We should also like to emphasize that the two nuclear power generating units included in the proposed arrangement would be of a commercially proven type and that Edison and San Diego would contribute to this project the considerable experience being developed with the large power reactor currently being installed at their San Onofre nuclear generating station near San Clemente.

RESOURCE PLANNING PROBLEM

One extremely important consideration sometimes not given proper weight, because the emphasis is put on desalting, is the power features and resources planning aspect. It takes approximately 5 years to design, engineer, and construct a large electric generating station and utilities must commit themselves that far in advance to the addition of new generating resources to meet their growing customer demands. In order for power from any dual-purpose plant to have value for an electric utility, it must be planned with sufficient notice to provide for its orderly integration into the utility's planned schedule of resources additions.

CONCLUSION

We appreciate the opportunity to present these developments to the committee and reaffirm our deep interest in the urgent problems of saline water conversion. We offer our continuing cooperation with this committee and would be pleased to keep you informed on any further developments.

Senator ANDERSON. We will now hear from Mr. William L. Gore, senior vice president, Aerojet-General Corp.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM L. GORE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, AEROJET-GENERAL CORP.; ACCOMPANIED BY DR. BERTRAM KEILIN, DEPARTMENT MANAGER, WATER RESOURCES, AEROJETGENERAL CORP.

Mr. GORE. I am William Gore, of Aerojet-General Corp., and this is Dr. Keilin, who is the manager of our water resources, AerojetGeneral Corp.

I want to express my appreciation on behalf of the Aerojet-General Corp. for this opportunity to testify in behalf of President Johnson's accelerated program for development of water purification processes. The Aerojet-General Corp. has been pleased to serve the U.S. Government, its principal customer, for over 20 years, primarily in the field of national defense. The company has made its greatest contributions over these years in the development of liquid and solid rocket engines, having held major responsibility for engines for the Polaris, Titan, Minuteman, and many other missiles.

Major contributions have also been made on other phases of the defense and space effort as a result of which there now exists within Aerojet a technological capability encompassing virtually all phases of scientific endeavor.

The growing need for pure water in the Nation and in the world has been so broadly publicized that it hardly needs further discussion. The 87th Congress of the United States demonstrated great foresight in its passage of Public Law 87-295, the Anderson-Aspinall Act, which accelerated the saline water conversion program in 1961.

The bulk of funds expended to date under that act has been devoted to research. As a result, important advances have been made on a broad front. Well-known processes have been improved to an extent that demonstrated costs in desalting water are only a fraction of that which obtained prior to the passage of that law. Virtually unknown processes have been developed to a point where further sizable cost reductions in water conversion are in sight.

The demonstration plant program has proved invaluable in providing both research and development tools and in demonstrating cost reductions resulting from laboratory and pilot achievements.

The demonstration plant program has pointed up those processes which warrant further pursuit and will ultimately expose those processes which should be abandoned. In all, the achievements in saline water conversion have been well worth the cost.

The long-range desalting program is approaching a milestone beyond which accelerated funding must be provided in order to bring past achievements to consummation. Research accomplishments of yesterday and today must be channeled into engineering development phases, which are inevitably more costly.

The bill now under consideration by the committee will provide the incentive and the necessary support for progressive pursuit of the objectives and has the unqualified endorsement of the Aerojet-General Corp.

The history of the reverse osmosis process, and the role of the Office of Saline Water and the Aerojet-General Corp. in its development, present a typical example of a process brought from virtual anonymity to the threshold of fruition.

Also illustrated in this example is the efficient operation of the Government agency-industry team in bringing about the achievements.

Mr. Chairman, before I turn over to Dr. Keilin for the balance of our presentation, I would like to add that our company's relationship with the gentlemen who are responsible for the Office of Saline Water has been excellent. We find them very diligent workers, the people both in Interior and the Office of Saline Water, and we are very proud to be part of their team.

Thank you, sir.

Senator ANDERSON. I am glad to hear you say that because those people in the department recognize the position that Aerojet-General maintains in many fields and we are glad to have your testimony here that they are doing a good job. I think they are, and I am happy you are cooperating with them. I hope it benefits you as it does them. Mr. KEILIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

About 5 years ago, the Aerojet-General Corp. undertook to diversify its product line into areas not associated with national defense. Geared to carrying out services under contract to the Federal Government, and ever responsive to national needs, the company sponsored an intensive study of methods for water purification. These studies indicated to us that the reverse osmosis process was sufficiently outstanding among the known processes to warrant intensive examination.

Subsequent study in research, development, and equipment fabrication has fortified our original conviction so that we now believe that for many applications, the reverse osmosis process will provide the lowest cost manufactured water for the future. This work has been.

carried out both with company funds and with support from the Office of Saline Water, which has administered our programs with intelligence and with high regard for national objectives. As a result, the reverse osmosis process has moved close to fruition. I would like to digress and say this process is distinctly different from the electrodialysis process.

