Core shroud

A core shroud is a stainless steel cylinder surrounding a nuclear reactor core whose main function is to direct the cooling water flow. The nuclear reactor core is where the nuclear reactions take place. Because the reactions are exothermic, cool water is needed to prevent the reactor core from melting down. The core shroud helps by directing this cool water towards the reactor core, providing stability to the nuclear reactions.
Structure.
The core shroud is composed of multiple cylindrical thermal shields stacked on top of each other. In between each thermal shield is a horizontal, stainless steel cylindrical plate that helps keep the thermal shields in place. The plates are then welded together with the thermal shields so that they create one solid structure. Vertical tie bolts are then used to reinforce each horizontal plate with their adjacent thermal shields, stabilizing the cylindrical core shroud. The thermal shields are needed because the core shroud exists near the nuclear reactor core where heat is constantly present. The thermal shields prevent heat from damaging the core shroud by absorbing or reflecting the heat.
Core shroud walls are relatively thin, ranging from three to five centimeters in thickness. This is because the core shroud is not built to withstand high amounts of pressure for long periods of time, so thicker walls would be unnecessary for the core shroud's function.
Function.
Direction of Water Flow.
The main function of the core shroud is to direct the current of water flow inside of the reactor pressure vessel. Cold water is pumped into the reactor pressure vessel from an outside water source. The cold water flows down in between the wall of the reactor pressure vessel and the outside wall of the core shroud where it meets the fuel assemblies. It is here that the cold water is heated, and the heated water flows back up the gap between the wall of the reactor pressure vessel and the outside wall of the core shroud. This creates steam, since the water is heated, which is then used to drive the steam turbine, which powers the generator and creates electricity. By directing the cold water into the reactor pressure vessel, and allowing the heated water to rise and evaporate, the core shroud will have successfully cooled the nuclear reactions.
Water Level.
In order for the reactor core to remain cool, water is sometimes needed in greater amount, resulting in a flood like effect in the reactor vessel itself. The core shroud must be able to maintain its strength when the vessel floods so that the reactor core does not melt down. The core shroud must be built to withstand the pressure of extra water because should it collapse, the fuel assemblies would not be able to cool properly.
Maintenance.
In 1990, Stress Corrosion Cracking (SCC) was discovered in core shrouds, resulting in a heightened awareness of core shroud maintenance. Routine core shroud inspections became mandatory in most nuclear power plants worldwide because if a core shroud were to collapse, a nuclear meltdown could occur.
Core shrouds crack because the heat from the nuclear reactions combined with the constant flowing water eventually wear out the steel plates. One method used to fix this problem is reinforcing the core shroud plates. This is done using an anchor bolt, which is used to attach additional steel plates to the core shroud surface, thereby reinforcing the structure. This is the most common method used to fix cracks in the core shroud since it is easy and relatively safe. Replacement of the core shroud is also an option, but it is not recommended because the cracked plates must be removed manually, leaving the laborers susceptible to radiation.
In the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, cracks had been discovered in their core shrouds. In this specific event, however, core shroud cracking was not the cause of the nuclear disaster. Several other factors, such as the earthquake, tsunami, and equipment failures, caused the most damage to the nuclear power plant. It has been speculated that if a core shroud were to collapse due to cracking, it could result in a catastrophic nuclear meltdown.


Perno shipyard

Perno shipyard is a shipyard in Turku, south west Finland that specialises in building cruise ships, passenger ferries, special vessels and offshore projects. The yard area is 144 hectares. The yard is operated by Meyer Turku Oy. The dry dock is 365 metres long, 80 metres wide and 10 metres deep, and equipped with two bridge cranes with capacities of 600 tonnes and 1,200 tonnes. The newer bridge crane with a capacity of 1,200 tonnes is the largest one in the Nordic region.
History.
Construction.
Wärtsilä's shipbuilding grew heavily in the 1960s and over time the old yard area on both banks of the Aura river that runs through Turku became too small. When Tankmar Horn was appointed the new general manager of Wärtsilä in 1971, the idea of a modern "ship factory" started to evolve, inspired by the Swedish Götaverken Arendal yard.
The area selected for the new yard was in Perno, then part of Raisio, some ten kilometres from the centre of Turku. The area was joined to Turku, and on 8 April 1974 the city council approved a plan of selling 144 hectares of land and 34 hectares water area to Wärtsilä for a new shipyard. The work was launched in a ceremony held on 16 May 1974, when president Urho Kekkonen detonated the first explosive charge of the site work. The number of construction workers rose to over 1,000 people.
The first part of construction was the dry dock, which was then specified to length of 250 metres and width of 80 metres, and measured for two 100,000 dry weight vessels, a bridge crane of 600-tonne capacity, 70 metres operative height and 150 metres track, two 50-tonne level luffing cranes, a warm hall of 42,000 square metres for steelworks, paint shop, service building and an office building with dressing rooms. At this stage the headcount was 1,200; the workers were from the old yard, where the capacity was reduced respectively. Designing, administration, special ship building up to 40,000 tonnes, diesel engine production and ship repairs were decided to be kept at the old yard for then.
The schedule was tight – the first keel laying was to be in 1976 and the ship was supposed to be handed over in 1977. The record-long order book of Wärtsilä gave an additional challenge to the project. Operations in the steel sheet shop were started at the end of 1975. Despite of tough endeavour, the first ship of Wärtsilä Perno Shipyard, Gas Rising Sun (NB 1229) was handed over not earlier than 1978. The yard was fully operational in 1979, but until 1982 the vessels were tugged to the old yard for outfitting.
While moving the production to the new yard, shipbuilding methods were developed. Hulls were now constructed from large modules and an increasing proportion of welding and sheet metal work was performed indoors. Wärtsilä started a new computing centre in Perno in 1978. Ten years later the yard started first in the world computer aided line production of modules with system developed jointly with Norwegian company Total Transportation Systems. CAD/CAM system was introduced in 1984. Production rationalisation affected on outfitting work in particular, which was increasingly outsourced.
Shipbuilding crisis.
At the end of the 1970s Wärtsilä produced mainly gas tankers, passenger ships and cargo ships. At the early 1980s the Soviet exports, which had been low in the previous years, went up again and reached until the mid 1980s – they postponed the impact of the European shipbuilding crisis, which was caused by price dumping of Asian shipbuilders.
Wärtsilä Marine and bankruptcy.
Wärtsilä and Valmet put together their shipbuilding businesses, creating Wärtsilä Marine at the beginning of 1987. At that time Perno yard had only one non-started project on its order book, cruise ship NB 1294 to be delivered in 1988. The number of personnel was reduced heavily. The yard got more work already in January from nine projects originally addressed to Valmet yard, which was to be closed down. The order book grew in 1987 by four passenger ships and two more orders followed in 1988.
The suddenly grown order book together with errors in price calculations and other reasons led to bankruptcy of Wärtsilä Marine on 23 October 1989. At the time there were seven ships on the order book of which two were at quay for outfitting, one was under construction in the dry dock, two were partly started and two ship were at designing phase. Cruiseferry Cinderella was nearly ready and handed over just six days after the bankruptcy, when the shipowner SF-Line made the last payment.
New start.
On 7 November 1989, just two weeks after the bankruptcy, a new company was started by Helsinki yard manager Martin Saarikangas. The company name was Masa-Yards Oy and the owners were state of Finland, Suomen Yhdyspankki and shipowners of which ships laid unfinished at the Perno and Helsinki yards. The first task of the new company was finishing the ordered craft. On 19 January 1990 Effoa's Silja Serenade was launched; it was the largest cruise ferry built in Finland by then. Kalypso, launched in the previous summer, was handed over in the same spring. Silja Serenade was handed over in November in the same day when its sister ship Silja Symphony was launched; Symphony was handed over in spring 1991. The remaining two cruise ships ordered by CCL were eventually built at Helsinki shipyard.
Kværner Masa-Yards.
Both the founding shipowners and the state wanted to sell their shares of Masa-Yards as soon as the operations were restarted. In 1991 the major owner became Norwegian Kværner and the company was renamed Kværner Masa-Yards.
Soon after the situation was stabilised, the Perno yard started to gain more orders. The most significant were a cruise ship ordered by the Japanese Yusen Kaisha and four LNG carriers ordered from United Arab Emirates. At the late 1990s the yard started building Voyager class cruise ships for Royal Caribbean International; the 1999 commissioned Voyager of the Seas was first followed by two additional orders for sister ships Explorer of the Seas and Adventure of the Seas. Later the shipowner placed orders for two more upgraded ships, Navigator of the Seas and Mariner of the Seas, which entered in service in 2002 and 2003.
Aker Yards and STX Finland.
Another Norwegian company Aker took over Kværner in 2001. In 2004 it was announced that the Perno and Helsinki yards operated by Kværner Masa-Yards, and Rauma shipyard, already owned by Aker before, were put into one organisation. From beginning of 2005 the three yards operated under name Aker Finnyards. The company name was changed Aker Yards on 7 June 2006. The Korean shipbuilding company STX became a major owner in Aker in 2008. The name Aker Yards was replaced by STX Europe on 3 November 2008.
Meyer Turku.
The Perno yard was bought from STX by Meyer Werft and the state of Finland in August 2014, and it has been operated by Meyer Turku after that. In April 2015 Meyer Werft bought the 30% formerly owned by the state of Finland and is now the sole proprietor. Under Meyer ownership the shipyard has been successful; the order book in spring of 2019 was filled to 2024 (seven ships).


