Now, the problem that has arisen, is that some environmentalists are concerned that once a demonstration plant is put down, that they are in a toboggan, and that the next thing that will follow the demonstration project is 500 commercial breeder reactors scattered around the country.

What the environmentalists want is to have a certain security, so that, even if the demonstration plant is a technical success, it will be judged in terms of the environment impact before the deployment of commercial LMFBR's.

One problem is that there is no procedural handle, other than the environmenal statement, that the environmentalists and other concerned citizen groups can grab onto, to raise the questions. Therefore, there is pressure upon the Commission and upon other agencies to answer questions which cannot be answered at this point.

What we are attempting to do is to resolve uncertainties, and this must be so that there are methods developed to provide the environmentalists with confidence that even if an R. & D. experiment is a technical success, that there will be further review.

Senator BAKER. Do I understand you to say that something needs to be done in the implementation of NEPA, or NEPA itself should be changed to make a distinction between an R. & D. project, and say a line project, production project?

Dr. SCHLESINGER. I think it would be desirable to make that distinction. I don't know whether that would require a change in the law. It depends on how the courts interpret these matters. What I am pleading for is a realistic assessment of the role of R. & D.

Now, there is a difference in the offshore oil case with which you are familiar. In the case of offshore oil, the question was what energy supplies would be utilized by the American public to supply emergency requirements in the vears ahead.

In the case of LMFBR, what we are attempting to do is develop an option that may or may not be chosen by the American public. I think it is very important for that distinction to be made, and I leave it to you, whether that would require a change in the law.

Senator BAKER. You make a very good point, when you say one of the inherent fears in the development of LMFBR and probably other projects of similar nuclear design will be that once that you are estab lished, it will be more difficult to stop the next one if you establish the first one.

Dr. SCHLESINGER. Yes, sir. The only other point I should like to make is what we refer to as environmental survey.

Once again, broadening out, the implications of the direct impact statement environmentalists are concerned about is the accrual of impact of a number of Federal facilities. For example, Congressman Thompson has written to us, pointing out, according to present plans, there may be 11 nuclear plants on the Delaware. He is concerned about the cumulative impact of 11 plants as opposed to a single plant, which is the subject of environmental impact.

What way is there for people to get a handle on that decision process? We think that it would be a big mistake to attempt to freight on a single environmental report on a single facility, all of these broader considerations; the public has a right to know, concerned citizens have

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the right to know, what the broader future implications may be of the cumulative impact of a number of such facilities, rather than looking at each facility microscopically.

Now, in this way, I think that NEPA can be broadened, can better achieve, the social policy which the Congress has specified, and yet at the same time, avoid some of the confining aspects which have resulted from the misplaced concreteness of the environmental statement. Senator GRAVEL. There are two points you raise, Doctor.

One, do I understand you correctly, you think that a statement, 102 statement, would be proper for revealing the broader scope of it? Dr. SCHLESINGER. No, sir. What we are suggesting is that an additional type of statement, what we can call an environmental survey, which lays out the implications of the cumulative effects of individual decisions, would be very useful to environmentalists and other concerned citizens in evaluating those effects that go beyond the single project.

Senator GRAVEL. What is the difference between a 102 statement and a survey?

Dr. SCHLESINGER. Well, the individual statement is highly particularized. It deals with a particular facility, in an individual site. At the present time we are unable to specify what other sites may be, what the character of a future deployment of a number of facilities might be.

This is clearly the case with respect to LMFBR. A number of concerned groups have urged the Commission to look into the crystal ball, to say what the breeder economy will look like in the year 2000, or the year 2010.

Now, that is flattering to us, but we just do not have that kind of crystal ball.

What we can say to them is that you reach decision points, that at each decision point it should be possible to develop decisions that will permit environmentalists to survey both the direct impact of particular plants, and the broader implications without having to avoid; that is, delay, to avoid it.

Senator GRAVEL. Could I ask for such a survey? I would press for

one.

Dr. SCHLESINGER. We are planning to develop such a survey that will go beyond the environmental impact statement which the President has requested us to put out with respect to the LMFBR.

As you know, the President requested the LMFBR impact statement at the time he authorized the go-ahead last June, but that would be before the normal time for an impact statement.

Normally an impact statement comes with the construction phase. Senator GRAVEL. That surprises me. The President asked for an impact statement on the fast breeder program?

Dr. SCHLESINGER. On the demonstration plant.

Senator GRAVEL. Are there going to be public hearings associated with this?

Dr. SCHLESINGER. There will be public hearings at the construction permit state.

Senator GRAVEL. But what about the environmental consequences? Dr. SCHLESINGER. That will be included in the hearings.

Senator GRAVEL. So I don't see the point you are making about R. & D.

If you are going to have a 102 statement for this R. & D. reactor, what is your problem?

Dr. SCHLESINGER. The problem that we face is partly a problem of public understanding, and partly a problem associated with a pending lawsuit. The suit would require us to spell out the implications into the 21st century.

The explanations of a breeder economy at that time have little to do with the last stages of a R. & D. project designed to resolve the final uncertainties.

We are confident that it will be a technical success.

We do not know whether it will be a commercial success.
Senator GRAVEL. Has the court ordered you to do that?

Dr. SCHLESINGER. No, sir, but this problem is the subject of litigation at the present time, and therefore I mention that.

Senator GRAVEL. Would your survey satisfy these people?

I share their concern. I would like to know the environmental implications if we are going to launch a plutonium economy, and the time to know these problems is before we spend billions and billions of dollars, rather than after.

is.

That seems logical. If 102's are not possible, then obviously a survey

Dr. SCHLESINGER. We intend to bring out such a survey. Commissioner Ramey has a comment.

