A SOURCE OF ENERGY

Press, 12 November 1977, Page 14

A SOURCE OF ENERGY

By WHIM WHAM Military secrets » . . can now be turned into usable steam and hot water. The Pentagon invited reporters to see a new energy-saving incinerator which bums 10 tons of secret material a day and supplies nearly 25 per cent of the heat for steam and hot water in the Pentagon building.—News. In Wellington there’s no vast Heap Of Secrets which we cannot keep — In Washington their Need is greater For a full-time Incinerator. Ten Tons of dangerous Waste each Day Goes up in Flames, or so they say, Provides the Steam and heats the Water, And cuts the Fuel Bill by a Quarter. The baffled foreign Spy may poke The Ash, or analyse the Smoke, The Secret’s safe, the Paper’s burned, There’s Nothing useful to be learned. Files and Reports, once so essential. And Documents marked CONFIDENTIAL, Researched, compiled, and Classified, Into the Furnaces they slide — What of the Authors and their Claims? They have no Faces, and no Names —- Mountains of Manuscript, that’s All, Sent up in Smoke, beyond Recall . . . Sir, in our own small Way, we do This kind of Thing, it’s Nothing new, But couldn’t we do More? — I mean, With some such Pentagon Machine, Couldn’t we stoke It with all sorts Of Stuff, superfluous Reports? Or come to That, can’t we produce More Fuel — precisely for this Use? There’s many a Plan, or Planners’ Dream, Ripe for Conversion into Steam — With Energy in short Supply, What are we waiting for? and why?, j