Imperial Valley press., 1942-06-08
CAPITAL TALKS
by
Peter
Edison

Announcement of the War Pro-
duction Boards program to obtain
ATS million gallons of industrial al
cohol from grain, including 200 mil
lion gallons for the manufacture
of zutadiene ingredient of syn
thetic rubber, has spurred on ef-
forts of the Senate Subcommittee
on Agriculture to win for the agri-
cultural chemistry industry a more
important place in war production.
When the new WPB alcohol sche-
dule was first announced. it was
thought the investigation being con-
Quoted under the chairmanshin of
Senator Guy NJ. Gillette of Iowa
might be killed But TIE sop thrown
the committee has made this group
of tough farm bloc senators, in
Guiding McNary, Wheeler, Norris,
Smith and Thomas of Oklahoma,
all the more determined to find out
lets for surplus farm crops.
Behind the scenes, this is
battle of giants. These senators
and other congressman as well
are beginning to get mad. As
preliminary to one of the sub
committees recent hearings,
they voiced their ire over what
they felt was a run-arOund be-
ing given them by WPB. Their
constituents have difficulty in
getting contracts or attention.
The industrial areas are getting
rich off war production, while
the farmers can't. And SO on.
This should be the chance for
agriculture chemistry to win a
permanent place in the industrial
scheme, to work off these huge
crop surpluses. to get away from
doing out all these millions of dol
lars for farm subsidies and farm
benefits. Agricultural ch e m istry
should compete equally with the
mineral chemicals industries like
petroleum products and coal by
products.
DOWN ON THE FARM
The farm bloc senators would
like. ideally, to see a lot OF smaller
alcohol distillerieS right in the farm
belt. The alcohol in turn would be
made into butadiene, which would
be made into synthetic rubber.
The WPB argument is that
this would take too much cri-
tical material, 1900 tons OF steel
and 20 tons of copper. for in
stance, to make a still that
would turn out 2.5 millions gal
Ions of alcohol a year. So the
WPB program calls for the use
of existing industrial alcohol
plants, plus production from
whisky distilleries cOnvered to
making alcohol. This plan will
use 1876 million bushels of grain
corn and rye, mostly, but
some wheat. That's a siZeable
program, but still not enough to
satisfy the farm bloc.
What they complain about par
ticularly is the slowneSS with which
the synthetic rubber program IS
getting under way. The commit
tee is collecting evidence on prog
ress of some of these plants. Typical
is the case of the Shell Union Oil
Company, which on Feb. % got a
letter of intent from the govern
ment's Rubber Reserve Company
to build two plants TO produce 3D.
OOC tons of butadiene year. This
was rescinded by Rubber Reserve
on March II and provision made
for one plant of $4,000 tons capacity.
To date, no construction has been
started, no materials arranged for,
no priorities scheduled, and the
company estimates that it will be
performing miracles if the plant
is built in from IA to l6 months.
other examples show similar slow
motion.
One practical diff Guilty, of
course, is that all this synthetic
rubber program is still largely in
the laboratory stage.
QUESTION OF COST
There is also the matter Of cost.
Synthetic rubber made from petro-
leum products is cheaper than that
made from grain alcohol. To be
commercially successful, processes
must be perfected so that II to IA
pounds of rubber can be obtained
from one bushel of grain. Best
yield so far has been eight pounds
per bushel, which is a raw materials
cost of 125 cents pound as
against a necessary 7 or 8 cents
Advocates of rubber-frOYn-
grain point out that this pro-
cess is practical in Germany.