The Chemical World This Week
OVERCAPACITY PLAGUES JAPANESE ETHYLENE Japanese ethylene producers, burdened with more capacity than the market will support, will spend the next three to four years getting their supply/demand picture back into balance. Although ethylene demand, including exports, is expected to grow 5.9 to 7.3% per year through 1980, it will take at least that long for demand to catch up with existing capacity, says Mitsui PetrochemicaPs Yasuji Torii. Last year, Japanese ethylene plants operated at only 73% of capacity. But even that was an improvement over 1975, when all that producers could manage was a lowly 65% operating rate. Speaking at the second international petrochemical conference sponsored by the National Petroleum Refiners Association last week in San Francisco, Torii said that existing ethylene capacity in Japan now stands about 5.15 million tons per year. This year, two more units, each with a capacity of 300,000 to 400,000 tons annually, are expected to come on stream. Torii expects that some older units will be shut down. But even with this, anticipated growth in ethylene demand will be inadequate, he says, to soak up capacity for another three or four years. Estimates for 1980 Japanese ethylene demand range from 5 million to 5.7 million tons. These figures include
Japanese ethylene use will hit 5 million tons by 1980 Millions of tons
1974
75
76
77
78
79
80
Note: Low estimate for 1977-80 includes 600,000 tons ot exports; high estimate for this period Includes 700,000 tons of exports. Source: Mitsui Petrochemical Industries
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C&EN April 4, 1977
between 600,000 and 700,000 tons of exports. Torii blames three related factors for the predicament that Japanese ethylene producers now find themselves in. First, demand stagnated as a result of the oil embargo. Japanese chemical exports, which soak up a lot of ethylene, dropped slightly in 1975, from $4.1 billion to $3.9 billion. Through 11 months of last year, they were running 4.8% behind their 1975 pace. Finally, says Torii, increased prices of synthetic resins, which account for a hefty 54% of all Japanese ethylene, made it impossible for them to continue replacing conventional materials in the market place. After demand catches up with capacity in the early 1980's, Japanese ethylene producers will have to contend with a new set of problems. Torii expects that, by then, petrochemical projects now being built in OPEC
(Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) countries and in Southeast Asia will be coming on stream. Many of their products, Torii fears, will be headed for the same world markets earmarked for Japanese exports. "The impact on Japan's petrochemical business is likely to be quite substantial," he admits. This new competition, along with already strong competition from the U.S., particularly to Southeast Asian countries, will help shape future strategy of Japan's ethylene producers. From now on, says Torii, new investment decisions will be based primarily on domestic demand. It also will help, he says, to eliminate factors that "create excess competition." Emphasis will be placed on improving return on investment. And Torii says that investments will be made jointly or "by taking turns to the extent permissible." •
NIH to study risks of DNA recombination The risk potential of research on recombinant DNA—"gene splicing"— will be evaluated in experiments to begin this summer, scientists at the National Institutes of Health announced last week. Such genetic manipulation has been the subject of a stormy public debate in recent months. Scientists, politicians, and laymen have questioned whether the potential benefits of gene splicing—such as mass production of insulin, crops that need no fertilizer, or cures for genetic defects—outweigh the potential risks, such as the inadvertent creation and subsequent escape of deadly, antibiotic-resistant organisms never before found in nature. At present, however, scientists can only speculate on the hazards. Dr. DeWitt Stetten, NIH's deputy director for science, says that the agency—which supports a great deal of recombinant DNA research—has a responsibility to test the limits of risk experimentally. The experiments will take place in so-called P-4 facilities nearing completion on the NIH grounds in Bethesda, Md. The facilities incorporate the most stringent level of safeguards mandated in NIH's recombinant DNA guidelines, issued in June 1976:
All work will be done inside sealed cabinets, and personnel will enter the building through airlocks, change clothes before working, and shower before leaving. The genetic alterations will be done on a strain of the common intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli that cannot survive outside the laboratory. Dr. Malcom Martin of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases describes the experiments. The first will address the most widely publicized concern: Can E. coli bacteria containing DNA from a tumorcausing virus be dangerous? To answer this question, DNA from a rodent tumor virus will be spliced into E. coli. Mice then will eat the bacteria in their food, breathe them, and be injected with them. While scientists monitor the mice's health, they also will be trying to answer some fundamental scientific questions. Since the biochemical environment inside E. coli is far different from the virus' natural home in rodent cells, will the viral DNA be copied faithfully there? Will new viruses be made in E. coli, and if not, why not? In a similar experiment DNA from a salmonella bacterium lethal to mice (though fairly harmless to humans)
will be introduced into E. coli, which will in turn be given to mice to test its ability to produce disease. A third experiment will test whether the presence of foreign DNA in E. coli confers any selective ad vantage. Bacteria that have been ge netically altered in various ways will be fed to germ-free animals. A later check of the animals' intestinal flora will reveal whether one type has overpowered the others. Π
Guayule could be U.S. natural rubber source The guayule plant, cultivated briefly in California during World War II as a potential source of natural rubber, may be about to make a comeback. Last week, a National Research Council report recommended that the U.S. initiate a research and develop ment program leading to commer cialization of rubber from guayule and that it collaborate with ongoing Mexican research in this area. Al ready bills have been introduced in Congress to set up a $60 million, five-year research program on the plant. Guayule (pronounced why-oo-lay) is a desert shrub native to the south western U.S. and northern Mexico that produces polymeric isoprene essentially identical to that made by hevea rubber trees in Southeast Asia. As recently as 1910 it was the source of half of the natural rubber used in the U.S. Since 1946, however, its use as a source of rubber has been all but abandoned in favor of cheaper hevea rubber and synthetic rubbers. How ever, the NRC report concludes, de mand for natural rubber is expected to produce shortages of that material as early as 1980 and rubber prices are expected to double by 1985. Natural rubber is required for many kinds of tires and amounts to about 35% of U.S. rubber use.
