CHECKOFF
Economists ease no growth stance
NEW PLANTS • Acrylamide-based resin—$5 million unit of unspecified capacity planned by American Cyanamid at Longview, Wash., to make Accostrength 100 UK-A resin, used in liner board for boxes and other products; other new production of this resin to start by end of 1975 at converted plants in Kalamazoo, Mich., and Mobile, Ala. m Chlorinated paraffins—90 million lb-per-year plant outside Houston planned by Diamond Shamrock; on-stream date set for late 1977; cost to be more than $8 million; product cited for aboveaverage growth because of demand in fire retardant chemicals. • Medicinal chemicals—Joint venture planned by A. H. Robins Co. and Pharma-Investment Ltd., of Montreal (holding company of Boehringer Ingelheim, West German drug and chemical company) to build plant in Petersburg, Va.; initial products, guaifenesin (expectorant) and methocarbamol (muscle relaxant), due in early 1978; second chemical plant at same site planned by Pharma for use by recent U.S. acquisition, Hexagon Laboratories; combined plant cost put at $10 million. • Trimethyl phosphite—Multimillion-dollar second unit of unspecified capacity planned by Mobil Chemical at Charleston, S.C., to start up in early 1977; product used to make flame retardants and nonpersistent crop chemicals. • Wastewater treatment—$22.4 million plant planned by American Cyanamid at its Bound Brook, N.J., organic chemicals complex; the plant will use activated carbon to provide tertiary treatment for 20 million gal of wastewater per day. • Uranium enrichment—Williams Cos. has joined consortium, Uranium Enrichment Associates, which has proposed a $3.3 billion uranium enrichment plant near Dothan, Ala., to use conventional gaseous diffusion technology; other UEA sponsors are Bechtel and Goodyear. POSTPONEMENT • Vitamins—Temporary postponement announced by Hoffmann-La Roche for a $150 million plant in Freeport, Tex., to make intermediates for vitamins A and E; completion had been planned for 1978 (C&EN, Jan. 27, page 6).
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C&EN Nov. 3, 1975
No growth economics may be nearing a mid-course correction. The much talked of physical restraints to economic growth, such as supplies of food and raw materials, are taking a back seat to social limits such as increasing population density. And technology, with its reputed pollution and rapid consumption of resources, also now appears less in the forefront of the ideas of those who favor limiting economic growth. These views came out at the first of a series of biennial conferences on limits to growth, held late last month in Houston. What they suggest is that a more temperate outlook for the future seems to have begun to develop among long-range thinkers. Some of the views given on the future of the world's population and lifestyles at the meeting show a significant softening from the more gloomy views given in the widely publicized Club of Rome report of 1972 on limits to growth. Such changes in the views of the future by economists, social planners, and others who do studies of populations, resources, and consumption of materials could influence the development of industries. Not least among these industries is the chemical industry with its dependence on hydrocarbons as raw materials. A divergence of view exists among long-range forecasters. Some economists, such as Dr. Jay W. Forrester of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, now hold that rising populations are at the base of many social stresses, such as drug addiction, kidnappings, and the like, and could be the cause of future limits to growth. Other economists take a tack typified by think-tanker Herman Kahn of the Hudson Institute. In a preliminary new assessment of the outlook for growth, he sees that with the use of some intelligence and good management in dealing with current problems, economic growth can continue for some time with a benefit, rather than a detriment, to mankind. Forrester puts his view on social limits to growth in a perspective of energy needs. The question shouldn't be, can technology provide unlimited energy, he says. The question should be, is unlimited energy wanted, if it even were available. To ask for unlimited energy is actually to favor shifting the restraint on growth from physical limits to social limits, Forrester says. He reasons that unlimited energy can be converted to unlimited food and unlimited resources for support of populations that will then be more apt to grow until social breakdown occurs. Unlimited energy would push political and social institutions beyond their ability to manage it. Forrester's second perspective on growth involves a shift in management
Kahn: benefit rather than detriment scale from world to national levels. Only national institutions possess the power to act, he points out. Effective policies for restraining growth and achieving a desirable equilibrium can't be expected on a uniform world or regional scale. A wide range of choices for managing growth exists in compromises between population and living conditions. Hence, if countries have a freedom to pick the trade-off in growth between population and standard of living, then material equality between countries is not possible, Forrester says. A third perspective added by Forrester is that of the need to look at cycles of growth longer than the business cycles that run between three and seven years. One of the greater cycles on which business cycles should be imposed is the Kondratieff cycle, named after the Russian economist, Nikolai Kondratieff, who in the 1920's analyzed the long-term behavior of Western economies. This long-wave cycle runs about 50 years. Hence, much of the industrial growth of recent decades may represent the rising phase of the 50-year cycle following the depression of the 1930's, Forrester says. A downward phase of this cycle, if it lies in the near future, could produce a few decades of industrial equilibrium during which a sustainable future could be charted, he adds. Longer term, economic growth may not be mankind's primary concern. According to Kahn, new issues concerning the nature, development, and organization of life and society in a postindustrial era must be handled. More subtle and sophisticated questions will arise as people are more relieved of the burdens of sustenance and have more free time and resources to advance scientifically. His list of advances is long and covers examples such as genetic engineering, life extension, improved information handling, and artificially heightened perception. Many well-intentioned people are being distracted from mankind's real future problems and possibilities by issues that today appear basic, but really are temporal, peripheral, or badly formulated, Kahn adds. These issues include population growth and availability of energy and food. Bruce F. Greek, C&EN Houston
