covering Washington over the past four years, I have found only a few of these people-and, even when you find them, they won't tell you anything. So, on the average, you will be wasting your time trying to find the money planners at DOE. • In shaking loose some D.C. money for a.t., your best bet is to concentrate on the Congress. Whatever are the wishes of DOE and 0MB; the Congress has the final say. Forget, for the most part, lobbying DOE staffers. In your article you are a little hard on some of the DOE staff. What they say in public may be different from what they actually believe-but they want to keep their jobs. On a number ofoccasions, I know that while DOE personnel were testifying bdore Congress that they didn't want their budgets increased, they were privately furnishing reams of information under the table to Congressional Committees showing why they actually did need more money. Wh_ile this is not always the case, I think that you will find that often Congressional opinion for increased non-nuclear R&I;:> budgets is actually furnished by DOE personneL Anyway, RAIN continues to be a great publication. And if you are looking for some big bucks from DOE for an a.t. project, why do,n't yoll propose a nuclear-powered windmill? After you spend a few million building the windmill, you can conclude that the nuclear reactor is not necessary and save the government a:few million·. Similarly, there could be a nuclear-powered solar energy ~ystem, etc. Good luck. Regards, ' Bill Margetts Dr. Margetts is the editor of the very excellent Government R&D Report, one of the few newsletters we exchange with that has been c9nsistentlyfull ofaccurate, comprehensive information q,r,d experienced perspectives on the p. C. energy scene. We highly recommend to you the.ir "Solar Energy Edition" (June 1, 1978), 'J)Jhich you might want to review befo~e subscribing. Ask for a sample copy from :.Gov't R&D Report, MIT Branch, P.O. Box 85, Cambridge, MA 02139. It's $90/year. -LJ
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