Chemisfic Eden

If not checked somehow, the earth's population will just about double in the next 70 years, says Chemist Jacob Rosin in a new book, The Road to Abundance (McGraw-Hill; $3.50). But Rosin, who is director of research for the Montrose Chemical Co. of Newark, is equally sure that a "chemistic society" can provide food and other necessities for an even larger population. In collaboration with Max Eastman, he tells how he thinks it can be done.

The first step toward a chemistic society, says Rosin, is to give up plants, except as decorations. Plants, on which the human race now depends for food, are lamentably ineffective as food-producing machines. They work only part of the day and only part of the year. They take up a vast amount of "floor space" and occupy the better part of the world's labor. Their average efficiency in turning sunlight into food energy is only about 0.1%.

Chemistry can do much better, says Chemist Rosin. He cites a long list of products that it has already taken away from plants: dyes, perfume ingredients, drugs, rubber and fibers. In each case, the synthetic proved not only cheaper but better than the natural product. Plant cells are expert chemists, but they work for the plant rather than for man. Furthermore, they have little operational freedom. Man's chemical factories can work around the clock, turning out just what man wants, not incidental byproducts that may fit his requirements.

Amino Blend. Chemistic food, says Rosin, is only a matter of time and effort. Margarine (chemically hardened vegetable oil) is already partly synthetic. It will be simple for chemists to manufacture food fats out of synthetic glycerin and paraffins from petroleum. Starch will be more difficult because plants produce it cheaply, but Rosin is confident that synthetic starch can be made out of carbon monoxide acted upon by sunlight.

The third main ingredient of man's food supply, protein, is the toughest problem; no protein has yet been synthesized, even in the laboratory. Rosin admits that for a while the chemistic society may have to make a deal with a low kind of plant, the algae, which can turn out acceptable protein in enormous quantity: 44,000 Ibs. an acre, at a cost for raw materials of less than 1-c- a Ib. Soybeans produce only 336 Ibs. of protein an acre.

Eventually, Rosin thinks, the protein problem can be solved by synthesizing amino acids. The human body does not use protein as protein. It breaks it down into amino acids and reassembles them into the specific kinds of protein it needs. So the proper mixture of amino acids will do just as well. "Our grandchildren," says Rosin, "will hardly believe that we were so primitive and barbaric that we had to eat cadavers of dead animals in order to stay alive."

For people who prefer dead animals to blended amino acids, Rosin has words of cheer. Chemistry can give meat substitutes any desired texture and make them taste better than the natural stuff.

Freedom from the Mine. There is no danger, says Rosin, that man will ever run out of mineral necessities. Along with freedom from the plant will come "freedom from the mine." Most scarce elements--e.g., tin--can be replaced by substitutes. What's more, almost any element can be recovered from the "dilute abundance" that covers the earth. Sea water, for instance, contains every element on the list. It is already supplying bromine and magnesium; it could supply many more.

Rosin does not think that the extreme dilution of most elements in sea water is an insuperable obstacle. Sea water contains so little vanadium, for instance, that no chemical test will show it. But certain sea animals manage to concentrate vanadium in their blood. If they can do it, so can human chemists.

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