Cheap Electricity Needed— PLAN FOR N.Z. ALUMINIUM INDUSTRY IN ABEYANCE

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 September 1950, Page 2

Cheap Electricity Needed— PLAN FOR N.Z. ALUMINIUM INDUSTRY IN ABEYANCE

WELLINGTON, This Day 1 (0.C.).— After 50 years ol advocacy and investigation, proposa s to establish an aluminium industry in New Zealand appear . in abeyance. A project of this type depends on an abundant supply of cheap electricity. This cannot easily be provided until the expansion of hydro-electric power schemes meets the existing industrial and domestic needs oE the Dominion.

The Minister of Industries and Commerce, Mr Bowden, said this week that there had been no recent major developments in the prospects of manufacturing aluminium locally. However, this project would not be lost sight of, and no doubt the time would come when full utilisation of the country’s immense hydro-electric power potential would result in surplus power being’ used. The production of aluminium was, of course, only one of many industries which were based on the use of large quantities of cheap electricity. Although no immediate development may be planned, there has been considerable overseas interest in making New Zealand a pioducei of light metals. The site favoured for the industry is at Lake Manapouri, Otago, where a major hydro-electric station could generate the 50,000 or 100,000 horsepower required for the processing plant. The total cost of main and auxiliary works has been estimated about at £lO million. Lake Manapouri Scheme The power potentialities of the south coast sounds were first realised in the ’nineties by Mr J. Orchiston, a young telegraph engineer, who was surveying the route for a telegraph line between Puysegur Point lighthouse and Orepuki. Some years later when he was district telegraph engineer in Otago, Mr Orchiston interested the Public Works Department in his ideas, and he took a conspicuous part in preparing the first report on the hydro-electric prospects of the area. It was published in 1904. Mr Orchiston later became chief telegraph engineer at Wellington, and in 1926 his proposals were supported by a group of Wellington people, who formed the New Zealand Sounds Hydro-electric Concession, Ltd. With a capital of £20,000, this company was granted a licence by the Government to harness the waters of Lake Manapouri and other water powers for the purpose of generating 30,000 electrical horsepower. In 1936, the Government declined to renew the company’s licence, and a petition is now before the House of Representatives seeking compensation for ten years’ work in surveying and planning the Manapouri project. The company claims that the data which it prepared induced overseas interests to contemplate the establishment of an aluminium industry. Following a visit to Canada by the former Minister of Finance, Mr Nash, representatives of a large Canadian aluminium syndicate made exploratory surveys in Otago in 1947. Shortly afterward, there were reports in Australia that powerful British and Canadian interests had opened nego-

tiations with the New Zealand Government for the establishment of “a gigantic aluminium ingot production plant.” Otago was said to be regarded as a strategically safe centre of production to ensure commercial and defence requirements for the whole of the South Pacific. Private Negotiations Nothing has been revealed of these or any subsequent negotiations. There was a suggestion two years ago that the Otago scheme might supplant a parallel project planned for Tasmania but a Wellington authority said this week that an Australian aluminium plant with a designed capacity of 10,000 tons of ingots a year was now being erected 16 miles from Launceston. Tests were also being made in the use of Tasmanian bauxite. New Zealand’s mineral resources are not a significant factor in planning an aluminium industry, as it is the almost universal practice for bauxite to be imported for use by manufacturing plants. Any delay in advancing the project is considered to be due primarily to power problems. The programme of hydro-elec-tric schemes is now focussed on meeting immediate shortages, and it may be some years before work can be switched to power stations almost exclusively serving new industries. The price at which bulk power can at present be supplied is also an important factor.