Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1942-06-12
u. S. Blocks
Big Supply
Of Rubber
Officials Fail TO Take
Advantage Of invention
By PAUL MALLON

WASHINGTON, June H.
w The idea that a country
which possesses unlimited sup
plies OF petroleum and alcohol
and a process for making rub
Der from either one and yet
cannot make enough rubber
tires TO satisfy its needs, is diff
ficult TO explain.
The government got started
early enough. Back in the spring
of 1941 a Polish diplomat tipped
Leon Henderson's office about
the Polish formula for making
synthetic rubber from alcohol.
THE Poles had $500 agricul-
Il tural alcohol plants making
synthetic rubber, and there
were $4,000 in Germany and
many in Russia way back in
1888.
Henderson's office turned the
Polish formula over to the
agriculture department experts,
who found the key catalyst was
missing. II was SO secret it
had never been in written form.
The Polish inventor, Waclaw
SuZkiewicZ, was then q refugee
in Italy. Thereafter he escaped
to Rio de Janeiro, where Hen
derson's men eventually found
him.
After five months of arguing
with the state department over
a visa he came to this country.
But all that was done with him
and his formula was to install
him in a large alcohol plant in
Philadelphia to make synthetic
rubber on a small scale.
\ FTER Pearl Harbor, Jesse
"A Jones got busy and January
II started a synthetic rubber
program for 400, 900 tons a year.
1t was to be made from a Pc
troleum refining by-product
tbutadiene gas) sent to- Akron
and other rubber centers to be
made into the synthetic rubber
buna.
This butadiene gas can also be
made from corn, wheat, mo-
lasses and many farm products
of which we have enormous sur
pluses, but Jones claims the
War Production Board did not
think there would be much al
cohol available for synthetic
rubber so this phase was not
pursued.
TEiE accepted estimate was
Il that il would cost $26, 000,-
600 for the first 100000 tons of
capacity and therefor $50, 0O0,-
900 Of plant expenditure to make
each 100000 tons of synthetic
rubber annually from alcohol SO
that only about Sc, 000, 900 worth
of new building materials would
be necessary for each LOO, 900
tons, not enough to build the
back of a battleship.
But WPB claimed II would
take copper tubing and copper
tubing was short. The agricul-
tural people showed that they
could use steel and wood for
tubing, and concrete for watts.
All that WPB has authorized,
however, was the making of
100000 tons from alcohol by
converting distilleries and exist
ing alcohol plants. It would not
allow any new plants.
The WPB said only enough
alcohol was available to make
200, 900 tons of rubber. but the
westerners promised they could
make enough or more in four or
five months to stop all talk Of
a nationwide gas rationing.
DY THIS time Jones had
~ stepped his plan up 200, 900
tons and it then called for 600,-
600 tons year-not enough. His
limiting factors, too, are all
priorities, not petroleum.
BY the end of this year he
thinks he will have 100, 900 tons
capacity ready, by next July
100000 tons and two and half
years from now he will have
700, 900 tons. (He does not even
promise to produce that much
in 1943. only that he will have
capacity for that production by
the end of that year,
His plants cost more than
three times what the alcohol
systems cost-about 100000
600 for each 100000 tons ca
pacity. Furthermore. the alco-
hol plants can be built in eight
months, the Jones Petroleum
plants require Is to Is. Costs
of the synthetic rubber itself are
immaterial because all are
within reason and what we
want is rubber at any price.
A FTER all these months of
"A arguing. the experts at
WPB say that If everybody does
all that is planned, there still
cannot be new tire made dur
ing this war for civilian use,
that only MILITARY needs can be
filled. When this nations tires
wear out, IL will be on the rim.
That's the prospect.
Does that explain everything
to you? 1t does not to me. It
sounds to me like each official.
I1rn. IIo-Iz..z.. MIL. -.