Correction: In Thursday’s Daily Nebraskan, Howard Houser's name was misspelled in
a story about the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska. The Daily
Nebraskan reorefs the error
WEATHER
Today, increasing cloudiness and breezy,
chance of thundershbwers, high around 70
Tonight, considerable cloudiness, chance of
thundershowers, low in the mid- to upper 50s.
Tuesday, chance of thundershowers in the morn
ing, high in the low to mid-70s.
INDEX
News Digest.2
Editorial.4
Sports..9
Arts & Entertainment.12
Classifieds.15
September 17, 1990____ ___University of Nebraska-Lincoln_ Vol. 90 No. 15
Development hurried
Local company researches, produces alternative fuel
By Stacey McKenzie
Staff Reporter
A local company’s research in alternative
fuels could help national efforts to combat
U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
Lincoln-based American Eagle Fuels Inc.
is the only manufacturing site for ethyl tertiary
butyl ether, or ETBE, in the world.
The fuel is made from grain-based ethanol
and a petroleum refinery byproduct. It is better
for the environment than ethanol or any other
fuel, said Morton Stelling, president of the fuel
company.
Currently, ETBE is being produced in test
quantities at a pilot plant in Eagle, Stelling
said. The pilot plant produces 200 gallons of
ETBE a day, he said, but will be dismantled
and used for research once the ETBE commer
cial production plant is built
The new plant has been designed to operate
at commercial levels producing 42,000 gallons
of ETBE a day. The plant, which will be built
in Nebraska, will cost an estimated $9 million
and should be producing ETBE by the fall of
1991, Stelling said.
“We arc going as fast as we can go,”
Stelling said. The technology for the commer
cial ETBE product was developed by William
Scheller, a professor of chemical engineering
at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
ETBE’s promising future and the Mideast
crisis have caused the hurry-up development,
Stelling said.
ETBE promises to be the best alternative
fuel available and will be priced competitively
with gasohot, he said.
American Eagle Fuels Inc. will market
ETBE once commercial production is under
way.
Major U.S. oil refineries and auto manufac
turers, including General Motors, Chrysler and
Ford, have purchased ETBE for fuel testing,
Stelling said.
ETBE also is advantageous to the refineries
because it can be shipped through pipelines,
unlike ethanol, he said.
As production increases, “it will take many
plants like this to meet the demand for ETBE,”
Stelling said.
The Nebraska Ethanol Authority and De
velopment Board bought 49 percent of the fuel
company and has provided $5 million in fi
nancing for the new plant. The remaining funds
still are being sought, he said.
Todd Sneller, adviser to the Nebraska Etha
nol Authority and Development Board, said
Nebraska is not considered a large producer of
alternative fuel, but it could be.
“We need some incentive to encourage that
development,” Sneller said.
The rate of ethanol and ETBE progress
depends on the extension of tax credits to
producers, Sneller said.
Gov. Kay Orr urged the use of grain-based
ethanol-blended fuels in U.S. government
vehicles at an alternative fuels conference last
week.
The government’s use of ethanol-blended
fuels could reduce the use of petroleum by
more than 1,400 barrels a day, which could
keep $320 million a year in the United Stales,
Orr said.
Orr also urged the White House to extend
tax credits on ethanol and ETBE.
“Although there has been progress, more
needs to be done,” she said.
Sneller said incentives have been provided
to virtually all energy forms in the past and are
needed in the alternative fuel industry to en
courage development.
A bill to revise the Clean Air Act could
affect the progress of alternative fuel industries
depending on what is resolved between the
House of Representative and the Senate, he
said.
The Clean Air Act’s oxygen requirement
for gasoline is most easily met by ethanol,
which reduces carbon dioxide emissions, Sneller
said.
If passed, the Senate’s version of the bill
would encourage the use of alternative fuel, he
said.
Although the industry has expanded through
direct mailing campaigns and producer credit
incentives, the petroleum industry has ham
pered the expansion with rumors, Sneller said.
The petroleum industry has circulated the
rumor that ethanol causes auto-mechanical
problems, he said.
But auto manufacturers allow the use of
ethanol-blended fuels in their cars and, in a
1990 statement, said they encourage it, he said.
Al Schaben/Daily NeOvaskan
Powwow performer «,
Tyrone Sheridan of Lincoln performs in the men’s traditional dance
during the Native American celebration honoring university students in
the Nebraska Union’s Centennial Room on Sunday. More coverage from
the celebration will be featured in Thursday’s Diversions.
Official says that
students are not
exempt from draft
By Sara Bauder Schott
Senior Reporter
Students who think they would
be exempt from a military
draft are wrong, said a Ne
braska Selective Service official.
