N EWS O F T H E W E E K
allow firm to emerge from bankruptcy by year’s end
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sbestos claimants have reached an agreement with W.R. Grace that may allow the firm to emerge from seven years of bankruptcy by the end of 2008. The deal will set up a trust fund worth more than $3 billion to compensate all present and future asbestosrelated personal injury claimants. Under the plan, reached with claimant representative committees set up by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Pittsburgh, Grace will make an initial cash contribution of $250 million to fund the trust and then pay a further $1.6 billion over 15 years. The company will also contribute rights to its asbestos liability insurance coverage, which could amount to about $900 million, and rights to buy 10 million shares of Grace stock. In addition, the trust will contain cash and stock now worth about $1.2 billion from Fresenius Medical Care and Sealed Air, companies that had acquired
ENERGY DEFINES SUSTAINABILITY ACS MEETING NEWS: Symposium lays
out challenges for chemists, chemical engineers in energy research
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F INEXPENSIVE and nonpolluting electricity and
transportation fuels were available to meet global energy demands, all other sustainability goals, such as abundant food, clean water, and human health, could be achieved. That realization has had a profound influence on topics covered at American Chemical Society national meetings in recent years, a trend that continued at last week’s New Orleans meeting. One of the meeting’s defining events, designed to increase awareness of future needs in basic energy research, was a symposium hosted by American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) President Dale L. Keairns and ACS President Bruce E. Bursten. “As a global community we have addressed many types of challenges in the past—developing nuclear power, putting a man on the moon, and many others,” Keairns said. “We put the fate of those challenges into the hands of only a few. But responding to the global energy challenge is much different. It requires a broad
engagement of civil society and researchers involved in leading-edge science and technology.” Bursten added that energy is a problem “that transcends national borders and ultimately affects the entire global community.” Keynote speaker Undersecretary Raymond L. Orbach, director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, said that satisfying growing global energy demand and curtailing greenhouse gases in the century ahead will require breakthroughs that “forever transform the way we generate, store, transmit, and use energy.” DOE’s research agenda draws upon a dozen workshops held recently to identify energy research needs. Five workshop leaders gave overviews of the challenges facing chemists and chemical engineers in key areas: solar energy utilization, electrical energy storage, nuclear energy systems, hydrogen production and storage, and catalysis for energy applications. A common problem pointed out in each presentation was the large gap that remains between current science and technology know-how and future energy requirements. “We need to create awareness among the chemistry and chemical engineering communities of just how big the energy problem really is,” Bursten told C&EN. “With that awareness, we can drive the changes needed for a secure energy future.”—STEVE RITTER
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Investigators test for asbestos at a former W.R. Grace plant in Texas.
ST EV E R I T T E R /C & E N
LIABILITIES: Settlement could
former Grace businesses. An asbestos claimants committee had sued the two companies in 2002, charging that Grace “fraudulently transferred” assets to the new owners when it was technically bankrupt because of asbestos claims. Once the trust is set up, Grace will be shielded from further personal injury claims. Grace CEO Fred E. Festa says the agreement “will be good for our shareholders, customers, creditors, and our employees.” He adds that “a lot of work remains to be done before we can confirm a plan of reorganization, but I am optimistic we will be successful in reaching that goal by the end of this year or early in 2009.” One reason the bankruptcy case has dragged on for seven years is that Grace has forcefully contested asbestos claimants’ estimates of its liability for about 100,000 outstanding claims. The Pittsburgh bankruptcy court judge was presiding over a trial to value the asbestos claims when the two sides struck a deal. Without the deal, the wrangling could have prolonged the bankruptcy case for several more years. Grace still has to settle property damage and attic insulation claims. But the company says those issues shouldn’t affect the timetable for emergence from bankruptcy.—MARC REISCH N EWSCO M
GRACE REACHES ASBESTOS DEAL
Keairns (left) and Bursten
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