Guayule was grown as dryland crop on trial basis during 1940s in California
Guayule can be grown domestical ly, whereas all hevea rubber must be imported, making guayule develop ment potentially important to the U.S. economy and security, the report points out. (The U.S. imported $560 million worth of natural rubber last year.) A further reason to develop guayule as a rubber source, according to the report, is that it can be grown on arid lands, including Indian res ervations, where an agricultural cash crop could have important economic benefits. Both the NRC report and the bills before Congress focus on the need for research into guayule cultivation and processing. The legislation, proposed by Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R.-N.M.) and Rep. George Brown (D.-Calif.), would set up a technology transfer and research effort on the plant within the Agricultural Research Service. Π
Number of engineering graduates drops again The number of engineering graduates in the U.S. still dropped in 1976—1% from 1975 in both the total and chemical engineering at the bache lor's degree level. So finds the latest survey of 281 engineering colleges and universities by the Engineering Manpower Commission of the Engi neers Joint Council. However, the 1976 chemical engi neering class of 3146 may represent the end of the decline, at least at the bachelor's degree level. The reason is the large increases in new chemical engineering enrollments that began in 1973 (C&EN, May 17, 1976, page 6). Through 1976, the slippage in new bachelor's degree chemical engineers had run for six straight years since the peak of 3730 in 1970. New bachelor's degree chemical engineers in 1976 held steady at 8% of all engineering graduates. Total bachelor's degree graduates in all engineering fields in 1976 were 37,970, 14% below the last peak of 44,190 in 1972. At the master's degree level, the number of chemical engineering graduates went up 2% in 1976 from 1975 to 1072. Total engineering graduates with master's degrees in creased 1% to 16,506. Chemical engi neers also formed 6% of total gradu ates at this level. Chemical engineers were a higher percentage of all engineers receiving doctor's degrees in 1976 at 11%. New graduates with doctor's degrees still declined in 1976 from 1975, 9% in chemical engineering to 333 and 5% in total engineering to 2977.
New ChE grads decline for sixth year in row Thousands 4.U
3.5
ÔT 1970
« 71
ι 72
ι 73
ι 74
ι 75
J 76
! Note: New U.S. bachelor degree chemical engineering j graduates. Source: Engineering Manpower Commission/ Engineers Joint Council
These higher degree levels also suffered declines in the first half of the 1970's. The peak year for master's degrees was 1972 in both chemical engineering and total engineering. For doctor's degrees, the largest re cent classes were in 1970 for chemical engineers and 1972 for all engineers. Even though chemical engineering totals have eroded in the past half decade, the commission still holds up chemical engineering as an example of stability. "Chemical engineering has held a remarkably steady course for the past 25 years with slightly more than 8% of all B.S. degrees each year." The commission points out that the ratio of master's to bachelor's degrees in chemical engineering is the highest since the commission took over col lecting these data from the U.S. Of fice of Education in 1968. The ratio of doctorates to bachelor's degrees in chemical engineering has stayed fairly steady during this time. Among all engineering fields, chemical engineering currently ranks fourth in numbers at the bachelor's level behind electrical, civil, and me chanical. At the master's level, chemical engineering comes in fifth with industrial engineering in fourth place. For doctor's degrees, chemical engineering again is in fourth. Π
Portable centrifugal analyzer developed The centrifugal fast analyzer (CFA), which first appeared in clinical labo ratories in 1968, has been greatly re duced in size and improved in capa bility. Until now, however, it has never been portable. The lack of portability was due to a need to keep the analyzer connected to a bulky computer. April 4, 1977 C&EN
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