Let me now briefly decribe the reverse osmosis process which is shown on chart 1. A synthetic membrane, similar to cellophane, selectively permits the passage of water through the membrane, but does not permit the contaminating dissolved materials to pass through. Thus, a contaminated feed stream flows under pressure across a membrane surface whereupon potable product water is obtained on the downstream side of the membrane, and a concentrated reject stream remains behind and is discarded.

The membrane acts virtually as a magic door permitting the passage of that which it is desired to recover, rejecting that which it is not desired to recover.

The driving force is the pressure applied and the main advantages are derived from the process operation at ambient temperatures, requiring no boiling or freezing of the feed stream.

Selective membranes are common in nature. The root hairs of trees and plants are lined with selective membranes which permit water and essential minerals to be absorbed into the plant as required, but do not permit the loss of sugars and other compounds essential to the life of the organism.

Similarly, all animal cells are lined with selective membranes; the human kidney, for example, utilizes membranes to select those constituents of the body fluids which will be rejected and those constituents which must be retained.

Reverse osmosis is not new, the basic principle having been described by Aristotle for purification of sea water. The process has been discussed again and again since the days of Greece as theoretical curiosity. It remained for Prof. C. E. Reid, under contract to the Office of Saline Water, to demonstrate that ordinary cellulose acetate (rayon) film exhibits adequate separation efficiency for an effective process, but at low throughput per unit membrane area. Somewhat later, Dr. S. Loeb, at the time a graduate student at U.C.L.A., modified the process for fabrication of cellulose acetate membranes to enhance the water throughput rate to economical levels while still retaining a sufficiently high rejection of the dissolved contaminants to render the product potable.

Shortly afterward, Aerojet-General undertook to improve the performance of these membranes, to develop new and better membranes, to demonstrate the feasibility of reverse osmosis in the field and to design low-cost equipment for economical application of the process. As a result, important advancements in the state of the art have been made, both in membrane improvement and in pilot development of the

process.

In all of these endeavors, Aerojet-General's relationships with the Office of Saline Water have been uniformly productive and fruitful.

Since award of our first contract in reverse osmosis by the Office in July 1962, the programs have been managed with resourcefulness, helpful guidance, and encouraging stimulation for the staff which Aerojet has brought to bear on the development of this process.

The unique membranes utilized in the reverse osmosis process resist the passage of most dissolved contaminants. As a result, the process promises to be useful in a variety of applications. The rejection of ordinary salinity, the major sea water contaminant; and of hardness, scale and alkalinity factors, predominant in many brackish waters, make its use obvious for such purposes. Furthermore, the membranes hold back organic matter, which is a major constituent of waste water and includes detergents. The membrane also rejects bacteria and virus so that the product is sterile. Mine drainage water may also be purified by this process as well as water contaminated by chemical, bacteriological, and radioactive agents. Specialized military uses include production of drinking water and boiler feed water; recovery of photographic wash water and laundry water; and disposal of shipboard wastes in harbors.

The problem of water purification is a problem of cost. The number and variety of technically feasible processes are almost limitless. However, economic feasibility is only coming into sight. To illustrate the problem (chart 2), note that the cost of Colorado River water in Los Angeles County, a high water cost area, varies up to about $50 per acre-foot, or roughly 312 cents per ton, not including distribution cost. By comparison, the cheapest mined or manufactured chemical that can be purchased in the marketplace today is coal, for which a typical price is some $4 per ton. Present normalized desalination cost, and I have particular reference to the demonstrated cost in the San Diego demonstration plant, sized at 1 million gallons per day, is roughly $360 per-acre foot, or 27 cents a ton. In that plant, watera "manufactured" chemical-is produced at less than a tenth of the cost of any other produced chemical today. This in itself is an incredible achievement and yet, that cost is 10 times the cost of Colorado River water in California.

Consider now the elements of the $360 per acre-foot cost experienced in the San Diego demonstration plant-chart 3. Fuel and raw materials cost roughly 40 percent of the total; amortized capital cost is slightly over 25 percent of the total; maintenance and operations account for 18 percent, and taxes, interest, and general administrative costs 17 percent of the total. This, then, illustrates the principal points of attack at which efforts at cost reduction must be addressed.

Virtually all of the advantages of the reverse osmosis process derive from its room temperature operation. There is required no intermediate formation of steam or ice which, for the distillation and freezing processes respectively, leads to the expenditure of large quantities of energy. Reverse osmosis, on the other hand, requires only pressurization energy and the energy cost is relatively low. Furthermore, there is virtually no scaling and little corrosion, as a result of which the maintenance costs are projected to be low; these advantages combine to promise an extremely low total operating cost.

A further advantage of the room temperature operation is that the designer is able to use plastic materials, which are not capable of withstanding the high temperature demanded by the distillation processes. The use of plastic materials also enables the use of inexpensive fabrication techniques which lead to low capital costs and low taxes, interest and related general costs. Thus, each of the four elements which contribute to present desalination costs promises to be materially