Document wDD6DMaravy29D5q3E0NJKbgD

Smoke-billowing jet Halt pollution or stop flights by installing control devices or stop the flights. In Philadelphia, the city government is taking the nation's biggest industry to court, charging antitrust violations resulting in air pollution damages. City solicitor Edward G. Bauer filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania that charged AMA and 13 motor vehicle makers with conspiring to restrain develop ment and installation qf motor vehicle air pollution control equipment, in vio lation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The city seeks a judgment of triple damages and costs "for the injuries sustained by plaintiff and other mem bers of the class represented by it." The amount of the damages was not stated. Mr. Bauer said Philadelphia's complaint represents "all municipali ties, county and local governments, states and public bodies in the U.S., their citizens and members of the pub lic whom they serve, who have been injured in their business and property as a result of the illegal acts." A similar civil action was brought by the U.S. Government against most pr the same defendants in the U.S. Dis trict Court for Central California on Ian. 10, 1969. That suit was later set tled when the court approved a con sent decree offered by AMA and the four major auto makers. The auto biakers promised not to conspire to ob struct the development of antipolluition devices for cars, but they did not admit any guilt. This settlement has left many peopie unhappy, including consumer ad vocate Balph Nader and California pollution control officials. Mr. Nader would like to see the Justice Depart ment's investigation made public. And Los Angeles County officials are now planning to file a petition to reopen the federal suit. Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn says that the presidents of auto companies . should be "criminally indicted because they have endangered the health of the I public in order to make a profit." AilTO EMISSIONS: c No Lead in Gas?/ The removal -of lead/irom gasoline Avould have wide-rariging impact on the chemical apa metals industries.' Sucna-rnovCwould eliminate an an nual gasoline additives market valued at $400 million for organolead com pounds, $85 to $90 million for scaven gers, and could result in -the layoff of 8000 to 10,000 production work ers in the chemical and metals indus tries. The exact date of lead's demise is not clear but there is now little doubt that the four producers of tetramethyland tetraethyllead can look forward to a rapidly declining market for their products. In his pollution message to Congress, President Nixon says auto makers are preparing automobiles for 1972 that will not use lead. He asks the petroleum industry to see that suit able nonleaded gasoline is made widely available for these cars when they come on the market. Five oil companies have already agreed to produce nonleaded gasoline but say that Detroit must first revamp its engines to utilize the fuels. Stand ard Oil (Ind.) has been offering a high-performance lead-free premium gasoline in eastern and southern states for several years. Atlantic Richfield, Getty Oil, Standard Oil (Calif.), and Union Oil say they would also market a lead-free gasoline. Du Pont and Ethyl Corp. are by far the largest producers of tetraethyland tetramethyllead. Other produc ers are Houston Chemical (owned by PPG Industries) and Nalco Chem ical. Producers in general say that the replacement of lead compounds will cause gasoline prices to rise, that lead is not now a health hazard, and that a nonleaded gasoline might cause more smog rather than less because of in- Ethyl's Gottwald A lot to lose creased -emissions of aromatics and aldehydes. ' While the. public and government are very much a part of the lead con troversy,- the heart of the problem is quite technical. Although research has been done on manganese, tin, cop per, and other compounds as gasoline additives, no satisfactory replacement has been found for TEL and TML. Only organoleads provide antiknock properties and high octane ratings. In designing an internal combustion en gine to burn lead-free gas, Detroit could lower engine compression ra tios, which would result in increased fuel consumption. Auto makers could also design an engine for high-octane gasolines, but these fuels would have to contain more aromatics than is now the case. Mr. Nixon says he is start ing a program to find an unconven tionally powered, virtually pollutionfree auto within five years. Regardless of what comes off the drawing boards in the way of auto mobile redesign, real dislocations will be created within the petroleum, chem ical, and metals industries. For ex ample, about 265,000 tons of lead or 20% of the nation's total consump tion now goes to TML/TEL. In ad dition, the organoleads accounted for about 85% of sodium metal consump tion. One chemical company estimates the value of TML/TEL sales at $400 million a year and says that perhaps 6000 production workers are employed in making the two compounds in tins country. The bromine industry is also closely connected to gasoline additives. Three fourths of bromine production now goes to produce ethylene dibromide. Perhaps 90% of ethylene dibromide output goes to gasoline where it acts as a scavenger to prevent lead deposition in engines. C&EN estimates that the gasoline additives market for ethylene dibromide is $75 million annually. Ethylene dichloride also finds use as a scavenger. Total sales to gasoline makers were about $12 million last year. V/J&TE CONTROL: /Dow Sells Know-How I Dow Chemical is proving how to turn 'die sometimes unprofitable pollution c&iitrol business fijto a profit making oneT^Dowls-sohruon, for a better eco nomic balance sheet, is to market the technology it has developed to solve its own pollution problems. As Dow president Herbert D. Doan tells C&EN, "This is one of the most clean-cut ex amples of Dow's internal pollution con trol technology being made available to others. This commercialization process has been going on for several OSW 552151 FEB. 16, 1970 C&EN 13 STLCOPCB4090568 years based on our conviction that the chemical industry has much to con tribute to environmental improve ments." _ Later this month, Dow will form Dow Engineering Co. The new sub sidiary, to be headed by C. C. Arm strong, will initially design and man age incinerator systems for liquid and solid wastes. Later on, it may get in volved in other things. The events which led to the forma tion of this new subsidiary started more than a year ago when 3M Co., which is well known for its own tech nological expertise, came to Dow for help with liquid and solid industrial waste disposal problems for its plants in the St. Paul, Minn., area. Dow, which operates two incinerators at its huge Midland, Mich., complex, agreed to help design and manage an incin erator system for 3M that would not create an air pollution problem. Min nesota regulations state that emissions must be 0.1 grain or less per cubic foot of dry exhaust. 