The Central New Jersey Home News from New Brunswick, New Jersey • 31

Km B7 NEW BRUNSWICK. K.J.. MONDAY. JAN'. 21.

1974 Less is more, when it comes to the price of energy By GEORGE DAWSON Simon told U.S. News World Report, in an interview published Jan. 6, that he was considering an increase in the mark-up for gasoline retail stations by three cents a gallon because "they will be handling smaller volumes." The mark-up was set at the level in effect Jan. 10, 1973, with a minimum of seven cents, by the Cost of Living Council on Aug. 10.

This argument may come as a surprise to many large industries which have been leading the way with formal energy conservation programs in an effort to reduce costs and spread supplies. American Cyanamid reduced steam needs by 6 per cent at its large Bridgewater organic chemicals plant last year, and electricity use by 1.5 per cent. DuPont worked toward a goal of 10 per cent energy savings last year at its Photo Products plant in Sayreville, and Union Carbide toward a goal of 13 per cent at its Piscataway plastics plant Neither company has yet reported whether these goals were achieved. Public Service said that overall losses in electricity output were 2 per cent in November, and 4 per cent for the first 17 days of December, over comparable periods in 1972. Energy conservation will in the long run, however, likely save money.

The state Public Utilities Department is giving serious consideration to proposals to increase kilowatt-hour costs for defined categories of electricity users who use more than an established standard. The categories would include both residential and industrial customers. The recommendation calls for the department to develop standards of use for each major category of industry. to sell gas at unregulated prices for 130-day periods, under a finding of emergency conditions. A result is that the price of pipeline gas has risen sharply in New Jersey.

Public Service, which is permitted automatic changes in gas rates in proportion to changes in the price of pipeline supplies, reported that the pipeline rose from 63.19 cents per 1,000 cubic feet in March-May of 1973 to 79 46 cents in the June-August period. It dropped somewhat in the Sept. -Nov. period, however, to 68.27 cents. The changes have caused the retail price of Public Service gas to rise by 18.64 cents a thousand cubic feet in October, and drop by 12.81 cents in January.

The FPC reported in September that the average wholesale cost of pipeline gas in the country in that month was 50.71 cents, up from 47.97 cents in September 1972. and an average of 38 cents in 1970. The FPC decision Dec. 7 to permit Elizabethtown Gas Co. to ship gas from its own production field in Texas through pipelines of the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Corp.

will bring other price pressures to customers in Union and eastern Middlesex County. The decision permits Elizabethtown to buy gas from its subsidiary production company in Texas at 45 cents, and receive it through the Transco pipeline system in Elizabeth for 69 70 cents. The price is about 23 cents higher than it would be if bought from a FPC-regulated production company. State officials, led by former Gov. William T.

Cahill, had pressed for permission to bring in the gas at the higher price to reduce the call of Elizabethtown industrial customers on scarce supplies of oil. This recommendation is the outgrowth of a general energy conservation study begun last spring by the department's chief hearing examiner, Michael Mehr. The most controversial aspect of the study, the matter of rate re-design to increase electricity costs for all large users, is apparently being scrapped. Persons involved in the study said there were major problems of equity, requiring large users to bear more of the burden of a rate increase than small users. The immediate problem of demands for energy outrunning available supplies, despite conservation measures, is the major factor in the present inflation of energy prices.

The Aug. 10 Cost of Living Council regulations set the price ceiling tor oil sold from each United States field at constant production rates at the posted price for May 15, plus 35 cents, or about $4.15 a barrel. The regulations provided for higher prices for oil above the historic produc: tion rate, a so-called "two-tier" system to encourage increased production. Domestic oil production peaked in 1971, however, and additional amounts to accommodate growth since then have been obtained through imports. Imported oil represents a third tier in the price system, and now runs about $11 a barrel, when you can get it.

The Federal Power Commission has also instituted a "two-tier" system in natural gas pricing, providing one price ceiling for gas produced from existing fields, and a higher price for gas from "new" fields, as an incentive to exploration. This year, in the face of the continuing natural gas shortage, it added a third tier, and now allows producers Home Newt staff writer Energy conservation efforts in New Jersey are producing an unexpected result: greater pressure on prices because of a reduction in sales revenues to meet fixed costs. This was proclaimed by Public Service Electric Gas Co. last month at a conference of parties called by the state Board of Public Utility Commissioners on Public Service's long-pending rate increase. The utility had triggered the conference by a request from emergency action, in advance of a formal order.

William E. Scott, Public Service vice president for finance, said then that the drop in electricity and gas sales in the last two months of 1973, attributed to energy conservation measures, was depriving the company of revenue it had anticipated for internal financing of some of its capital needs. "Much of the problem we face is due to the substantial drop in revenues we now anticipate, as a result of recent forecasts of electric and gas sales," Scott said, reductions have come upon us suddenly as a result of the recent crisis which has brought about strong measures to conserve energy." Kenneth Estabrook the attomey for several large Industrial firms represented in the proceeding, including American Cyanamid objected to this point, saying that the drop in sales should cause the company to revise its expansion needs and therefore reduce pressures for higher rates, rather than increase them. Public Service responded that its $2.9 billion capital construction program for the next four years, largely for nuclear power, was tightly committed and that the utility had no choice but to go forward. It raised the prospect that the use of nuclear energy would ultimately reduce power rates because of cheaper fuel costs.

The utility board subsequently granted Public Service the rate increase, providing a 7.2 per cent increase in revenues, effective Jan. 7, although a formal decision is Still pending. The increase was recommended by hearing examiner Sidney Kiken on Dec. 13, after 17 months of hearings, but parties to the proceeding have opportunities to file exception briefs. The point of reduced sales further pushing inflation has also been made by William E.

