Word: rubbers
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...basic trouble is that butadiene can be produced in too many different ways: from the products of oil refining; from coke plants; from ethyl alcohol made either synthetically or out of such farm products as wheat, molasses, potatoes, etc. So synthetic rubber became still another battleground on which farm "chemurgy" proponents hurled their imprecations at the oil refiners...
...wheat hullabaloo has nevertheless served a useful purpose: as the sights for the buna program were raised again & again after Pearl Harbor, they finally pointed so high that the capacity of the petroleum industry to produce suddenly became a question. The 220,000 tons of wheat-alcohol rubber will make up the difference at the same time that it helps overrule the farm bloc's conviction that big business has been blocking it out of the program...
...buna program's troubles stemmed from such high considerations. Some plain old-fashioned competitive jealousies were also involved. The refiners had borne the brunt of butadiene research, were miffed because the rubber companies got buna from butadiene on. The chemical companies, scheduled to produce styrene, alcohol and alcohol-butadiene, didn't want to share secrets with the oil companies who had the original know-how. The little rubber companies were sore because they felt the Big Four of Rubber were hogging their end of the program...
...this caterwauling. By the very facts of petroleum technology, when a plant produces butylene it also produces high-octane gasoline and toluene. But there was no authority in Washington who would or could talk about these three strategic materials as one integrated production and financial problem. Butylene fell to Rubber Reserve Corp.; toluene (for TNT) to Army Ordnance; aviation gasoline to the Office of the Petroleum Coordinator. Something at last began to happen about six weeks ago. Its foundation was the sober recognition on everyone's part that 1) the rubber situation was so dire as to threaten...
Best sample yet of this new go-ahead attitude came last week, when the newly tough rubber authorities turned down a new butadiene process that came from no less a petroleum technologist than catalytic-cracking expert Eugene Houdry. The rubbermen were still human enough to be glad to find an excuse in Mr. Houdry's steel figures, which appeared to be as high or higher than those for most of the program already under way. Mr. Houdry was mad enough to vent his spleen all over the place. But the important point is that, even six weeks...