The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-09-05
Misapprehension A b o II t Plants Seems to Have
 Spread Over Country
WORK ON DAM WILL
 BE RESUMED LATER
Nitrogenous Products in Future Will Be Used Chiefly for the Man. facture of Fertilizer
 Material
By HOLLAND

New York, September 4.-(Special)- only change in the great industrial prop osition now under way near Sheffield, which will be due to the suspension of work upon the construction of the large power dam in the Tennessee river, lies in the fact that this power plant propo- sition is simply postponed for a most convenient season, whereas the nitrate plants which are established and speedily to be enlarged in the vicinity will not be interfered with.
 There seems to have been misappre- hension throughout the country with re- spect to the water power plant on the Tennessee river and the beginning and continuance of construction of the very great nitrate plants which are already established there For it has been pre- sUmed that the utilization of the vast water power of the Tennessee river and the manufacture of nitrogen obtained from the atmosphere would be coincident in point of time. But that was a mis- taken idea, for in any event it would have been impossible completely to util- ize the water powers of the Tennessee river until construction work had been carried on for several years. By and by, when peace comes this water power re- source will be made available by govern ment aid. It will be used in the process of recovering nitrogen from the atmos- phere, but this product will, in days to come, be chiefly used for fertlizing pur- poses and for peaceful industrial de- mands. Our recovery of nitrogen from the atmosphere by a process which men of science discovered not long ago, will be of great importance by and by because there is no doubt that the nitrate fields Of Chile, upon which we have chiefly de- pended, are being rapidly exhausted.
 NORWAY SET EXAMPLE
 The government and private enterprise paid no heed until recently to the possi- bility of securing to commercial advan- tage atmospheric nitrogen through the utilization of electricity of high poten- tiality. Other nations did realize that an inexhaustible natural resource could thus be obtained. Norway set the ex- ample which Germany speedily followed as Germany has taken up other inven- ticns and discoveries and improved upon them. It has already been pointed out by men of science that if Germany had not perfected facilities for the recovery of nitrogen from the atmosphere, she would have been unable to begin war certainly unable to carry it on.
 As in so many other cases, it is the
 
 sudden caused both the government and private capital to realize that in the United States there are abundant facil- ities afforded by water power for the cheap recovery of nitrogen from the at mosphere and for the utilization of the product thus secured through chemica and other processes for industrial needs and for fertilizers.
 Now at Toledo, at Cincinnati in West Virginia and in Alabama, plants are ir the course of construction which, wher completed will be able to provide the United States with all of the ntrogenous products that are needed both for the manufacture of explosives and also fol use in industrial pursuits. The nitric plant at Muscle Shoals will not be in terfered with by reason of the decision oi tho government to suspend work upor the construction of the water power plant. The needed electricity will be SC. cured by the use of coal. At one of the Muscle Shoals nitric plants known as No 1, it will be possible to secure about Il. 900 tons of nitrate annually. This however, is to be recovered by the so. called synthetic process of which ammo mia is the base. The entire plant, which vii, cost about S300O0. GOO, will, when com. pleted, have capacity of 13S0O0 tons o1 nitrate, if SO much as that be needed fol powder, or nearly 225,O0o tons of fertil- lZGI concentrates.
 ADVANCE IN INDUSTRY
 Dyestuffs obtained from our own raw material, the wonderfully expanded use O. cotton both for war and domestic purposes. the gradual but sure utilization Of all our natural resources from which potash can be secured probably ulti- nately in amount sufficient to make us independent of the rest of the world and now nitrogenous products obtained either from the atmosphere or from ammonia represent the sudden and enormous transi. tion that has taken place in the United States. so far as certain industrial activ- ities are concerned. since the war began
 In addition, these new developments and the unexpected but wonderfully suc- cessful utilization of our resources for the production of various commodities which we did not produce in any amount before the war begH.s are speedily to be supplemented by the development under government auspices of our water power resources. The day is not far distant when the prediction made by George Westinghouse when he was addressing some Of the business congress of Atlanta 10 years ago will be justified by the event. Mfr. Westinghouse then said that within comparatively few years much of the south would make use of electric energy created by southern water power and in private conversation Mir. West iEghouse added that within genera tion's time many of the industries and substantially all the railroads of the United States would be operated by cleo trc energy which had been created by the utilization of water powers.