3M will prob ably start building the $4.2 million incinerator in May for completion by the summer of 1971. The 3M incinerator is the rotary kiln type and includes a secondary combustion chamber to consume smoke and odors, a quench chamber, a scrubber, demister, and waste water treatment system. Besides the fully automated incinerator, Dow also de signed systems for handling toxic and hazardous chemicals. The system has the most advanced pollution control technology, 3M's manager of environmental and civil engineering Joseph T. Ling says. The incinerator will bum primarily liquid wastes, such as industrial sol vents. The facility will include a ma terials handling building and 10 large tanks for liquid waste storage. Dow is currently talking with six other companies about designing in cinerator systems, Charles L. Sercu, assistant manager of Dow's relatively new environmental control systems business group tells C&EN. "With our in-house expertise, we can solve a variety of problems in a hurry. Our own incinerators readily serve as test ing units to determine parameters for designing incinerators to solve a spe cific problem or to combust a variety of liquid and solid materials." Dow Engineering Co. will design, manage, and provide startup service for incin erator systems. Although Dow doesn't sell equipment, it will con struct the units at the client's option. Dow built its first incinerator at Midland in 1947. It is a 30- by 12- foot rotary kiln type. Last fall, another incinerator for burning tar wastes was put into operation at the same site. 14 C&EN FEB. 16, 1970 UNIVERSITIES: NASA Lowers Funds More than 200 representatives from some 125 U.S. colleges and universi ties gathered last week at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration headquarters in Washington, D.C., to hear the latest word about their role in future space programs. Although the meeting was intended by NASA officials to assure the academic com munity that it still has an important role to play in the space effort, what came out of the all-day program was less than reassuring. As one univer sity representative put it, "This is what we call the wake after the funeral." Not only is NASA's fiscal 1971 bud get the lowest since 1962, but NASA's R&D obligations to colleges and uni versities will drop almost 19% from fiscal 1970. NASA's overall R&D ob ligations are also down. And these drops are in the face of an overall in crease in federally supported academic R&D spending (see page 32). - NASA's Sustaining University Pro gram, which has been losing funds over the past few years, has been ter minated in 1971, resulting in the loss of 204 predoctoral traineeships and the closing of the administration and man agement programs which SUP funded. However, Dr. Francis (Frank) B. Smith, NASA's assistant administrator for university affairs, told the audi ence that earth observations research and cooperative NASA center-univer sity research--part of SUP--will prob ably be continued if NASA can find funds elsewhere within the agency. "This year," explained Dr. Smith, "we estimate that $3 to $5 million of the same kinds of grants--but not the same grants--previously supported by SUP will be continued through agency funds." Academic scientists who were pre viously supported by the Office of Space Science and Applications will suffer the severest blow of NASAfunded scientists in fiscal 1971. Al though OSSA's budget will increase somewhat (one of the only NASA in traagency budgets which will), R&D obligations to universities will drop al most 17% to $40 million. Biosciences are affected the most, with a 30% cut in funds. Twenty-eight bioscience grants were reduced and 35 were ter minated. OSSA support of space ap plications and physics and astronomy research will increase, although R&D support to the universities in the lat ter field will decrease because of a phasing out of data analysis support and support for flight experiments; a reduction in the Explorer program; and deferral of the high-energy astro nomical observatory. Dr. Hermann Kurzweg, research di vision director of the Office of Ad vanced Research and Technology, said that OART R&D funds to academics will decrease by 11%, although the interdisciplinary laboratory centers which have been established will con-' tinue to be funded, but at a lower level. Basic research money in OART will stay about the same as fiscal 1970. Universities will continue to have an important role in manned space flight programs in the seventies and eighties, maintained Dr. Charles Donlan, deputy associate administrator of the Office of Manned Space Flight, despite an almost 10% drop in R&D support by OMSF in 1971. He re minded the audience that the "con tinued education of the kinds of peo ple needed to work in these fields is another role of the universities." NASA's cuts in R&D to universities add to the continuing problem of de clining R&D spending rates by insti tutes of higher learning. According to a just-released National Science Foundation "Science Resources Sur vey," R&D spending by the academic community grew at an annual rate of only 11.6% from 1966 to 1968, down from 17% between 1958 and 1966. METALS PROCESSING: Enter Squeeze Casting Squeeze casting--a revolutionary new process in the U.S. but an old revolu tionary process in the Soviet Unionmay radically change the art of shap ing copper, aluminum, iron, and steel within the next five years. In doing so, squeeze casting may reduce by 25 to 50% the production cost--and per haps the selling price--of equipment components such as gears, housings, and extrusion dies, while at the same DSW 552152 STLCOPCB4090569