Mr. RAMEY. I might add with respect to the demonstration plant. and with the fast breeder program, there have been a number of programmatic statements that have been issued, that have been debated in connection with the congressional consideration, particularly of this program.

This program is not new. It is over 20 years old. AEC's report to the President was back in 1962. It was a report to President Kennedy. It recommended a higher priority on the breeder program. We issued a supplement in 1967, and in there it indicated that the Commission was giving first priority to the breeder program. So what Dr. Schlesinger is saying, I believe, is that this survey, or what I have called in the past a programmatic statement on a whole program is something we ought to have, and ought to be doing more of. In my opinion this type of statement will be more meaningful than some of these case by case activities that NEPA seems to be concerned with. since it sort of grew up in connection with individual operational activities of the Federal Government.

Senator GRAVEL. That is taking it two ways, with the survey finding out what the whole problem is, and NEPA addressing the specific problem areas.

If you get to R. & D. consequences you can just put, say, "don't know."

Dr. SCHLESINGER. That is the way we intend to bring out the statement.

We have the feeling that this is the only thing the courts can use as a gage of agency compliance, and the associated overproceduralization means you could hypothetically litigate these cases for years, and

if the purpose of R. & D. is to obtain information more rapidly, then the possibility of extended litigation is a source of concern, would be a source of concern to us, and we presume to you.

Senator GRAVEL. You use that word proceduralization. That seems to be your main thrust right now.

Dr. SCHLESINGER. Let me deal with the overproceduralization, as we see it, in the Quad Cities case. There the court enjoined the Commission from going to partial power, any power, even 1-percent power until such time as there was a full and final environmental statement. This injunction was mandated by the court in the face of certain other considerations.

First, we have what is called a mini-NEPA review, which would deal with whatever power level, up to 20 percent. We might permit a utility to go to testing and start-up. It is not a final environmental statement, with regard to the total impact of the plant. The miniNEPA review would deal with whatever level of power might be permitted, so a mini-NEPA review would deal with whatever the Commission were to allow.

Second, in the case of Quad Cities, there was no showing that there would be irreversible damage to the aquatic life on the Mississippi, and there was clear evidence there would be no irreversible damage.

The absence of a final environmental statement under those circumstances, where there is reversibility and rapid reversibility, may be ascribing too much to the procedures and laying too little emphasis on the substantive issues involved from the standpoint of environmentalists and from the standpoint of the Commission.

Senator GRAVEL. In the 102's, has the AEC complied with paragraph C(iii) which requires discussion of alternatives?

Dr. SCHLESINGER. Yes, indeed.

Senator GRAVEL. And the court has found these satisfactory?

Dr. SCHLESINGER. We have not had an opportunity to test that, Senator. We are about to come out with our first post-Calvert Cliffs environmental report.

Senator GRAVEL. But would this address itself to the power crisis?

In other words, the reason why we are all in a panic is because we allegedly have a power crisis. Obviously to comply with alternatives to nuclear licensing, we would need some pretty expert definition of what that power crisis is?

Dr. SCHLESINGER. The problem is that this is an immediate situation. Whether it turns into a crisis or not depends on the weather this summer and economic conditions.

As you know, Senator, given the heavy load, represented by air conditioning, for each 1-degree rise in temperature, you have a 2-percent increase in the demand for electric power.

Last summer we had a relatively cool summer in the midwest, and economic conditions were not fluorishing.

That is the silver lining on that cloud in that the supply of electric power was not pressed.

Senator GRAVEL. Certainly, Doctor, you are not suggesting the only way to handle this power shortage is just to describe air-conditioning loads? There may be other methods.

Dr. SCHLESINGER. I beg your pardon?

Senator GRAVEL. You are not suggesting the only way to handle that problem is to focus on air conditioning, because maybe if these utilities just stop advertising, and stop trying to sell electric homes, that might eliminate the shortage.

Dr. SCHLESINGER. I think that at the present time advertising of gains of electric power has gone by the boards on the part of the utilities. They are sufficiently concerned about the supply of power that they have given that up.

Senator GRAVEL. I wish it were so. I ran across a situation in New Jersey, where a company decided not to accept more customers for gas, and at the same time it was advertising gas. That is with one utility itself.

Dr. SCHLESINGER. I was, of course, not suggesting that a decline in air conditioning or any other source of demand, but the point is that these units are sources of demand upon the electric supply in the business.

Senator GRAVEL. Are you aware, Doctor, that we only use two-thirds of our electric energy capacity 90 percent of the time, and that other third is only used 10 percent of the time?

Dr. SCHLESINGER. Yes, I am.

Senator GRAVEL. Is there any study, as to how we might use or implement that one-third more effectively?

Dr. SCHLESINGER. Yes, sir; we are working very hard on additional ways of providing storage so that we can raise the load factor on existing plants and obtain higher efficiencies in plant utilization. Senator BAKER. What is the load factor on the average?

Dr. SCHLESINGER. I think it is something on the order of 65, 70 percent.

Senator BAKER. The highest in the world?

Dr. SCHLESINGER. Yes, sir. I will supply that for the record, (The information referred to follows:)

Performance of electric power plants can be expressed in a variety of ways. Among these are load factor and capacity factor. Load factor is defined as the ratio of the average load in kilowatts, supplied during a designated period, to the peak or maximum load occurring in that period. Capacity factor, on the other hand, is the ratio of the average load to the capacity rating of the plant. Since the installed capacity of a plant is often greater than its annual peak, the national average annual capacity factors would be lower than the load factors, as shown in the following comparison for the last five years:

Most foreign countries are not able to utilize capacity as efficiently as in the United States. This is expecially true in countries with relatively small industrial demands. Highly developed countries and those with large continuous demands for electrochemical and metallurgical industries, such as Norway and Canada, maintain the highest load factors. Another group of countries, mainly in Eastern