Simon, director" of the Federal Energy Office, who has the responsibility of regulating oil prices formerly held by the Cost of Living Council." MONEY AVING ANSWER HE UVU0DERN TO INDUSTRIAL WASTE DISPOSAL IS THE Conservationists make coping tough for Blonder-Tongue AMD CUSTOM TAILORED SERVICES. ADVANTAGES CLEANLINESS SECURITY CUT COST SAVES SPACE REDUCE HAZARDS ELIMINATES POLLUTION PROBLEMS 4 By ANN LEDESMA Horn News staff writer MADISON Isaac Blonder of Blonder-Tongue Laboratories Inc. says he can live with inflation, energy crises and the shortages afflicting industry today but there is one element be can't tolerate: conservationists. "Down with environmentalists!" says the spirited Blonder, chairman of the board of the firm which manufactures television materials. "My problems have been fantastically multiplied by these people "who don't know what they're talking about.

The standard of living of these complainants," he adds, "would not be anything like what it is without the wise use of our energies. "All they know is the unintelligent use of nature. Ban anything new, that's all they care about." Blonder has a couple of reasons for his ire. First and foremost is the snag thrown by conservationists into his plan to use a tower in West Orange for location of an antenna for Channel 68, which would be the New York metropolitan area's first subscription TV station. For an installation fee of $15 and monthly service charge of about $4, subscribers could view live Broadway shows, new movies, normally blacked-out Giant and Jet football games, old classic films and opera.

It would operate with a scrambled signal decoded by a device installed in subscribers' homes. The tower was authorized by the Federal Communications Commission in July of 1972, and Channel 68 would be one of three subscriptions outlets in the nation. Everything could proceed according to plan, except that conservationists in the West Orange area have raised the cry of visual pollution. And there the tower sits, unused. The local environmentalists v- rf v-ie(wiV.

OUR COMPACTOR IS DESIGNED AND CUSTOM BUILT BY COVINO TO FIT ANY REQUIREMENT. OUR CONSULTANTS WILL BE HAPPY TO SUPPLY THE ANSWERS TO YOUR WASTE DISPOSAL PROBLEMS. TWENTY SIX YEARS OF EFFICIENT SERVICE PROVES A JOB WELL DONE i f-L w.wwwiwnj I ISSAC BLONDER der relates. "Now it's rezoned, without our permission or approval, to special development. That means nothing can be moved in without a variance.

"Meantime it costs us tax money and it sits there until we can find a buyer with an innocent use. You'd think you'd be entitled to use your own property the way you want. We even made a heavy investment in water and sewerage facilities for this purpose. And by the way, our story is typical." Nobody realizes the number of industries planning to leave Middlesex County because of 'a i-pollutionists' demands, Blonder says. "Companies that would have provided hundreds of jobs have stopped their plans for expansion," he observes.

This is the only modern-day problem that seems to be affecting the firm. Material shortages. Blonder- says, can be handled right now, and manufacturing is continuing as usual. Supplies, he explains, are being drawn from inventory, which contains a six-month pile-up of materials. However, even the -shortages can be traced to crusading conservationists, according to Blonder.

"The energy crisis is the creation of these people," he says. "We have enough right now to take care of our coal and oil needs. The most stringent limits are on sulphur. "Power plants- have had to switch to gas and they've wiped out the gas supply. Had we been able to use sulphur we could have used coal as fuel, and a limited supply of fly ash.

So right now, everything is going up. All plastic raw materials come, from Oil. Steel is going up. So what do we do? "The same thing we did in wartime. We'll get to where we have to use substitute materials, and we'll just have to bear with a lower quality product." Right now at the plant, the mood appears to be smooth and as Blonder says, running as usual.

It numbers 350 employes, 55 of whom commute daily from Newark the plant's former site by a special bus provided and paid for by the company as a service. The manufacturing part of the plant is huge enough to accommodate three football fields, but the outer offices are small and comfortable, many of them decorated with paintings done by Blonder's wife, an artist. at i ILt i have thwarted Blonder's plans so far by successfully urging the West Orange Borough Council to sue tower owner Adam Sadlon; the builders, Galliano Construction; and the borough building inspector who issued the permit for the tower's construction. In addition, stricter zoning controls have been passed governing towers. However, neither the suit nor tightened code halted actual construction of the tower.

After the suit was filed, the state Superior Court allowed Sadlon to the tower as long as he agreed to provide a bond mitting the borough to demolish it should he lose the suit. Blonder-Tongue is seeking other sites one atop the Empire State Building but the cutsDoken chairman is still fur Some ivell known users of our disposal systems and services Quaker Oats Sears Algro Knitting General Aniline and Film Corp. Oxford Chemical Co. Johnson Johnson Permacel Cel Fibe Personal Products Chicopee Mfg. Co.

Gates Rubber Co. Food Fair Store Copper Pigment Co. Reichold Chem. Co. Hatfield Wire Co.

Victaulic Corp. Solar Chemical Henry Heide Brown Boveri Stauffer Chemical Research Triangle Cable Conduit Co. Avery Label Company County Institutions Ethicon Inc. Boy Scouts General Cable Okonite Cable ious at the whole West Orange situation. "The FCC has approved the MEMBER OF RAR1TAN VALLEY REGIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE system, the tower is ready, the whole thing is ridiculous," he says.

He has still another bone to pick with the environmentalists. In the lovely wooded site the plant occupies on Jake Brown Road, there are 55 surplus acres that Blonder and his partner, Ben Tongue, would like to sell. "In fact, we bought it so we could eventually sell it for industrial use. "When we bought it, it was zoned heavy industrial," Blon- COVINO'S INDUSTRIAL DISPOSAL SERVICE INC. NORTH BRUNSWICK, NJ..