Support, government

The MTO process employs a turbulent fluid-bed reactor system and typical conversions exceed 99.9%. The coked catalyst is continuously withdrawn from the reactor and burned in a regenerator. Coke yield and catalyst circulation are an order of magnitude lower than in fluid catalytic cracking (FCC). The MTO process was first scaled up in a 0.64 m /d (4 bbl/d) pilot plant and a successfiil 15.9 m /d (100 bbl/d) demonstration plant was operated in Germany with U.S. and German government support. 

Central receiver systems not only require components that can withstand severe and frequent thermal cycling, but in addition they entail long warmup times and exhibit slow transient responses. As a result, energy production from the best systems have been about half of that expected. As development complexities became apparent, government support was curtailed and industrial commitment waned. 

The U.S. government supports the domestic beet sugar industry through low interest loans to processors, secured by finished sugar as coUateral. 

Several alternative technologies that were heavily supported failed to become commercially viable. The most obvious case was the fast breeder reactor. Such reactors are designed to produce more fissionable material from nonfissionable uranium than is consumed. The effort was justified by fears of uranium exhaustion made moot by massive discoveries in Australia and Canada. Prior to these discoveries extensive programs to develop breeder reactors were government-supported. In addition, several different conventional reactor technologies were aided. The main ongoing nuclear effort is research to develop a means to effect controlled fusion of atoms. 

U.S. Government funds were used to defray research and development costs. The aerospace plane is another opportunity for companies to develop new materials with Government support. However, military support for advanced-performance materials development is rapidly decreasing, both in appropriate test beds and in manufacturing support such as the U.S. Defense Department s Mantech program. 

Because of the immense initial investment, FTS has only been commercialized when some form of government support was available. In each instance, the developer generated a profitable technology and more than repaid the government subsidy. 

An intersection of people, government support and international exchange brought fire research to a level of productive understanding and practical use. This book was inspired and influenced by that experience and the collective accomplishments of those that took part. For that experience I am grateful and indebted. I hope my style of presentation will properly represent those that made this development possible. 

Subsequently, basic scientific research made great contributions to our nation s economic strength and its security. Some wonderful examples are described in a series of publications called Beyond Discovery The Path from Research to Human Benefit produced by the National Academies. Each brochnre chronicles some discovery in basic science and how it has had applications beyond what anybody could have imagined. Often as a side benefit, many new products emerged from federal government support (for example, communications satellites) and a series of new discoveries was made. 

Just as World War I had revealed the U.S. dependence on German organic chemicals and provided both the commercial market and the government support for the mining and chemical industries. World War II played an equally impressive role in promoting the domestic materials industries. The war revealed how critically the nation s security rested on access to materials. The Japanese advances in the Pacific were particularly damaging. In a short time the United States lost its access to a quarter of its supplies of chromite, three-quarters of its imports of tin, and almost all of its supplies of natural rubber. 

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