C omputers and chemicals , • It is quite extraordinary that
Mr !vor Catt should describe the computer Industry (February 2) in exactly the 3,Pne way I described the chemical Pe'ant industry in an article in British ',LleMical Engineering (February,
62),
i t Following the publication of this arrck, the universities and some leading ,Lires in the industry leaned on the ws'otor and the civil service to tour the ,carld to say that what I had written as a pack of lies and "wild s -tv,`ateirtents.' For several years after successive governments papered 'over the cracks with massive amounts f PUblic funds and an intensive press
campaign. However, a series of fiascos overseas finally forced firms to closedown, be closed-down, or diversify into oil-rigs which are also suffering from the same shoddy design methods.
The close similarity of the chemical plant and the computer industries cannot be coincidental. Both of them have been confidently described as the foundation on which the future prosperity of Britain rests, but, though outwardly sleek and prosperous, they are rotten to the core and on the point of collapse.
I now have the financial support of the Government to develop the sucrochemical industry, which is the natural successor to the oil industry when oil reserves are exhausted, but, notwithstanding that the Battelle Institute is presently going through the motions of carrying out a feasibility study of certain elementary aspects of the production of organic chemicals and fuels from agricultural products on behalf of the Japanese government, the universities are utterly opposed to the development of such an industry. Apart from their dependence on the oil industry, which finances numerous supposedly-independent bodies and organisations, the development of a sucrochemical industry would call for a complete re-shaping of science courses at academic level. This, as various professors have stated on television during discussions on the energy crisis, is completely out of the question.
A. J. H. Brown 46 Merryton Avenue, Giffnock, Glasgow.
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