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United States, it would be important to explore further the implications of this 

 finding for freshwater and estuarine ecosystems and for present and future human 

 activities that depend on reliable freshwater supplies." 



These authors have also pointed out that, "in the West, present-day consumption 

 of water is already a large fraction . . . even of total runoff. Because the West is 

 already vulnerable to drought, the additional water consumption for scenarios with 

 intensive coal use would greatly exacerbate the existing problem of competition for 

 water rather than create, as in the East, new kinds of problems." 



It is quite probable, therefore, that the experience to be gained during the above 

 mentioned projected Phase I might simply confirm — at the cost of many billions of 

 dollars and at the further cost of at least four years of irrecoverable time — that, 

 because of water supply constraints in both the eastern and western United States, 

 a synfuel industry of the magnitude and form generally envisioned at this time will 

 run a great risk of never becoming a fully developed and commercially viable one. 



When viewed in this light, does not the entire future synfuel industry, or at least 

 do not some of its most important areas (categorized according to resource/technol- 

 ogy), exhibit a need for, and a likelihood of benefiting from, "the kind of innovative 

 cross-fertilization of ideas that can come from the direction of ocean wave energy 

 conversion technology"? The answer, I am convinced, is in the affirmative; and, as 

 indicated above, that affirmative answer can first be supplied, and can best be 

 formulated, in terms of a future industry devoted to the direct liquefaction of 

 domestic coal. 



That answer, in short, consists in providing a certain "oceanic approach" to the 

 problem of satisfying the "supporting resource" requirements of those synthetic fuel 

 technologies, whatever they might prove to be, which are compatible with such an 

 approach. As will be seen below, among the various synthetic fuel technologies, that 

 of direct coal liquefaction is a particular one which has all of the elements needed 

 for an optimal "match" to that approach. 



Among the major direct coal liquefaction projects that are now being prosecuted 

 in this country, any one of the following three, for example, could be a potential 

 stepping stone to a series of commercial coal conversion plants whose overall direct 

 liquefaction processes would incorporate a certain technologically, economically, and 

 environmentally promising new methodology that proceeds directly from the afore- 

 mentioned "oceanic approach": namely, (a) the Exxon Donor Solvent (EDS) coal 

 liquefaction project; fb) the Gulf SRC-II alternative fuel oil project; or (c) the H-Coal 

 project undertaken by Ashland Oil and a consortium of other companies. 



Under this new methodology, the only intrinsic changes that would affect the 

 overall direct liquefaction process presently employed in any one of these three 

 projects (a), (b), and (c) would involve those subordinate processes whose sole purpose 

 is to satisfy the "supporting resource" requirements of a commercial coal conversion 

 plant. All such subordinate processes, moreover, would be equally applicable to any 

 such overall direct liquefaction process. 



One such subordinate process would of course be that by which water is supplied 

 to a commercial coal conversion plant. Under the aforementioned new methodology, 

 the source of supply of water would not be continental freshwater runoff, as it has 

 almost always been hitherto for commercial plants with similar water requirements, 

 but instead would be seawater obtained directly from the ocean at a suitable 

 offshore site generally located within the continental limits of the United States. 

 The water thus supplied would be desalinated only according to need. 



A second such subordinate process would be that by which electricity is supplied. 

 The electricity supply process, under the new methodology, need no longer involve 

 land-based electric utility plants powered by fossil or nuclear fuels. Instead, the 

 ultimate source of electric power, in whatever quantities might be desired, would be 

 ocean wave power extracted and converted at a second, more distant, offshore site. 



A third kind of subordinate process would include all hydrogen production proc- 

 esses required for a commercial direct coal liquefaction plant. The customary hydro- 

 gen production processes, all of which entail large-scale consumption of fossil fuels 

 together with large-scale emissions of rejected carbon dioxide, would be replaced, 

 under the new methodology, by a large-scale unitary water electrolysis process 

 whose ultimate source of electric power would again be ocean wave power extracted 

 and converted at the second, more distant, offshore site. 



A fourth kind of subordinate process would include all plant fuel combustion 

 processes. All such processes, which likewise customarily entail large-scale consump- 

 tion of fossil fuels together with large-scale emissions of rejected carbon dioxide, 

 would be replaced, under the new methodology, by corresponding hydrogen combus- 

 tion processes. 



It is thus clear that a sustained application of the new methodology described 

 above would gradually bring about a deliberate concentration of this country's 



