Energy: Setback for Synfuel

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As of March 31, 1981, there were 63 applications from a range of sponsors including energy companies, municipalities and utilities for federal support of synfuels projects, but the Administration whittled them back to only five. They are two coal-liquefication plants in Kentucky and Wyoming, a methanol conversion plant in North Carolina, a coal-gasification facility in Memphis and a heavy-oil upgrading project in California.

Edward Noble, chairman of the Synthetic Fuels Corporation, defends the less ambitious Government role by saying that he "is not interested in just throwing a lot of money out there." He says that the Reagan Administration's goal is to "develop an infrastructure, even if it's just with a few plants."

Oil shale and other synfuel development may be sliding into a long twilight. This has happened several times in the past. Said a Department of Energy Official: "We've been witnessing the birth of this industry for 100 years." In the 1920s, oil was in short supply and there was great talk about shale development. Then the East Texas oil fields were discovered, and shale was forgotten. For now, Colorado shale rock is likely to remain in them thar hills. —By John S. DeMott. Reported by Robert T. Grieves/New York, Richard Woodbury/Parachute