for stack emissions and permissible temperatures of cooling-water outflow from thermal generating stations have created problems for the electric utilities-in the areas of both cost and early response. The electric utility business is capital intensive and, with the lead time on construction of new generating plants now at the six to sevenyear level, the early response problem is obvious.

However, it is the intention of the electric companies to stay "up front" in the programs for environmental improvement. Much has already been accomplished-much more will be done.

One handicap to sound progress is the lack of scientific knowledge in certain areas. For instance, stringent standards for permissible temperature change have been set by public agencies in the absence of comprehensive knowledge as to what effect the warm water discharge from thermal generating plants is likely to have on the ecology of the river or estuary into which the discharge is taking place-as to whether, in fact, the thermal effect will be detrimental or beneficial. The electric companies of New England are currently conducting six separate studies of such effects.

To fill a big gap in such knowledge, the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Company (owned by the principal electric companies of New England) embarked three years ago on one of the most exhaustive ecological studies undertaken to date.

This program, expected to cost more than onehalf million dollars, involves the study of every facet of marine life both before and after the operation of the new nuclear plant at Haddam Neck. It is being conducted at Essex Marine Laboratory by a staff under the direction of Dr. Daniel Merriman, eminent marine biologist of Yale University.

More than two years of pre-operation study had been completed when the Connecticut Yankee plant began operation in 1967. Now every phase of the tests and studies will be repeated with the plant in operation, and over a sufficient period cumulative effects will be established.

If the results of these studies show the need of corrective moderation in discharge temperatures, Connecticut Yankee has pledged itself to do what is needed in the public interest. Because the

*Dr. John Ryther of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in discussing the biological effects of condenser cooling water discharge at the Maine Yankee Nuclear Plant at Wiscasset said, "There is good reason to expect that the overall biological effect of the discharge will be beneficial rather than harmful." Dr. Ryther pointed out that the growth of many commercially valuable marine species is slowed, if not completely arrested for as much as half of the year due to the cold water temperatures which prevail in New England water, and that warm water effluents from the plant might well be used for the culture of marine organisms.

accompanying Big 11 map is indispensable to reliable operation.

The completion of each segment is carefully scheduled to meet the in-service dates of each of the Big 11 generators. Failure to meet the transmission construction schedule will introduce the danger of instability in the transmission network if an unscheduled outage of a large generator occurs. The result could be a general interruption of service-a blackout.

In the scheduling of the more than 900 miles of transmission lines making up the Big 11 Powerloop, the lead-time allowances were deemed by past experience to be more than adequate. As of the date of this report, the time allowance is proving to be entirely adequate for engineering, procurement of materials, and construction. However, the problem of obtaining necessary legal clearances for certain lines from state and town governments has assumed unprecedented proportions.

The facts are these:

1. To provide New England with an adequate and reliable supply of power, the transmission lines have to be built-on time.

2. In the present state of technology, it is not feasible to place these high-voltage power highways underground.

3. Power highways (like automobile highways) cannot always be placed in the other fellow's backyard.

The electric companies have gone to great

national disaster. The electric companies of New England feel that the Connecticut Yankee approach described above is a sound one. Transmission

It is generally understood that a complex of 345,000-volt transmission lines is necessary to deliver electricity generated by the Big 11 plants and to integrate the region's power systems for most economical operation. Not so clearly understood is that each and every segment shown on the

as unobtrusively as possible. Each 345,000-volt circuit can carry up to nine times as much electricity as could the 115,000-volt lines formerly built, thereby minimizing the number of lines required-another similarity to super highways of

travel.

one of the new interstate highways is completed Where the analogy breaks down is this: When behind schedule, the result is congestion, confusion and irritation. When a major electrical highway is late, the consequences may be disastrous.

Lead Time

The Big 11 plan, as shown on the previous pages, is developing in accordance with the original concept. It is still expected that all eleven of the big generators will be operational in time to meet the winter peak of 1972-73. We are deeply concerned, however, by prospective delays in the in-service dates of the generators originally scheduled for 1970 and 1971.

The difficulty arises from an unprecedented rash of interventions in proceedings before the numerous agencies whose approvals are required for various steps of the Big 11 projects. Whether or not these interventions are motivated by concern for the public interest (and many of them are) the end effect is procedural delay-with consequent difficulty in the coordinating of construction to fit the decisions of multiple regulatory bodies. Many of these agencies share, to some degree, our

concern.

As a result electric utilities must think in terms of ten-year lead times, as compared to the present six to seven years, and the three to four years of the past. We must point out that such long lead times make decisions as to size, type, and location very difficult and tend to freeze into plant design a technology that may be several years "behind the times" when a project is completed. (For instance, a fast-breeder nuclear reactor might become the economic and feasible choice for a plant to become operational in 1982, but no prudent utility management could risk such a choice if it had to make the decision on the basis of an unproven technology in 1972-whereas a favorable decision might be possible in 1975 or 1976 on the basis of proven technology.) This all suggests that the great advances in technology should be matched by greater speed in the regulatory process-if our nation's pre-eminence in the field of electric energy is to be maintained. The problem is to achieve a shortening of the procedural time without abridging the right of bona fide intervention.

The Price of Electricity

The National Power Survey report issued by the Federal Power Commission in 1964 predicted a drop of 30% in the average price of electricity for the Northeastern United States during the period 1962-1980 (as against a drop of 27% for the nation as a whole).

This price drop was forecast on the basis of 1964 price levels-that is, with no allowance for the impact of inflation on the various costs of producing, transmitting and distributing electricity. The chart on the opposite page shows a straight dotted line to FPC's predicted 30% price drop.

It will be noted that the average price of electricity in New England has, in the 1962-1967 period, already dropped 10%-well below the line which points to the FPC's 1980 prediction. During the same five years the Consumer Price Index, a measure of the cost of living, has gone up 12.1%. The substantial drop in electricity prices, which is so completely contrary to the accelerating inflation in other prices, has been the result, largely, of two forces:

1. Since the beginning of 1963, rate reductions made by the New England electric companies have totaled more than $37 million on an annual basis.

2. The "quantity discounts" which are built into the pricing schedules of the electric utilities cause an automatic unit price drop (in addition to the rate-reduction effect) as customers increase their usage. The marked acceleration in electrical usage by New England customers, previously referred to herein, has played an important part in this reduction of the average price.

As a way of quantifying the combined effects of rate reductions and increased use, it has been computed that had electric consumers in New England paid the same average price per kwhr in 1967 that they paid in 1962, their 1967 electric bills would have been about $109 million higher than actually paid last year.