16 



Mr. Adams. Yes, sir; similar research is going on in biomass. 



Mr. Studds. I refer specifically to ocean biomass now. 



Mr. Adams. I am not familiar with what other countries are 

 doing. However, we understand that Israel does have efforts, and 

 South Africa does have efforts in biomass, and China and Japan 

 have efforts in biomass, and we have looked at those. 



Mr. Studds. Is it just you that is not familiar because of your 

 administrative responsibilities, or are your people familiar with the 

 state of the art? 



Mr. Adams. Our people are familiar with the state of the art. I 

 personally am not. 



Mr. Studds. How do we stand vis-a-vis other countries on this? 



Dr. San Martin. I am advised, Mr. Chairman, that the total 

 acreage in particular of ocean biomass that is farmed in some other 

 countries exceeds what the United States is doing. I am also ad- 

 vised that the majority of that has typically gone for human food 

 consumption. 



My knowledge of the size of research efforts going on in other 

 countries to support these activities are on the order of what we 

 are doing in the United States or less. 



Mr. Studds. I did not mean so much magnitude of acreage as 

 sophistication of technology and whether they have answered some 

 of the questions that we seem to be in the very early stages of 

 tr3dng to answer. 



Dr. San Martin. Mr. Chairman, I do not believe on the technical 

 side that we have at hand all of the detailed information to support 

 that. I am finding through new investigations more and more data 

 to support work that has gone on internationally in the entire 

 biological field to support its use for food and energy, that has not 

 been totally factored into the programs that we have developed. 



Mr. Studds. Is similar aquatic biomass research being conducted 

 by other countries? Are they ahead of us? 



Dr. San Martin. There is aquatic biomass research going on in 

 India, South Africa, Canada, Israel, France, Czechoslovakia, China, 

 Japan, and Germany. The Chinese and Japanese have been farm- 

 ing the sea for food and medicine through mariculture of algae for 

 several hundred years. They are unquestionably ahead of us in this 

 work, but its objectives are almost totally devoted to surface culti- 

 vation for food and therefore the cost elements are not as impor- 

 tant as they are for energy uses. Israel has done progressive work 

 on both land-based aquatic plants as well as some ocean work. We 

 consider their work to be of a very high quality and directed along 

 lines that we have not yet begun to investigate. We have a coopera- 

 tive agreement with them for information exchange and research 

 cooperation. There have been reports that very high production 

 rates have been achieved in South Africa. We expect to have some 

 more detailed information about their program soon. 



Czechoslovakia and Germany have advanced systems using algae 

 as pollution control agents. Similar work has also been done in this 

 country, partially by private initiative and partially under Govern- 

 ment assistance through the Environmental Protection Agency. 

 U.S. technology in the pollution control field is probably equal to 

 any. 



