Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I Background
- Part II Bargaining from strength: the political economy of technological change, 1949–1955
- Part III Alternative paths to plenty: case studies from the mid–1950s
- 5 Fifty-fifty with the petroleum multinationals: BASF, Shell, and Rheinische Olefinwerke
- 6 Fifty-fifty with the petroleum multinationals: Bayer, British Petroleum, and Erdölchemie
- 7 Going it alone: Hoechst
- 8 State's interest and technological change: Hüls and cold-rubber technology
- 9 End game strategies: the German coal industry and the Fischer-Tropsch process
- Part IV Consolidating the new regime, 1957–1961
- Index
9 - End game strategies: the German coal industry and the Fischer-Tropsch process
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I Background
- Part II Bargaining from strength: the political economy of technological change, 1949–1955
- Part III Alternative paths to plenty: case studies from the mid–1950s
- 5 Fifty-fifty with the petroleum multinationals: BASF, Shell, and Rheinische Olefinwerke
- 6 Fifty-fifty with the petroleum multinationals: Bayer, British Petroleum, and Erdölchemie
- 7 Going it alone: Hoechst
- 8 State's interest and technological change: Hüls and cold-rubber technology
- 9 End game strategies: the German coal industry and the Fischer-Tropsch process
- Part IV Consolidating the new regime, 1957–1961
- Index
Summary
Speaking before the annual meeting of the German Society for Petroleum Research and Coal Chemistry on 25 September 1953, Dr. Bernhard Löpmann outlined some of the ongoing research-and-development efforts at his plant, a Fischer-Tropsch facility in Bergkamen, in the Ruhr district. Löpmann concluded enthusiastically that “in my view, we stand at present in Bergkamen at the very beginning of a new development of hydrocarbon synthesis from the raw material coal, which is so valuable.” By the late 1950s, however, it was clear that Bergkamen, which was owned by Ruhr coal interests, was in deep trouble. In early 1962, the factory shut down its Fischer-Tropsch plant. It had, in the meantime, been acquired by the Berlin-based Schering chemical concern and had begun to produce pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, and chemical catalysts. Other Fischer-Tropsch facilities in West Germany had stopped production even earlier, by the mid-1950s, the victims of escalating coal prices and competition from petrochemicals.
What happened? How could Dr. Löpmann have been so wrong? Was his talk simply an example of whistling in the dark while catastrophe loomed? In this chapter I shall argue that in the early 1950s, Löpmann and others like him had grounds for optimism regarding the prospects for Fischer-Tropsch production based on coal.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Opting for OilThe Political Economy of Technological Change in the West German Industry, 1945–1961, pp. 217 - 230Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994