Permanente Squeaks Through

From California's chaparral-cloaked San Jose Valley last week came good news to the whole U.S.: after many a delay, Henry J. Kaiser's $6,000,000 Permanente Magnesium plant is finally over the hump. It is now producing at the rate of 4,500 tons of magnesium a year, enough to make magnesium parts for 9,000 heavy bombers. Although this is only one-third the production originally scheduled in 1941, the company expects to double output this month to the highest levels yet.

The Troubles. Ever since the first contract was signed, there has been plenty of hell but little production around Permanente. Hundreds of construction workers jostled with hundreds of production employes trying to handle highly explosive magnesium dust. Once a conveyor pipe broke and caused an explosion which killed a few workers; again careless builders hooked on to a hydrogen line instead of an air hose, blew themselves skyhigh. Atop everything else, the newly designed three-story electric furnaces were constantly on the blink because the terrific heat (4,000DEG F.) melted vital parts.

Kaiser engineers also had trouble with Austrian Inventor Fritz Hansgirg, who kicked at changes in his carbo-thermic process. The U.S. took "Herr Doktor" into custody as an enemy alien in December 1941: Permanente barged ahead. To prevent explosions, Kaiser engineers soaked the magnesium dust in oil; to cut costs and save handling they started using petroleum coke (which contains pitch) instead of coke and pitch; to keep the furnaces going they invented new heat-resistant parts.

The Advantages. Now on its way, Permanente may some day have advantages over other magnesium producers: its raw material costs average 4-c- a Ib. v. 14-c- for the ferrosilicon process used by Union Carbide & Carbon; its power costs are below those for the "sea water" process used by No. 1 U.S. magnesium-maker Dow Chemical. In the head-to-head battle of metals (steel v. aluminum v. magnesium, etc.) which will surely follow the Armistice, this will mean easy going for Permanente, tougher sledding for its competitors.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.