Shell Chemicals

Shell Chemicals is the petrochemicals arm of Royal Dutch Shell. The name "Shell Chemicals" refers to the nearly seventy companies engaged in chemicals businesses for Shell, which together make up one of the largest petrochemical producers in the world.
History.
Shell companies first entered the chemicals industry in 1929, via a partnership with Koninklijke Nederlandsche Hoogovens en Staalfabrieken in the Netherlands called NV Mekog, which manufactured ammonia from coke-oven gas produced at the steelworks in IJmuiden. Meanwhile, in the United States, the Shell Chemical Company (founded 1929) began the world's first production of ammonia from natural gas in California in 1931. It also started production of chemical solvents from refinery gases in California during the early 1930s while in 1942 it pioneered the production of butadiene, a key raw material for synthetic rubbers. In 1941, production of "Teepol" liquid detergent began at Stanlow in the UK, the first manufacture of a petroleum-based organic chemical in Europe. Through out the years as Shell Chemicals business grows inline with the Oil and Gas segment, many plants were setup globally. The Teepol brand is now manufactured in different counterparts globally. Among them are Teepol Products UK based at Orpington in Greater London and Teepol Malaysia based at Klang in Malaysia. From there it is sold worldwide. In the decades that have followed, Shell Chemicals companies have been significant players in the growth of the global petrochemicals sector and have developed some of its key manufacturing processes.
Portfolio of businesses.
The Shell Chemicals portfolio is focused on six product businesses and two international joint ventures. It includes the operation a number of large-scale plants that produce high volume products. The companies included in Shell Chemicals employ around 8,500 people worldwide.
Key manufacturing locations.
Shell Chemicals companies source product from manufacturing facilities around the world. Some of these facilities are operated by Shell Chemicals companies, some by other businesses within the Shell Group and others by joint ventures in which Shell holds varying levels of investment.
Currently, Shell Chemicals companies' main manufacturing locations for petrochemical building blocks are:


Players Bonded Warehouses (Nottingham)

Players Bonded Warehouses are a major former group of warehouses in Nottingham which were used by John Player & Sons for the bonded storage of tobacco. The buildings were completed in 1939, and were in use until operations ceased in 2016. The site was purchased by the University of Nottingham, with demolition beginning in summer 2017. During their existence buildings were a major landmark in west Nottingham, forming "a "gateway" on the west side of the city".
Buildings.
The site, situated at the junction of Wollaton and Triumph Roads in Radford, comprised a group of three 7-9 storey warehouses for the storage of up to 20,000 tonnes of leaf tobacco, interlinked as a "T" with a lower block of offices and loading bays, South of this were other brick buildings, some of which pre-dated the warehouse construction.
The warehouses were designed and built by the William Cowlin & Son, a Bristol firm of builders, and closely followed the design of the same firm's tobacco warehouses in Bristol, for Wills Tobacco, another company in the Imperial Tobacco group. The buildings had a complete frame of reinforced concrete, using the system invented by Louis Mouchel, consisting of 6 by 6 bays and 7 or 9 storeys high. Non-structural infill was of brick. The design and materials used were important as leaf tobacco is readily combustible.
Demolition and future use of site.
The site was earmarked for incorporation into the University of Nottingham's Jubilee Campus in the Nottingham City Council 2007 strategic plan for the area. The buildings and site was acquired by the University in 2016.
Despite appeals during 2016 by the 20th Century Society and Nottingham Civic Society, the buildings were not listed by English Heritage. Demolition commenced with an earlier building on the south side of the site in 2016. The demolition of the main group of buildings started on 15 June 2017.


Plutonium Finishing Plant

The Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP), also known as 'Z Plant', was part of the Hanford Site nuclear research complex in Washington, US.
Operations.
The plant began in 1949 with the purpose of on-site production of plutonium metal in a form suitable for weapons at Hanford. It also participated in programs to recycle plutonium. One of the projects was the use of mixed plutonium-oxide uranium-oxide (MOX) fuel in the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF). For that project, one of the PFP's tasks was to perform quality assurance for the fuel pins that had been constructed for the FFTF by outside vendors, such as Kerr-McGee, NUMEC, and Babcock & Wilcox.
The major activities at PFP generally included:
Divisions.
Plutonium Conversion Facility
Plutonium Reclamation Facility
Waste Treatment Facility
Incinerator
Other
Cleanup and demolition.
Before the last four major facilities at the plant could be demolished, approximately 20 years of work was completed to stabilize approximately 20 tons (nearly 18 metric tons) of plutonium-bearing material by 2004; remove legacy plutonium from plant systems by 2005; ship all weapons-grade plutonium out of the plant and to the Savannah River Site by 2009; remove 238 large pieces of contaminated equipment, including glove boxes and fume hoods, and approximately 50 plutonium processing tanks; and demolish numerous plant support facilities, including the vault complex used for secure storage of plutonium by 2012. That preparatory work has been called the most hazardous cleanup work at the Hanford Site and PFP has been called Hanford's most hazardous building.
The Department of Energy's PFP Closure Project intends to have the entire facility cleaned and destroyed down to a concrete slab in 2017, with all contaminated materials moved to other sites. Open-air demolition of the plant's last four remaining major facilities began in November 2016 on the plant's Plutonium Reclamation Facility. Demolition of the second major facility, the Americium Recovery Facility, also known as the "McCluskey Room" because of a facility accident in 1976, began in January 2017 and was completed in March 2017. Demolition of the third remaining major facility, the ventilation stack and fan house, was completed in July 2017. Demolition of the last of four major remaining facilities, the Main Processing Facility, began in July 2017. As of December 2017, all demolition is on hold, after contamination was found as far away as 10 miles from the site, and found in two car air filters that were checked by a Hanford contractor and deemed clean, but rechecked by an independent lab and were found to have small amounts of radioactive contamination.


Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services, Inc.

Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Servs., Inc., 504 U.S. 451 (1992), is a 1992 Supreme Court decision in which the Court held that even though an equipment manufacturer lacked significant market power in the primary market for its equipment—copier-duplicators and other imaging equipment—nonetheless, it could have sufficient market power in the secondary aftermarket for repair parts to be liable under the antitrust laws for its exclusionary conduct in the aftermarket. The reason was that it was possible that, once customers were committed to the particular brand by having purchased a unit, they were "locked in" and no longer had any realistic alternative to turn to for repair parts.
Background.
Since 1975, Kodak had followed a policy of selling patented and unpatented repair parts only to direct purchasers of its equipment. The 18 plaintiff in this case are Independent Service Organizations ("ISOs") engaged in repairing and servicing Kodak's copiers and other equipment, and in buying, reconditioning and selling used Kodak copiers and equipment. The effect of these practices is to bar sales of parts required to repair and maintain Kodak copiers and imaging equipment to the ISOs. In addition, Kodak refuses to sell maintenance service contracts on used equipment unless it is first inspected and brought up to standard by Kodak. Therefore, purchasers of used equipment from ISOs who want to purchase a maintenance agreement for the equipment from Kodak must first submit the equipment to Kodak for inspection and any necessary repair and upgrading.
In addition, Kodak has allegedly entered into agreements with original equipment manufacturers to prevent them from providing parts for Kodak equipment to the ISOs, with owners of Kodak equipment to prevent them from selling parts to the ISOs, with organizations that repair Kodak equipment to refuse to deal with the ISOs, and with entities providing financing for the purchase of Kodak equipment to cause them to require Kodak repair and service as a condition of financing.
The ISOs sued Kodak, alleging that it violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1, 2, and Section 3 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. § 14.
District court summary judgment ruling.
The district court granted Kodak's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the complaint. It said:
 The fact that Kodak refused to sell parts to plaintiffs and other ISOs does not violate Section 1. The right of a manufacturer unilaterally to select its customers and to refuse to sell to others is well-established, regardless of the possible adverse effect on would-be customers.
The court turned to the section 2 monopolization claim. The ISOs contended that Kodak monopolized by leveraging monopoly power in one market to gain competitive advantage in another. The court rejected argument as lacking any factual support. Kodak competes as an OEM with Xerox, IBM, Bell and Howell, 3M, and various Japanese manufacturers and has no significant market share as an OEM. The ISOs contended that Kodak "has a dominant share of a purported market for servicing Kodak copiers and micrographic equipment." But the conduct alleged does not "suggest that Kodak has attempted to leverage power in that market to gain competitive advantage in another market." To be sure, Kodak has "a natural monopoly over the market for parts it sells under its name but that imposes no duty on it to sell to plaintiffs." Therefore, "Kodak's unilateral refusal to sell its parts to plaintiffs does not violate Section 2."
The district court dismissed the complaint and the ISOs appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
Ninth Circuit reversal of summary judgment.
The Ninth Circuit reversed the summary judgment, 2-1. Preliminarily, the Ninth Circuit characterized at least one of the issues somewhat differently from the district court—as involving concerted rather than unilateral action. The Ninth Circuit said there were two main issues: "First, Kodak will not sell replacement parts for its equipment to Kodak equipment owners unless they agree not to use ISOs. Second, Kodak will not knowingly sell replacement parts to ISOs." The court added, "Kodak admits that the purpose of these policies is to prevent ISOs from competing with Kodak's own service organization for the repair of Kodak equipment."
The Ninth Circuit also emphasized some facts to which the district court had not referred. After 1982 ISOs began to compete significantly against Kodak in the repair of Kodak equipment. ISOs offered service for as little as half of Kodak's price. To better compete, Kodak in some cases cut its price for service. Some customers found ISO service superior to Kodak service. Kodak then developed its present policies of not selling replacement parts to ISOs or to customers who use ISOs.
As to the Section 1 issue, Kodak and the district court misconceived the statute. Kodak argued that it does not force owners to buy service in order to receive parts; Kodak only requires owners "not to buy ISO service" to receive parts. Kodak will sell parts to owners who agree to self-service their machines. The Ninth Circuit said that an unlawful tie-in violation occurs not only when a seller conditions a sale of one thing on the purchase of another thing too. It is also a violation to get the purchaser to agree not to purchase things from another seller.
That raised the question whether, if there was a tie-in, did Kodak have the market power necessary to make the tie unlawful. The ISOs argued that Kodak does have power in the parts market for two interdependent reasons. First, many Kodak parts are unique and available only from Kodak. Second, owners of Kodak machinery cannot readily switch to other companies' machinery (thereby obviating the need for Kodak parts). Once one owns Kodak's expensive machinery, he is locked in to it. Kodak countered that it had no power in the primary market, because its market share relative to IBM, Xerox, 3M, and the others was small. If equipment buyers find Kodak charging too much for parts and services, they will buy from IBM, Xerox, 3M, etc. instead of from Kodak. But once a purchaser has bought a Kodak copier, he cannot turn to IBM or Xerox for parts to fix his broken Kodak copier. But this is all theory, not fact, the court continued, and "market imperfections can keep economic theories about how consumers will act from mirroring reality." The court pointed to evidence that Kodak charged up to twice as much as the ISOs for service that is of lower quality than the ISOs's service. A price differential is evidence of market power. This indicates that there is a material issue of fact over market power, and therefore summary judgment on the issue was improvident.
Kodak argued that it acted unilaterally in refusing to deal with the ISOs. But the Ninth Circuit responded that Kodak entered into agreements with its equipment owners, which expressly set out in its "Terms of Sale," that Kodak will sell parts only to users "who service only their own Kodak equipment." That was sufficient to make the conduct concerted rather than unilateral.
Turning to the monopolization claim, the Ninth Circuit concluded that there were material issues of fact concerning whether Kodak fell within one of the exceptions to the principle that a firm generally has no duty to deal with competitors. On the factual record before the court, it was not possible to determine that summary judgment was proper. Therefore, the issue would have to be tried in the district court.
The dissent accepted Kodak's argument that Kodak was justified in imposing its restrictions to guard against inadequate service, because it had "submitted extensive and undisputed evidence of a marketing strategy based on high-quality service." The dissent also agreed with Kodak that that evidence of competition in the primary equipment market "necessarily precludes power in the derivative [parts] market." With respect to the § 2 monopolization claim, the dissent concluded that, entirely apart from market power considerations, Kodak was entitled to summary judgment on the basis of its first business justification because it had "submitted extensive and undisputed evidence of a marketing strategy based on high-quality service."
Opinion of the Court.
Justice Blackmun delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices White, Stevens, Kennedy and Souter joined. Justice Scalia filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices O'Connor and Thomas joined.
Majority opinion.