Roma Amundson, assistant state
director of the selective service,
said that when President Jimmy
Carter reinstated registration for
the draft in 1980, the Selective
Service began examining its pro
cedures to make them more equi
table than they had been in the
Vietnam War.
Amundson said that now, if a
draft were instituted, students would
be able to posqx>ne military duty
until they finished their current
semester. If a student were a sen
ior, he could finish his degree be
fore he became eligible for the
draft, she said.
A student must be enrolled full
time and be in good academic stand
ing to be eligible for postpone
ment, she said.
‘‘Under the old system, a stu
dent could get exemption from
military duty as long as he stayed
in good academic standing,”
Amundson said. ‘‘Now he can get
postponement. The system is much
fairer because eve. yone has the
same chance of going/]
See DRAFT on 8
Officials to retool franchise studies
Program to recruit new students
By David Dalton
Staff Reporter
Five years after being hailed as
a program that would make
Nebraska synonymous with
franchise education, University of
Nebraska-Lincoln officials arc attempt
ing to retool the International Center
for Franchise Studies.
Interim Director Robin Anderson
said the franchise program is “going
to be aggressive in soliciting new
people” after low participation in
previous years.
Lack of students interested in in
ternships is the main reason the fran
chising program has not met expecta
tions, Anderson said. The program,
under a division of the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln College of Busi
ness Administration, provides intern
ships, franchising clubs, speakers and
a database on the franchising indus
tiy.
The franchise center is streamlin
ing its activities by working closely
with CBA’s Nebraska Center for
Productivity and Entrepreneurship.
“We think that anybody who’s
going to study entrepreneurship needs
to understand how franchises work,”
Anderson said.
He said the franchise center hopes
that this cooperation will serve a
broader group of students and that the
number of internships will increase.
In the past, internships only were
offered during the summer, Anderson
said. Now the center is establishing
part-time internships during the school
year to attract students.
Graduate assistant Vance Mehrens
said the best way to get new students
into the program “is to start with a
younger age. ’ ’ Anderson said the center
has visited 65 Nebraska high schools
to recruit students.
Sang Lee, executive director of
the Nebraska Center for Productivity
and Entrepreneurship, which includes
the Center for Franchise Studies, said
that the program will be expanding its
activities on the international level.
Anderson said UNL next year will
receive at least five students on ex
change from Moscow University.
There are other indications the
changes are working, Anderson said.
“The truth is, we’re stronger than
we have been for some lime,” he
said.
A letter distributed to students in
the College of Business Administra
tion’s Special Topics 198 course this
summer generated 25 applicants, a
significant increase over past years,
Anderson said.
Mehrens said the college’s fran
chising course has grown, with cur
rent enrollment at 35 students. He had
no figures for enrollment in past years.
The struggle to increase the pro
gram’s recognition was not antici
pated. '
The center opened to national
acclaim five years ago as the first of
its kind. The director at that time,
Robert Juslis, predicted that in four
years, Nebraska would be synony
mous with franchise education.
According to Anderson, that never
happened.
“We have not accomplished the
mission we set out to do,” he said.
“Aspirations and realities are not
always the same,” Lee said. “Just
because Nebraska isn’t synonymous
with franchise education, you can’t
say we’ve failed.”
If the center has fallen short of its
goals, Lee said, lack of funding was
partially to blame.
Franchise education does not have
the same base of financial support
from businesses as fields such as
biology do, he said.
“Franchising is not an industry,”
Lee said. “They (franchisers) don’t
have the same type of commitment to
education that industry does.”
But the program’s problems aren’t
limited to funding.
In previous years, it has failed to
attract the amount of student interest
needed to be successful, Anderson
said.
Mehrens said the program suffered
because students either were unaware
of it or had misconceptions about its
function.
Most people, when they think of
interning at Burger King, “just think
they’re going to be flipping burgers
all the time,” Mehrens said.
Craig Cormack, whose business,
Cormack Enterprises, Inc., owns the
Burger King in the Nebraska Union,
said that while interns with his com
pany are acquainted with that side of
the business, they are predominantly
involved in learning to run a fran
chise.
* ‘Our goal is to expose them to all
aspects of the franchise business,” he
said.
Cormack said he was satisfied with
the work of UNL’s franchise pro
gram, but noted the relatively small
demand for internships.
‘‘I think that many of the franchise
businesses have expected more than
we have been able to provide,”
Anderson said.
Mehrens said that previously, af
ter gelling businesses to provide in
ternships, the center was unable to
produce applicants for some posi
tions.
‘‘Our philosophy now is to gel the
students interested first and then go to
the companies,” he said.
“We still have support from fran
chise owners,” Anderson said, citing
Burger King, Valcom Computer
Center, Merry Maids and Runza as
companies interested in supplying
internships. “They continue to want
people to come out of the university
with an understanding of franchis
ing,” he said.
