Word: rosin
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...checked somehow, the earth's population will just about double in the next 70 years, says Chemist Jacob Rosin in a new book, The Road to Abundance (McGraw-Hill; $3.50). But Rosin, who is director of research for the Montrose Chemical Co. of Newark, is equally sure that a "chemistic society" can provide food and other necessities for an even larger population. In collaboration with Max Eastman, he tells how he thinks it can be done...
...first step toward a chemistic society, says Rosin, is to give up plants, except as decorations. Plants, on which the human race now depends for food, are lamentably ineffective as food-producing machines. They work only part of the day and only part of the year. They take up a vast amount of "floor space" and occupy the better part of the world's labor. Their average efficiency in turning sunlight into food energy is only about...
Chemistry can do much better, says Chemist Rosin. He cites a long list of products that it has already taken away from plants: dyes, perfume ingredients, drugs, rubber and fibers. In each case, the synthetic proved not only cheaper but better than the natural product. Plant cells are expert chemists, but they work for the plant rather than for man. Furthermore, they have little operational freedom. Man's chemical factories can work around the clock, turning out just what man wants, not incidental byproducts that may fit his requirements...
Amino Blend. Chemistic food, says Rosin, is only a matter of time and effort. Margarine (chemically hardened vegetable oil) is already partly synthetic. It will be simple for chemists to manufacture food fats out of synthetic glycerin and paraffins from petroleum. Starch will be more difficult because plants produce it cheaply, but Rosin is confident that synthetic starch can be made out of carbon monoxide acted upon by sunlight...
...third main ingredient of man's food supply, protein, is the toughest problem; no protein has yet been synthesized, even in the laboratory. Rosin admits that for a while the chemistic society may have to make a deal with a low kind of plant, the algae, which can turn out acceptable protein in enormous quantity: 44,000 Ibs. an acre, at a cost for raw materials of less than 1? a Ib. Soybeans produce only 336 Ibs. of protein an acre...