The Supreme Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit's denial of Kodak's summary judgment motion reversing the district court. Justice Blackmun began by emphasizing some additional facts from the record that neither court below had relied on. Kodak did not make all of the parts that went into its equipment. It purchased parts from parts manufacturers. As part of Kodak's policy to limit sales of replacement parts for micrographic and copying machines only to buyers of Kodak equipment who use Kodak service or repair their own machines, Kodak sought to limit ISOs' access to other sources of Kodak parts besides Kodak itself, Kodak got manufacturers of its parts to agree with it that they would not sell parts that fit Kodak equipment to anyone other than Kodak. Kodak also pressured Kodak equipment owners and independent parts distributors not to sell Kodak parts to ISOs. In addition, Kodak took steps to restrict the availability to ISOs of used machines.
Kodak intended to and was successful, through these policies, in making it more difficult for ISOs to sell service for Kodak machines. ISOs were unable to obtain parts from reliable sources, and many were forced out of business, while others lost substantial revenue. Customers were forced to switch to Kodak service even though they preferred ISO service.
Kodak argued that it could not have the power to raise prices of service and parts above the level that would be charged in a competitive market, because any increase in profits from a higher price in the aftermarkets at least would necessarily be offset by a corresponding loss in profits from lower equipment sales as consumers began purchasing equipment with more attractive service costs from other sellers. It urged the Court to adopt an irrebuttable presumption or substantive legal rule that "equipment competition precludes any finding of monopoly power in derivative aftermarkets."
The Court refused to do that. It insisted that this was a fact issue, not something to be decided by theory. Kodak was equally insistent that the existence of market power in the service and parts markets, absent power in the equipment market, "simply makes no economic sense," and the absence of a legal presumption would deter procompetitive behavior.
The Court refused to accept Kodak's economic theories and responded that they were flawed:
Kodak's proposed rule rests on a factual assumption about the cross-elasticity of demand in the equipment and aftermarkets: "If Kodak raised its parts or service prices above competitive levels, potential customers would simply stop buying Kodak equipment. Perhaps Kodak would be able to increase short term profits through such a strategy, but at a devastating cost to its long term interests."Kodak argues that the Court should accept, as a matter of law, this "basic economic realit[y]" that competition in the equipment market necessarily prevents market power in the aftermarkets.Even if Kodak could not raise the price of service and parts one cent without losing equipment sales, that fact would not disprove market power in the aftermarkets. The sales of even a monopolist are reduced when it sells goods at a monopoly price, but the higher price more than compensates for the loss in sales. Kodak's claim that charging more for service and parts would be "a short-run game" is based on the false dichotomy that there are only two prices that can be charged—a competitive price or a ruinous one.But there could easily be a middle, optimum price at which the increased revenues from the higher priced sales of service and parts would more than compensate for the lower revenues from lost equipment sales. The fact that the equipment market imposes a restraint on prices in the aftermarkets by no means disproves the existence of power in those markets. Thus, contrary to Kodak's assertion, there is no immutable physical law—no "basic economic reality"—insisting that competition in the equipment market cannot coexist with market power in the aftermarkets.
The real underlying problem with Kodak's theories, echoed by the United States (Antitrust Division) as "amicus curiae", is that it unrealistically postulates an all-knowing equipment purchaser:
[Copier equipment] consumers must inform themselves of the total cost of the "package"—equipment, service, and parts—at the time of purchase; that is, consumers must engage in accurate life-cycle pricing. Life-cycle pricing of complex, durable equipment is difficult and costly. In order to arrive at an accurate price, a consumer must acquire a substantial amount of raw data and undertake sophisticated analysis. The necessary information would include data on price, quality, and availability of products needed to operate, upgrade, or enhance the initial equipment, as well as service and repair costs, including estimates of breakdown frequency, nature of repairs, price of service and parts, length of "downtime," and losses incurred from downtime.Much of this information is difficult—some of it impossible—to acquire at the time of purchase. During the life of a product, companies may change the service and parts prices, and develop products with more advanced features, a decreased need for repair, or new warranties. In addition, the information is likely to be customer specific; lifecycle costs will vary from customer to customer with the type of equipment, degrees of equipment use, and costs of downtime.
Furthermore, the Court explained, there is the issue of lock–in:
If the cost of switching is high, consumers who already have purchased the equipment, and are thus "locked in," will tolerate some level of service-price increases before changing equipment brands. Under this scenario, a seller profitably could maintain supracompetitive prices in the aftermarket if the switching costs were high relative to the increase in service prices, and the number of locked-in customers were high relative to the number of new purchasers.
The Court explained that it was unpersuaded by Kodak's theories:
In sum, there is a question of fact whether information costs and switching costs foil the simple assumption that the equipment and service markets act as pure complements to one another. We conclude, then, that Kodak has failed to demonstrate that respondents' inference of market power in the service and parts markets is unreasonable, and that, consequently, Kodak is entitled to summary judgment. It is clearly reasonable to infer that Kodak has market power to raise prices and drive out competition in the aftermarkets, since respondents offer direct evidence that Kodak did so.
The Court then turned to the final issue: whether there were genuine issues for trial as to whether Kodak has monopolized, or attempted to monopolize, the Kodak equipment service and parts markets, in violation of § 2 of the Sherman Act. The Court said that the evidence that Kodak controls nearly 100% of the parts market and 80% to 95% of the service market, with no readily available substitutes, was sufficient to survive summary judgment under the stringent monopoly standard of § 2. Kodak contended, however, that as a matter of law a single brand of a product or service can never be a relevant market under the Sherman Act. The Court disagreed: "Because service and parts for Kodak equipment are not interchangeable with other manufacturers' service and parts, the relevant market from the Kodak equipment owner's perspective is composed of only those companies that service Kodak machines." This is, the Court continued, a fact issue. Summary judgment is therefore inappropriate.
Dissent.
Justice Scalia dissented and denied that this was just another case on the proper standard for summary judgment, as the majority had said. Justice Scalia insisted that "the case presents a very narrow—but extremely important—question of substantive antitrust law: whether, . . . for purposes of applying our exacting rules governing the behavior of would-be monopolists, a manufacturer's conceded lack of power in the interbrand market for its equipment is somehow consistent with its possession of market, or even monopoly, power in wholly derivative aftermarkets for that equipment."
He complained: "The Court today finds in the typical manufacturer's inherent power over its own brand of equipment—over the sale of distinctive repair parts for that equipment, for example— the sort of 'monopoly power' sufficient to bring the sledgehammer of § 2 into play." He argued that the rationality of equipment buyers would lead them to "simply turn to Kodak's competitors for photocopying and micrographic systems," if Kodak engaged in price gouging on parts. A "rational consumer considering the purchase of Kodak equipment will inevitably factor into his purchasing decision the expected cost of aftermarket support." Therefore, Kodak could not logically have market power in a supposed relevant market for unique Kodak parts. To be sure, there are some irrational consumers, such as the U.S. Government, "[b]ut we have never before premised the application of antitrust doctrine on the lowest common denominator of consumer.
Scalia dismissed lock–in as a material factor for "it is of no concern to the antitrust laws." He explained, "Though that power can plainly work to the injury of certain consumers, it produces only a brief perturbation in competitive conditions—not the sort of thing the antitrust laws do or should worry about." The Court should not condemn out of hand "such potentially procompetitive arrangements simply because of the antitrust defendant's inherent power over the unique parts for its own brand."
