225 



Mr. Studds. Are the conditions in the French case so extraordi- 

 nary as to make it not something to be comparable elsewhere? 

 Those are extraordinary tides, are they not? 



Mr. Burr. It is a rather unique physical situation there, as I 

 understand it, and I think I will back off at that. I am really not a 

 technical expert on that, but it is rather unique and there aren't 

 too many things you can copy there. 



Mr. Studds. Is that because of the height of the tides? 



Mr. Burr. I really don't know that I can be much more specific 

 than that, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Studds. Perhaps you and this committee ought to go look. 



Mr. Burr. I would be delighted. 



Mr. Studds. Isn't that in the Mont-Saint-Michele area? 



Mr. Burr. Yes, sir. 



Mr. Studds. I think that requires an investigation. 



Are you in touch with the Canadian studies of the potentials of 

 the Bay of Fundy? 



Mr. Burr. Well, we know about them, Mr. Chairman. I can't say 

 that we are in frequent contact with them. We know that they are 

 interested and they know where we are looking, but no, we don't 

 have a great deal of direct contact with them. 



Mr. Studds. So I do not detect an inordinate amount of enthusi- 

 asm for tidal power and its potential. 



Mr. Burr. Frankly, tidal power has not been given a very high 

 priority. 



Mr. Studds. I guess you are not looking at it at all, you have no 

 budget, right? Let us rephrase that. Not been given a high priority. 

 Are we looking at it at all? 



Mr. Burr. Yes, this Passamaquoddy study is cost shared by our 

 office and the tribal council, the Passamaquoddy Tribal Council. I 

 think we are funding about two-thirds and they about one-third. 

 The total cost is about $141,000 for the feasibility study. 



Mr. Studds. But that will not be continued next fiscal year? You 

 said you have no money in the budget. 



Mr. Burr. For next fiscal year? 



Mr. Studds. Yes. 



Mr. Burr. That is correct, no money in 1981. 



Mr. Studds. You would agree that has a fairly low priority? 



Mr. Burr. It does, yes. 



Mr. Studds. I certainly don't purport to have the technical exper- 

 tise to challenge you to a duel to the death at this moment over 

 this table over the decision to put zero funding into this potential 

 source, but we have had ample occasions in the past, as you w^ill 

 probably recall, where we have found a lack of enthusiasm on the 

 part of the Department of Energy not to be reflected anywhere else 

 in the knowledgeable community on the subject. 



OTEC springs most recently to mind. So we just want to nudge a 

 little bit to see if maybe somebody thinks it is interesting. 



I will stop asking you tidal questions since you obviously are not 

 going to pay much attention to that for a while. 



I have a couple more, and then we will let you get back. 



It has been generally assumed, I think, that wind energy re- 

 sources are greater over the ocean than they are over the land. On 



