plant for coal hydrogenation, at Louisiana, Missouri, was considered by
private industry as largely a waste of time for what was accomplished.
rather lengthy discussion developed, bringing in such points as:
A
government
responsibility to develop a field in which it has a monopoly; the adverse
effect of a high cost pilot plant; the cost of the Arco separation plant;°
the necd for motivation in the power field; the overall gain which would
result if a lot of people got into the power field and started thinking
how they would go about developing it.
At 11:00 a.m. Dr, Rabi returned and resumed the chair,
At 11:05 a.m. Mr. Dean, Mr. Zuckert, and Mr. Boyer met with the
Meeting
with the
Commis-
sioners
and
General
Committee.
Mr. Tomei was absent.
Reviewing recent developments, Mr. Dean mentioned the appointment of
Admiral Strauss as advisor to the President.
On March 18 the National
,
Manager Security Council adopted a resolution that a study should be made on how to
Admiral cut the budget of the DOD and AKC, the latter by $300-500 x 10°; and Admiral
Strauss
Strauss had been directed to investigate this policy, and make a recommendation by March 31.
Ports-
mouth
Mr. Dean went on to say that the Commission has looked
at several questions related to the possible abandonment of the Portsmouth
project, but had not yet got down to details.
He said the argument for
having a diffusion plant top at Portsmouth comes down mainly to the question
of the vulnerability of the Oak Ridge top.
To achieve budget cuts of the -
proposed magnitude would necessitate cutting out operations of the scale of
Portszouth,
Mr. Dean said that the Commission had developed a power policy statePower
State.
ment
ment, and had discussed it with the NSC.
The reaction was in general
favorsble, although the NSC was definitely against subsidy, whereas the AEC
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