As for monopolization under § 2, it should be reserved as "a specialized mechanism for responding to extraordinary agglomerations (or threatened agglomerations) of economic power," not mere power over one's one brand of product where there exists a vibrant interbrand market.
Remand decision.
In August 1997 the Ninth Circuit considered the case another time on remand. The court affirmed a jury verdict that awarded the ISOs $72 million in treble damages on section 2 of the Sherman Act. It also allowed a 10-year injunction that requiring Kodak to sell the parts for its machines at reasonable, non-monopoly and nondiscriminatory prices.
The ISOs contended that Kodak had used its monopoly in the parts market to monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, the service market. Kodak now asserted that its intellectual property rights provided a defense against the claim. The court held that rights under patents and copyrights are a rebuttably presumed legitimate business justification for refusing to deal with competitors. However, the ISOs rebutted the presumption.
Kodak easily met the market share requirements of a § 2 case because "Kodak controls nearly 100% of the parts market and 80% to 90% of the service market, with no readily available substitutes." In addition, significant barriers to entry existed in the parts and service markets, and "Kodak has 220 patents and controls its designs and tools, brand name power and manufacturing ability[,] . . . controls original equipment manufacturers through contracts," and operates on an economy of scale. In addition to possessing its market share, Kodak engaged in exclusionary conduct.
That left the main issue whether the patent ownership justified what would otherwise be monopolization. Kodak argued that the district court had erroneously instructed the jury that "the fact that some of the replacement parts are patented or copyrighted does not provide Kodak with a defense against any of those antitrust claims" if Kodak misused its parts monopoly to monopolize or attempt to monopolize. The Ninth Circuit said the case presented a question of first impression. "At the border of intellectual property monopolies and antitrust markets lies a field of dissonance yet to be harmonized by statute or the Supreme Court." Some weight, but not decisive weight, must be given to the intellectual property rights of a monopolist. The court concluded it should use this test to resolve the question of whether one in Kodak's position should be held liable: "while exclusionary conduct can include a monopolist's unilateral refusal to license a [patent or] copyright," or to sell its patented or copyrighted work, a monopolist's "desire to exclude others from its [protected] work is a presumptively valid business justification for any immediate harm to consumers." The court said that using such a "presumption should act to focus the factfinder on the primary interest of both intellectual property and antitrust laws: public interest."
This presumption could be rebutted if the justifications for invoking intellectual property rights were merely pretextual and just an excuse for exclusionary conduct. After reviewing the evidence, the court said that "it is more probable than not that the jury would have found Kodak's presumptively valid business justification rebutted on grounds of pretext."
The injunction requiring part sales originally applied to all parts. The Ninth Circuit limited the injunction to parts made by Kodak, since the ISOs could now buy such parts from their independent manufacturers. Kodak argued that on parts for which it had a copyright or patent monopoly, it should be allowed to charge monopoly prices rather than merely "reasonable" prices. The Ninth Circuit said when compulsory sales relief was ordered in patent-antitrust cases, the courts ordered the sales to be a "reasonable" prices. In this case, however, it would be sufficient that the prices be nondiscriminatory and therefore the Ninth Circuit modified the district court's injunction order to eliminate the reasonableness requirement.
Commentary.
On main opinion.
● Herbert Hovenkamp has been highly critical of the decision. In his 2006 book "The Antitrust Enterprise", he strongly disagreed that a single-brand aftermarket could ever constitute a separate relevant market. In his 2015 book "Federal Antitrust Policy, The Law of Competition and Its Practice", he said:
Twenty years of litigation under Kodak had expended millions of dollars in legal fees and not produced a single defensible decision finding market power on the basis of lock–in. Academic commentary has been overwhelmingly negative as well. Kodak seems to be one of those ill conceived expansionist antitrust doctrines that the Supreme Court would do well to overrule.
● Mark Patterson argues in the "North Carolina Law Review" that the "Kodak" decision is rational and economically sound, incorporating into antitrust law previously neglected but important economic learning about the cost and value of product information and its relevance to creating market power. He points to other cases in the past where market power was created by making information expensive to obtain. For example, in "National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States", the Supreme Court held illegal an engineering society's rule that forbade members from providing price information to buyers until the buyers had tentatively agreed to purchase the members' services. Patterson gives as another example "FTC v. Indiana Federation of Dentists", in which the Supreme Court held it illegal for a dentists' organization to establish a policy requiring its members to withhold x-rays from dental insurers in connection with evaluating claims for benefits. In both cases the Court found that the organizations were tampering with price mechanisms by using the unavailability of information to prevent "the functioning of markets." Patterson sees "Kodak" as an extension of these decisions and "thus a step toward providing a more economically supportable and judicially consistent antitrust treatment of information."
● Eleanor Fox perceives "Kodak" as "essentially a case about abusing competitors; it is not essentially a case about lack of consumer information," as many other analysts perceive it. "Abuse and bullying by one firm with power over another is the oldest antitrust violation extant and has not lost its place in the antitrust firmament." She continues:
The information-failure analysts see "Kodak" and U.S. antitrust law from the wrong end of the telescope. Peeling away the economics-of-information technicalities of "Kodak", one might conclude: "Kodak" teaches that price theory economics has not read competitors or dynamics out of the law.
● In an article in "Antitrust", two of the lawyers representing the ISOs in the "Kodak" case describe the decision as turning back a growing trend of "Chicago School" revanchism against protection of consumers against wealth transfers to monopolists:
The "Kodak" case would have been much more significant had the dissenters prevailed. Their explicit goal was judicial economy through the rejection, as a matter of law, of the position that consumer welfare can be harmed if manufacturers of complex durable equipment are allowed to recover monopoly profits in aftermarkets (like service or software) of their products.
If Kodak had prevailed in making its economic theories the law, these authors maintain, the consequence would have been to exempt "a vast and growing sector of the economy from the antitrust laws."
● A paper by three economists—Borenstein, MacKie-Mason, and Netz—agrees with the "Kodak" Court that "market imperfections can keep economic theories about how consumers will react from mirroring reality." But they argue that the Court did not go far enough in rejecting the defense economic arguments. They insist that "strong primary market competition will [not] discipline aftermarket behavior, even without market imperfections," and that:
In fact, firms will rationally engage in above-cost aftermarket pricing even if the equipment market is very competitive, all parties are well informed, and demand in the market is
stable. Supracompetitive prices for proprietary aftermarket goods and services will occur so long as there is an inability to contract for these goods and services at the time of purchase.
The authors describe a continuous "balancing between high aftermarket prices that reap profits from customers who have already purchased the equipment and low aftermarket prices that tend to increase future equipment sales." In this process, future profits from enhanced futures sales as a result of creating a reputation for not gouging customers on aftermarket sales must be discounted to the present value of the future equipment sales, but present profits from current aftermarket sales do not need to be discounted. In a declining market for original equipment, which many antitrust cases have involved, there is a great incentive to charge high aftermarket prices at the expense of incumbent equipment owners. Even if equipment demand is expected to remain constant, the writers argue, profits in the future are of less value due to discounting. Accordingly:
