Vol. 21, No. 3
Tempting Fate RELIXIINARY hearings and discussions preparatory to certain tariff revisions have disclosed a proposal made and supported by a strong group of congressmen from essentially agricultural states that a tariff be placed upon one of the raw materials important to the chemical industry. Today most of the industrial alcohol is prepared by the fermentation of blackstrapnon-edible molasses. The by-product of our domestic cane sugar industry, itself an agricultural enterprise, amounted to 7,500,000 gallons in 1928 and is insufficient. Some 250,000,000 gallons of this raw material were imported. Molasses from beet sugar is used almost entirely for yeast and vinegar manufacture. Approximately 100,000,000 gallons of imported blackstrap are used in the production of stock feeds, but if it should seem likely that the proposed tariff would, through this finished product, have to be borne in part by stock feeders, it is generously proposed to limit the tariff to only that portion of the imports intended for alcohol manufacture. The proponents apparently believe that by making imported molasses so expensive that the resulting alcohol would cost say 10 or 12.5 cents per gallon more to produce, they would force the fermentation industry to use considerable quantities of corn. It is unnecessary to remind our readers of the vital necessity of alcohol to a long list of industrial enterprises, nor do they need to be told the possible consequences if high-priced alcohol is added to the formidable list of disadvantages under which the American chemical industry labors when engaging in competition, particularly in export, with highly organized, combined, subsidized, and encouraged foreign chemical industry. Such a material increase in the price of a raw material would necessarily raise the price of many articles made either directly or indirectly with the aid of industrial alcohol. Obviously, this ramifies in many directions and could make a price difference that the public would be unwilling to accept without complaint. Any such revision upward in the tariff on a primary material will entail a revision in retail prices. This will encourage the public to seek substitutes for a variety of things in the manufacture of which alcohol represents an important item of expense. However, this is not the complete picture. The chemical manufacturer will find increased interest not alone in substitutes, which regulations have already encouraged him to seek, but especially in equivalents which we know can be synthesized in a number of ways. Any circumstance which will lead to abnormally high prices for raw material automatically turns the attention of research men and technologists to other ways of accomplishing the same thing. The Stevenson plan for the restriction of crude rubber not only served well to encourage producers not included in the plan to increase their efforts but helped to teach us how to use successfully increased amounts of reclaimed rubber. And this practice will increase or diminish in direct proportion to the price of the crude raw material. It will doubtless operate for a long time to diminish the tonnage of crude rubber consumed annually.
March 1, 1929 Industrial alcohol will naturally be made from the cheapest raw material. At present this is blackstrap molasses. If forced by artificially high prices to turn to corn, then to compete with foreign manufacturers not so limited, it seems obvious that the synthesis of ethanol must soon follow the synthesis of methanol. The latter has been accomplished much t o the embarrassment of another agricultural industry, inasmuch as hardwood may be considered agricultural i n view of being a product of the soil. There are many who believe that the next important development in fixed nitrogen in America will be the use of coke-oven gas as a source of hydrogen. In the purification of the gas, refrigeration is employed and when that is applied synthesis of ethanol is sure to follow, utilizing the raw materials thus made available. With the present price of some fermentable raw materials for alcohol, synthesis is not attractive, but it will become so and will be accomplished on a commercial scale if our legislators insist upon the proposed tariff schedule. The result would be a loss of market not only for those of our agriculturists who grow sugar cane but for those as well who grow corn, but the coal industry would profit. Agriculture would also lose the by-product potash, amounting to 100,000 tons during the war, and now to 15,000 tons annually from a single industrial alcohol plant. To urge a tariff on raw materials in the chemical industry is to tempt fate.
Coming Events
1N PLANKING your activities for the immediate future,
you will want to dedicate two weeks to making the most of opportunities presented to improve your knowledge as a chemist and chemical engineer. The first of these weeks should be spent a t Columbus, Ohio, where on April 29, with the convening of the Council, the spring meeting of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY takes place. The technical sessions will begin on April 30 and extend through May 2, to be followed by excursions through May 3. The preliminary proof February 20, and gram appeared in our NEWS EDITION from now on we shall make further announcements, all of which will indicate the many advantages which will accrue to those who include Columbus in their plans. Every meetc ing of the SOCIETY has had its special features. There has been a growth in attendance and importance in program and always that priceless factor in every scientific gatheringnamely, renewed and extended contacts with one’s professional fellows. The second of the two weeks, beginning May 6, should be devoted to the Twelfth Exposition of Chemical Industries at the Grand Central Palace, New York. N. Y. It will have been nearly two years since the previous Exposition, and it is now known that the representatives of more than forty industries will be found among those who visit the Exposition, while the exhibits will show the most modern e q u i p ment and advanced practice of the chemical industry and chemical engineering. Here, again, details will be found from time to time in the NEWSEDITION.Special emphasis
