A Jerry-Built Energy Program

California's Governor Brown thinks he has some better ideas

If he runs for the presidency in 1980, as many expect, California Governor Jerry Brown will be ready with his own energy program. Among other things, the $500 million Brown plan for California, unveiled after New Year's, proposes using windmills, wood chips, walnut shells, rice hulls, solar panels, coal gasification and hot water as alternatives to fossil fuels. Says Brown: "Americans seem to be getting less inventive. I'm going to try to stimulate things the best I can through energy innovation."

Of the total package, Brown would budget $200 million for energy development, $50 million of which would be used for a proposed Southern California Edison Co. plant that turns coal into gas, and $50 million more for the private development of the geothermal industry, which uses hot-water springs to create steam. Among Brown's more unusual ideas for spending the remaining $100 million: $4 million for the installation of a dozen giant windmills to generate electricity in windy mountain passes; up to $3 million for the use of agricultural wastes--wood chips, walnut shells and maybe rice hulls--to heat and cool the state capitol and other government buildings. The wastes are baked until they emit organic gas, which is then collected and burned as fuel.

Another $200 million would go to conservation. One plan calls for modifying state buildings to cut down energy use by 25%: Brown wants more efficient lighting levels and heating-system maintenance. The remaining $100 million would be used to "grow fuel," as one state official put it, in a reforestation project.

Environmentalists applaud Brown's plan for its "symbolic effect." Political foes find little to cheer about. Said former Los Angeles Police Chief Edward Davis, who is seeking the Republican gubernatorial nomination: "When I was a small boy, I liked to play with toys too. But using windmills is like harnessing fleas when you have an elephant like nuclear energy available." Retorted Brown: "When Fulton invented the steamboat, people laughed. But people who have studied energy alternatives aren't laughing. They know that walnut shells actually work."

Not content with just an energy program, the Governor also plans his own space program for California, complete with a communications satellite, a space-faring academy with courses in space law and trade and a space research institute within the University of California. Brown detractors are chuckling. Wisecracks one: "Jerry has always been a little spaced-out, but this is carrying things too far."

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