NITRATES FROM AIR.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 30 August 1926, Page 9

NITRATES FROM AIR.

SYNDICATE'S NEW PROPOSAL.

AIM OF AMBITIOUS SCHEME

In a country so greatly endowed with water .power as New Zealand the success of the nitrate manufacturing venture in West Coast Sounds .may well lead to the construction of other plants to deal with aluminium or carborundum manufacture or similar industries, where the primary need® are enomous power and water transport. This contention is held by the, Otago Expansion •League, which mentions the venture in its annual report. The opposition shown to the utilisation of the Bowen Falls at Milford for the purpose of extracting nitrates from the atmosphere moved the Government to reconsider the proposal and to request the syndicate to make, a further search among the fiords for a .suitable site, states the report. This work has been, undertaken and a right acquired from, the State for the use of 250,001) horse-power from. Lake ATamapouri. The new plan: is much more ambitions than, the Milford one and will, if carried into effect, mean the erection of a plant that will Y ank with the great installation of Norway in magnitude and output. It will necessitate, the, construction of a tunnel some five miles in length, which will discharge.the water of the lake at a, point over 500 ft. above the tide level in Smith Sound. Here, at the edge of a, sheltered deep water basin, in which the mightiest tships could safely moor, the great dynamos will revolve and transform, the titanic energy of these falling waters into tractable through superhuman, force. Yoking them to his needs the engineer will transform the nitrogen of the viewless air .into the nitric, acid of commerce, and with the aid of the mighty limestone deposits found almost on the spot he will manufacture nitrates. The syndicate hopes soon to place the tscheme before the Home authorities and secure if possible- a, grant from the millions set apart by the British Government for Empire development'.