Only if expected profits from equipment are growing at a faster rate than the discount rate will a firm have the incentive to price the aftermarket product at (or below) the competitive level. While such rapid growth does occur at times, it is generally short-lived and is then followed by a period of slowly growing or declining equipment sales. If slower growth or declines in sales are forecast in the near future, then the incentive to raise aftermarket prices is likely to be present even if current growth is quite rapid.
The authors then address other information costs. They explain that, even if there were no switching costs to adopting a new brand, high aftermarket prices would still be rational. The reason is that a manufacturer's aftermarket pricing policies can raise the cost of switching by lowering the market value of a customer's used equipment. When a customer switches it pays the net cost of the new brand of equipment minus the used value of its old brand of equipment. A manufacturer's increase in service or parts prices will correspondingly lower the market value of used equipment. Thus, "a $2000 increase in the present value of lifetime service costs will reduce used equipment prices by $2000 and thus will raise the cost of switching to another brand by $2000." The result is that the customer "is unable to avoid the costs of supracompetitive aftermarket pricing, and the possibility of switching to another equipment brand does not solve the problem, as defendants argue." Accordingly: "Even under the most favorable assumptions-perfect competition in the equipment market and perfect information on the part of consumers-firms have the ability and incentive to price aftermarket products above cost."
● A Comment by Jill Protos in the "Case Western Reserve Law Review" perceives the decision of the Supreme Court as a setback for the Chicago Law School's form of antitrust analysis. The Comment explained Kodak's "Chicago School" that persuaded the district court but which the court of appeals and Supreme Court rejected:
 Kodak alleged that if it raised the price of its parts and service above competitive levels, consumers would simply purchase an alternative photocopier equipment brand with more attractive parts and service costs. Kodak further argued that it lacked the market power to engage in monopoly practices in the parts and services markets because such an action would jeopardize sales volume in the primary photocopier equipment market. In other words, any gains realized by anti-competitive practices in the parts and service market would be offset by losses in the photocopier equipment market. Based on this economic reasoning, Kodak urged the adoption of a substantive legal rule that competition in primary markets precludes the finding of market power in derivative aftermarkets.
As a result of the existence of market imperfections such as imperfect information and information costs, the Supreme Court believed that "many consumers would be incapable of
making total package price computations, or alternatively would simply choose not to make such calculations." and therefore not act in accordance with the Chicago School's model. In addition, the model does not consider switching costs and resulting lock-in. Therefore:
[T]he majority found that the possibility of market imperfections created a material issue of fact as to. whether Kodak's theory was an accurate description of reality Thus, according to the majority the use of economic theory to grant summary judgment was inappropriate in this case. Instead, Kodak is required to withstand trial, and prove that its economic theory is indeed representative of reality in order to successfully defend its replacement parts policy.
The Comment sees "Kodak" as "clearly a setback for Chicago School adherents who seek to fully integrate their economic theory into antitrust law," and instead a coming era in which "parties will be forced to factually demonstrate the effect on competition caused by the challenged conduct" and where "reliance on economic theory alone will not suffice." The writer contrasts "Kodak" with "Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp.", in which the Court had said that "if the [antitrust plaintiffs'] claim is one that simply makes no economic sense - [the plaintiffs] must come forward with more persuasive evidence to support their claim than would otherwise be necessary" in order to survive a motion for summary judgment.
The writer deplores the Court's unwillingness to allow defendants to rest on an assertion of economic theory:
Antitrust law, prior to "Kodak" was developing into a body of law based on economic theory. "Matsushita" suggested that the Court had reached the point of complete acceptance of "Chicago School" theory by indicating that parties could defend against antitrust allegations merely by asserting that the allegation is contrary to economic theory In Kodak, however, the Court retreats from its embracement of economic theory Now, defendants must introduce evidence to prove that its economic theory does in fact reflect commercial realities. Alternatively, plaintiffs can now challenge certain conduct merely by attacking the assumptions on which the defendant's economic theory is based.
The writer sees this as ominous and concludes that the decision may signal an unfortunate reversion to 19th century populism:
"Kodak" signals that fewer cases will be dismissed on summary judgment, since parties will have to factually prove their economic theories. . . . "Kodak" may, however, signal more than just an increased antitrust docket for the District Courts. The Court's refusal to decide antitrust claims based solely on economic theory may implicate more than just a setback for "Chicago School" adherents, who would readily decide such claims by reference to economic theory alone. Threads of populism may underly the Court's refusal to accept Kodak's economic theory on its face. If "Kodak" signals that populism is creeping into antitrust law, the decision may have adverse implications for competition. Antitrust policy based on populism, as opposed to economic theory, may result in the protection of individual competitors, but not overall competition. As a result, antitrust law may once again be subject to Justice Holmes's criticism of being "humbug based on economic ignorance and incompetence."
● In a Comment in the "Notre Dame Law Review", Lawrence Fesca also sees the "Kodak" decision as a setback for the Chicago School, but finds it less distressing, and also he considers seeing the decision as an announcement of Chicago demise to be an exaggeration. He points first to the Court['s insistence on the supremacy of facts over theories:
"Kodak" did little to help the cause of Chicago proponents . . . with respect to economic analysis in general. In language that may signal a watershed in antitrust jurisprudence, the Court questioned implicitly the norms accepted by the Chicago School. "Legal presumptions that rest on formalistic distinctions rather than actual market realities are generally disfavored in antitrust law. This Court has preferred to resolve antitrust claims on a case-by-case basis, focusing on the "particular facts disclosed by record [evidence]."
Fesca says that from this language some "commentators have deduced that we are witnessing the end of the Chicago School era" and been led "to claim that we will be returning to the economic populism that prevailed before the rise of the Chicago School." But he concludes that "reports of the Chicago School's demise are greatly exaggerated." He points out that the Supreme Court's grounds for reversing the summary judgment merely used one set of "theoretical arguments (information defects exacerbated by price discrimination and switching costs) to defeat another theoretical argument describing the [supposed] effect competition in the foremarket has on aftermarkets." He sees the populist barbarians at the gate as having a long way to go before demolishing the Chicago Empire.
On the remand opinion.
● A Note in the "Berkeley Technology Law Journal" agreed with the Ninth Circuit's legal standard on remand that it would "allow the presumption that IP rights constitute a legitimate business justification for exclusionary conduct and allow the antitrust plaintiff to rebut it." The writer concluded that the polar options (1) "of not allowing IP rights to play any role in an antitrust defense" would "undermine the public interest in the patent and copyright statutes"; and (2) patents should "always be allowed to trump antitrust law"—would equally be mistakes. But the Note faults the Ninth Circuit's analysis because it "does not harmonize this 'field of dissonance' directly."That is, the court did not decide whether the scope of the patent rights "should" have extended to the use of parts to provide service and maintenance. Reliance on pretext to condemn the restraints is too case–specific. It fails to "offer much insight or guidance as to how this court will, or any other court should, review firms' actions" in future cases. Gully, "supra" at 350–51.
