The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-02-18
REAL ARGUMENT
 IS IN FAVOR OF
 BIG NITRATE UNIT

To the Editor of The Age-Herald. | In the February g. 1917, issue of the
 Electrical World, under the article or
 Use Surplus Power in National Pre-
 paredness," MT. Frederick Darlington consulting engineer of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing company says, in an interview, that the excess capacity of electric central stations, par ticularly of hydro-electric systems, is a valuable element in national prepared ness. Its utilization will be economy in time and money. 1t will develop trained workers and assure enormous producrson of nitrates in time of military emergency. MT. Darlington states that such project involves building not only a tremendous hydro-electric plant, whose constructor would require upwards of three years, but also nitric acid plant for turning electric power into nitrates.
 From the vital standpoint of military safety, he states that the grave weak ness of this plan Is that 1t would con centrate the entire output in one locality.
 MT. Darlington suggests that the sur plus power of the hydro-electric p:anss over the country be used rather than for the government to undertake 8 tremend- ous hydro electric development such as the one projected for instance at Muscle Shoals, which would involve a serious loss of time to accomplish. He would have the government to build the neces- sary electro chemical plants to start the manufacturing of nitrates by both the arc and the cyanamid process at points where power is already available or can be secured within a relatively short period and where the cost would not be excessive.
 It is not my purpose to bring forth an argument, but only to present a few facts in regard to locating the nitrate plant at Muscle Shoals, and to show why it would not be practical to establish a the country using surplus power as MT. Darlington would have.
 Had the fertilizer clause not been in serted ill the nitrate plant bill 1t never would have passed Congres. The chief product of the nitrate plant regardless of location, will be fertilizer except in time of war, and the Muscle Shoals site would be a better distributing point, be- cause the fertilizer bill of the country is now running at about $120,000,O00 an- nually, and nearly $75,000,00o of this is in the southern states.
 If plants were established in various sections of the country, the raw material and finished product would have to be shipped a long distance, in many cases. While the accomplishment of the Muscle Shoals project will mean the manufac- uring of ammonium phosphate, using the phospate rock from the great phospate fields of Tennessee, nearby Muscle Shoals, in combination with cyanamid. Ammon- ium phosphate contains nearly five times as much plant food as the ordinary fer tilizer would necessarily make it cheaper ito handle, bag, ship and transfer from the point of manufacturing to the farmer. It will assure the development of the bauxite deposits of the southern states, because the required ample low-priced hydro-electric power for manufacturing aluminium will be found.
 Mir. Darlington thinks that the techni- cal knowledge required for the construc- ton and operation of plants using the 'arc' and "cyanamid" process is not available in America.
 In addressing the eighth international congress of applied chemistry, which met in New York Septemb CT [, 1912, Dr. Sam uel Eyde said:
 For the development of the atmospher-