Word: alcoa
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...final approval by the Office of Production Management, the U.S. appeared about to get two new plants which would increase its sorely needed aluminum output by 7% (60,000,000 lb. a year). Most notable fact about these plants: they will use no bauxite, the ore which (reduced by Alcoa's Hall process) has been the source of all U.S. aluminum up to now. Instead, they will use alunite, a grey-white mineral...
When (and if) Kalunite goes into production, Alcoa's once-firm grip on the U.S. aluminum supply will be further weakened at two points: the Hall process will have its first real rival, and another corporation will have joined Reynolds Metals and the U.S. Government in competing with Alcoa. This must come as a blow to 0PM Economist Grenville Ross Holden, who has fought aluminum expansion plans (unless they were Alcoa's) all along the line. Young Holden, who left Eastman Kodak to handle aluminum and magnesium matters for OPM, admitted to the Truman Committee last month (TIME...
Prospects were likely to be uglier still for later months, as defense demands overleap aluminum production, were not likely to improve much until 1942-43, when Alcoa, Reynolds Metals Co. and Bohn Aluminum & Brass Corp. get additional new plants into operation...
Reason was that all concerned, having badly under-guessed aluminum requirements (TIME, May 26), now recognized that what had been done before was not enough. RFC had already put up money for Reynolds to build two plants in competition with Alcoa. Its near-monopoly gone or going, Alcoa depended heavily on Government electricity from TVA and Bonneville Dam for additional new plants of its own. Resultant U.S. capacity (by 1943): 700,000 tons a year, probably not enough for military needs, let alone civilian and semimilitary requirements...
...bomber plants. Unless these plants have aluminum, they cannot make bombers. At the belated best, Mr. Jones's Government-owned aluminum plants may be operating by late 1942 (if they can be rapidly tooled, if sufficient power can be found, if enough bauxite-now mostly imported by Alcoa from Surinam-is at hand...