To answer the question of proper scope of patent rights, the Note says, the court should have explored further issues:
 If there were no way for Kodak to recoup its investment in developing parts and machines other than to effectuate its patent and copyright monopoly in the service market, there would be strong reasons for allowing it to do so. It might be the case that the short-term harm to consumers of allowing Kodak to monopolize the parts and the service markets is less than the long-term harm of not providing firms like Kodak with adequate incentive to enter a competitive market and develop new products. It is not entirely clear, however, that the patent and copyright systems should be used to subsidize Kodak's inability to compete in the service market against the ISOs, who might provide better service to consumers for less money.
● A Comment in the "Temple Law Review" by Sharon McCullen addresses a conflict between the Federal Circuit's decision in "In re Independent Service Organization Antitrust Litigation", which "correctly held that a patent holder who unilaterally refuses to license or sell a patented item in any product market does not violate antitrust laws without evidence of illegal tying, fraud in the patent procurement process or sham litigation," and the Ninth Circuit's remand decision in the "Kodak" case, which instead "adopted a rebuttable presumption that a patent holder's refusal to license or sell a patented work constitutes a presumptively valid business justification to exclude others," but also held that the presumption is vulnerable to evidence that "the patent holder's refusal was not based on a motivation to protect the patented item but rather was a pretext to hide anti-competitive activity." The writer criticizes the Ninth Circuit's rejection of Kodak's proffered legitimate business justification "by evaluating Kodak's subjective motivation in refusing to license or sell the patented invention and labeling Kodak's justification as a 'pretext.' "
Relying on the Supreme Court's 1908 decision in "Continental Paper Bag Co. v. Eastern Paper Bag Co.", in which the Court stated that arbitrary "exclusion may be said to have been of the very essence of the right conferred by the patent, as it is the privilege of any owner of property to use or not use it, without question of motive," McCullen argues that the Federal Circuit correctly concluded that subjective motivation for the refusal to license is irrelevant and should not be inquired into. "To hold otherwise," she insists, "would diminish the patent holder's statutory right to exclude others, defeating the primary objective of the patent law: to encourage innovation and to bring forth new knowledge for the benefit of society."
● Seungwoo Son, in an article in the "University of Illinois Journal of Law, Technology & Policy", expands on the comparison between the "Kodak" remand and the Federal Circuit's "Intergraph" decisions to include the FTC's proceeding against Intel over use of monopoly power in the microprocessor market to force customers to grant Intel royalty-free licenses to their own microprocessor technology and the Federal Circuit's decision in the "Independent Service Organizations" (or "Xerox") case.
The author builds his analysis on the exhaustion doctrine and the repair and reconstruction doctrine, which hold respectively that the owner of patented property such as a machine has a right to use and dispose of it without being subject to post-sale restrictions by the patentee and a right to repair it to keep it in good order. The general theory is that once a manufacturer such as Kodak sells a copier to a customer, the customer acquires a property interest in the copier that includes a right to use it without restrictions and keep it in good repair, but refusals to sell repair parts to ISOs (at least absent a sound business justification) unreasonably derogates from the customer's property rights.
The author considers high-tech industries that evolve and change rapidly and are complicated. That may call for different rules than used in the past. The author states, "This paper proposes a plausible alternative approach for the "Kodak-Xerox" contexts, based upon an idea for redefining the scope of a patent holder's rights by means of expanding the definitions of the [exhaustion] doctrine and doctrine of repair to conform with patent policy goals." The author excludes from his discussion "pure" refusals to deal, by which he means those refusals to deal without an ulterior purpose, such as one to divide markets illegally or restrict competition in markets outside the scope of the patent. His focus is on selective refusals to deal used to require adherence to a restrictive practice. He asserts that the exhaustion doctrine should be expanded so that an equipment seller such as Kodak or Xerox "should neither indirectly limit the existing choices of a buyer nor constrain a buyer's right to use, repair, and resell the product, without reasonable business interests or justifications." He further asserts:
When a consumer purchases the product, maintaining the purchased product through repair service should be one of the consumer's freedoms, whether or not the components of the product are patented. Once it is sold, some parts of the product will eventually need to be repaired or replaced in most cases. Thus, the product composed of patented parts must be treated as primary. After a seller sells a product and the patented repair parts, a patentee should not be able to restrict the buyers' right to repair some components of the purchased product through repair service, or to refuse to sell to any other buyer on similar terms, without a business justification.
The author argues that to maximize consumer welfare;
The definition of the first-sale doctrine must be broadened to limit a patent holder's rights, when those rights which restrict a consumer's choices or freedom of trade and result in a consumer becoming locked into a patent by the patent holder's indirect and socially undesirable business strategy. This approach based on consumer perspectives strikes a better balance between a patentee's legitimate profits and a consumer's benefits than the approach based on the patent holder's perspective.
Applying these standards to the "Kodak" remand case and the "Xerox" cases, which had similar facts (both equipment manufacturers refused to sell parts to ISOs or to equipment purchasers who used ISOs to repair their equipment) but opposite results, leads to an approval of "Kodak" and disapproval of "Xerox". The main difference between the Ninth Circuit in "Kodak" and the Federal Circuit in "Xerox" was that the Ninth Circuit considered that pretext undermined the proffered business justification while the Federal Circuit considered motivation and pretext irrelevant:
The Federal Circuit focused on incentives for the creation of IP by allowing the IP holder to reap profits wherever they were available. However, it only emphasized one side of IP policy—namely, that giving more benefits to a patentee creates more innovations. The other aspect is the limitation of patent rights to prevent overreaching. In this respect, the proposed
standard strikes a better balance between the legitimate interests of patent holders and their customers.
The author then turned to the two cases involving Intel. As in "Xerox", the Federal Circuit in "Intergraph" found IP rights dominant, and it simply rejected the Ninth Circuit's view in the "Kodak" remand case. The FTC acted against Intel, however, because it saw unlawful monopolization in Intel's refusal to deal (provide technical information on purchased microprocessor chips or sell chips) unless customers were willing to make their patents available to Intel. The FTC alleged "that 'Intel has entrenched and threatens to continue entrenching its monopoly power in the relevant lines of commerce' by coercing other customers into licensing their innovations to Intel." This would assure Intel "access to any new technology and prevent threats to its alleged microprocessor monopoly from ever developing."
The author concludes from his analysis that selective refusals to deal in intellectual property rights should be held violative of § 2 of the Sherman Act if:
unless the patentee proffers a valid reason to justify its refusal.
● In a Note in the "Washington Law Review" critical of the "Image Technical" remand decision, the author comments that, perhaps, "the Ninth Circuit has certainly come a long way from "Westinghouse" and its rejection of the notion that "an antitrust violation may be found where a patent holder does precisely that which the patent laws authorize."


