A "GOLDMINE"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 247, 18 October 1941, Page 5

A "GOLDMINE"

ALUMINIUM INDUSTRY N.Z. PRODUCTION URGED Production in New Zealand of aluminium is urged by Dr. William Bates, of Christchurch, who states that in the Dominion, there Is an unlimited supply of clays containing up to. 40 per cent alumina, and magnesium in the form of dolomite and magnesite.

I In a pamphlet, which has been issued, Dr. Bates says that the manufacture of aluminium in New Zealand would create numerous industries and the greatest need of New Zealand was industrial metals. He points to the need of electricity to work aluminium plants, and says that in the mountain lakes of New Zealand there is plenty of energy flowing away unused and wasted. In the lakes surrounding the Manapouri Deep Cove Sound there is a million I horse-power flowing to waste into i the sea, and which if converted into [electrical power would produce 309,064 tons of aluminium per year which is selling in England at £120 |a ton. The amount would be more jthan half the total value of the (exports of New Zealand's primary produce for 1940. It is claimed that it could be doubled by uniting Lake Wakatipu with the proposed scheme. Hydro-Electric Power I

Dr. Bates says that the biggest and most difficult part of the work would be the piercing of a tunnel through six and a half miles of rock, and adds that the main essentials in the making of aluminium are cheap hydro-electric power, bauxite or clay, salt and carbon electrodes. New Zealand has the cheapest electricity in the world, and New Zealand is rich in alumina clays, which are mostly found in districts where is of no great value. The production of aluminium in New Zealand was placed before thel

Minister of Industries and Commerce, Mr. Sullivan, by the study circle of a light metal league formed in Christchurch in 1939 by means of two conferences to bring the importance of the subject before the Government, and it was urged that a salt industry should be established. Money to Develop ladastry The aluminium scheme would cost £10,000,000 on a large scale, though > it would be possible to work on a „ small scale. Dr. Bates points out that Britain has given America J £130,000,000 to build war factories,« and Canada £25,000,000, so that i surely New Zealand could ask for) the money for developing such an ' industry as this. t The advantages of the project to Britain, says Dr. Bates, would be to i give her war material of which she is sorely in need to-day, anH after ! the war the Dominion could absorb i much of her suiplus population for < the manufacturing or aluminium ] goods. Advantages to New Zealand are that she could become economi- 1 cally independent and, with a larger I population and bigger market for j the farmers, make herself less dependent on the British market, which after the war, is bound to be very ' much decreased. It would produce work for the returned soldiers, and jin the years to come for their (descendants. j