Suzhou Oriental Semiconductor

Suzhou Oriental Semiconductor Co., Ltd (), abbreviated as Oriental Semiconductor (), was founded in 2008, located in SIP, Suzhou, China. It invented the world's first semi-floating gate transistor (SFGT) with Fudan University in Shanghai. The related research paper was published on "Science" on August 9, 2013.


Imperial Tobacco Company Building

Imperial Tobacco Company Building, also known as the Marvel Lighting Company Building, is a historic tobacco processing facility located at Mullins, Marion County, South Carolina. It was built between 1908 and 1913 by the Imperial Tobacco Company of Great Britain and Ireland, Inc., and at its construction was the largest redrying plant in Mullins. It consists of a three-story, brick main block, with stepped parapets and ten additions of varying age. The plant was used to buy, dry, and export tobacco.
It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.


Capper Pass and Son

Capper Pass and Son Ltd. was a British smelting and refining company specialising in non-ferrous metal refining, particularly tin. Originally established in Bristol in the early 1800s, the company relocated to a site on the banks of the Humber Estuary at Melton, East Riding of Yorkshire, in the 1930s, with the Bristol factories closing in the 1960s. Rio Tinto Zinc acquired the firm in the 1960s.
The Melton plant was a tin smelter of worldwide significance, producing 10% of world output at its peak. By-products of the tin refining process including arsenic caused local pollution, and in the 1980s an additional radioactive hazard due to polonium was discovered. Emissions from the Melton plant were implicated in a child cancer cluster in East Yorkshire; as of 2012 a link has not been scientifically established. The plant's owners Rio Tinto Zinc became involved in long running litigation due to diseases amongst the plant's workers, as well as those in the surrounding area. RTZ paid compensation to 29 ex-employees with lung conditions in 2002 after two decades of denying responsibility.
The Melton plant closed in 1991; its site was cleared and redeveloped for industrial use.
History.
Foundation, Bristol works (1812–1963).
, Bedminster works
The Capper Pass family business originated in the West Midlands, but moved to the St. Philips area of Bristol in 1812. In 1819 Capper Pass himself was convicted of handling stolen metal and transported to Australia. The sentence was for 14 years, but he stayed there, remarried and had a family, whilst the Bristol operation was run by his descendants. In the 1840s the business relocated to Bedminster. The factory there extracted the non-ferrous metals copper and lead from their ores, as well as processing silver and gold. By 1860 the factory had begun to manufacture solder.
The company was developed and expanded by Alfred Capper Pass, doubling in size between 1872 and 1888. He was born in Bristol in 1837, and took over the business in 1870 when his father died. He became a paternalistic Victorian industrialist, building houses for his workers in Windmill Hill, and donating to the newly founded Bristol University. In 1894 the family business was converted to a limited company. He died in 1905, after which the company was run by non-family members. A chair in chemistry was established at the University in his name.
The works in Bedminster was constrained by its locality, and in 1928 a new factory site was acquired at Melton, East Riding of Yorkshire; the great depression delayed the project; the factory construction and opening occurred in 1936/7. The Bristol works closed in 1963.
Melton works, (1937–1991).
, Melton works
Construction of the smelter in the East Riding of Yorkshire began in 1936, and the plant became operational in 1937. The plant was located west of Hull on the banks of the Humber Estuary. It was served by the Hull and Selby railway line, and was close to old clay pits on the bank of the Humber. The plant was designed by civil engineering firm Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners for £170,000, including a row of houses for plant workers built in 1936.
Rio Tinto Zinc acquired the company in 1967.
On opening the plant had one blast furnace, and 75 employees; by the beginning of the Second World War three furnaces were operating. During the war ore was difficult to obtain due to shipping warfare. Alternative sources of tin were sought and tin slags from former works in Cornwall were smelted. In 1946 the plant employed 226 people; by 1952 the number of employees had risen to 400, after which the employment numbers levelled.
The plant specialised in smelting low-grade ores and other feedstocks, particularly Bolivian tin ore, and the recycling of flue dust, processing materials other facilities or countries were unable or had refused to process. Tin was the plant's main product; it also produced silver, cadmium, lead, copper, antimony, bismuth, indium, and gold. The plant employed rectangular blast furnaces for tin production, with additional processes such as electrorefining employed to obtain purified by-products.
In 1971 a chimney was built, replacing the chimney built in 1938.
In 1980 the plant was the largest smelter of tin from secondary sources, and contributed 10% of the world capacity for tin production. In 1985 the world tin price collapsed, making the plant uneconomic. It closed in 1991 and was decommissioned; the site was sold in 1995.
Industrial pollution, disease and cancer cluster.
In the 1970s levels of arsenic and lead found in farms near to the plant were such that crops and livestock were condemned. The plant also discharged into the Humber Estuary, resulting in significant arsenic pollution; in 1997, levels remained slightly elevated in estuary sediments, and it has also been speculated that arsenic discharge has been carried into the North Sea, resulting in high levels in sediments off the Norfolk coast.
In 1984 a bismuth alloy supplied by the plant to a company in Germany was found to be radioactive: alpha radiation was found to be emitted by -products of the smelting process due to the presence of polonium 210 (a radioisotope with a half life of about 140 days), thought to be produced via radioactive decay of naturally occurring isotopes in tin-bearing ore bodies such as granite. The plant was subsequently licensed to emit 592 MBq (16 mCu) (1985) and typically emitted less than 10% of that amount, less than background radiation. Most (about 95%) of the polonium bearing materials and radioactivity were confined to the factory, as a result of the high temperature smelting process causing it to volatalise and condense within the plant. The plant's polonium emissions license did not become public knowledge until over two years after it was given.
The works gained notoriety because they were linked in the 1980s with a child cancer cluster in west Hull and surrounding villages; (Willerby and Kirk Ella) in 1988 the plant was part of a feature on radiation in Channel 4's "Dispatches" documentary "Radioactive Britain". A report from Professor M.S. Baxter of Glasgow University was commissioned by the East Yorkshire Health Authority; which found the previous statistical limits on radioactive exposure to be too high (by a factor of more than 100 times) and recommended revision of the Radioactive Substances Act 1960. A 1996 report recommended improvements in assessment, mitigation and monitoring of radioactive agents in the metallurgical refining industry be made. The Baxter report could not establish a link between the smelter and the cancer cases.
After closure of the plant and sale of the site, the former owner Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) denied any responsibility or liability for its former asset for over two decades. In 2002 RTZ began proceedings to offer compensation to persons associated with the plant who were affected by disease, which would be reviewed through an independent panel; RTZ did not accept legal liability, whilst the claimants did not need to prove negligence. Over 600 claimants lodged 1,788 claims: 29 claims for lung cancer and 9 claims for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were settled. The remaining 1,750 claims were rejected.
A study publisher in 2005 led by Sir Richard Doll showed an elevated risk of lung cancer amongst workers at the plant, which was found to be statistically associated with exposure to arsenic and other heavy metals. A study in 2005 of lead and tin levels in soil around the former smelter showed deposition up to with a distribution trend towards the north-east; the study estimated that about 2,500 tons of lead and 830 tons of zinc had been introduced into the soil surrounding the plant.
Redevelopment.
The former industrial site at Melton has been converted into a industrial development named "Melton Park" used for open storage and warehousing including two industrial units of over total, and another unit of approximately . As of 2012 the site is under development.
Other works.
During the Second World War two companies were acquired: "Victor G. Stevens Ltd", of Felling-on-Tyne; and "Messrs George Pizey" (London). The Pizey plant was moved to Felling. In 1959 plant and equipment of the Stevens' works was relocated to Bristol.


Rammam Hydro

Rammam hydro power project is a NTPC owned run-of-the-river based project approx 150 Km from Bagdogra / Siliguri in Darjeeling district, West Bengal, India. Darjeeling town is 50 km from the project. Capacity of power generation is 120 (3 x 40) MW,


Sewa-II

Sewa-II is a hydroelectric power station located in the Himalayan region in Jammu and Kashmir state. It is constructed by NHPC Limited on the Sewa River, a tributary of the Ravi River. Commissioned in 2010, it has a surface power house with the capacity of 120 MW, comprising three Pelton wheel units of 40 MW each, which are fed through a 10km headrace tunnel from the Sewa II Reservoir, giving a maximum water head of 599m. The Sewa II Dam has a height of 53m. The power station generates 534 GW⋅h annually in a 90% dependable year. The beneficiary states of the project include Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Rajasthan and Union Territory of Chandigarh.


TPC Group

TPC Group, previously known as Texas Petrochemicals, is a petrochemicals manufacturing company based in Houston, Texas, and is a large producer of butadiene, MTBE, and polyisobutylene. TPC has operations in Houston and Port Neches, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Products.
In 2011, TPC led the market in butadiene (35% market share), butene-1 (35% market share), polyisobutylene (PIB) (60% market share), and was near the top of the market in both isobutylenes and propylene derivatives.
History.
The Houston plant was authorized in 1942 as part of the United States Rubber Reserve Program, and opened in 1944 operated by Sinclair Rubber. It was subsequently purchased by a joint venture of Tenneco and FMC Corporation in 1955 and later by the chemical brokerage Texas Olefins in 1984. Texas Olefins also changed its name to Texas Petrochemicals in 1984. Texas Petrochemicals was acquired by the private equity firm Sterling Group in 1996. In 2003, a collapse of the MTBE market forced Texas Petrochemicals (now employee owned via a LBO) into bankruptcy. The company emerged from bankruptcy under new ownership in 2004.
The Port Neches, Texas, plant—also authorized by Rubber Reserve—opened in 1943 operated by Neches Butane Products Company. It was purchased by Texaco in 1980, and later it was purchased by Huntsman Corporation in 1994, then purchased by Texas Petrochemicals in 2006.
Texas Petrochemicals changed its name to TPC Group in 2010.
TPC Group was taken private in 2012 by First Reserve Corporation and SK Capital Partners, in a deal worth approximately $850 million, after a bidding war with Innospec.
 The merger was approved by shareholders in December 2012.
TPC sold its Baytown, Texas, propylene derivatives facility to SI Group in 2016.
Michael T. McDonnell was the CEO from 2011 to 2015. McDonnell is currently the head of General Cable. Edward J. Dineen is the current CEO, starting in 2016. Dineen was previously CEO at Siluria Technologies, CEO at LS9, Inc, and COO of LyondellBasell. Dineen is also on the board of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.
Port Neches explosions.
A processing unit at TPC's Port Neches butadiene manufacturing plant exploded in a series of explosions on Wednesday, November 27, 2019, the eve of Thanksgiving Day, and a fire raged at the facility. 60,000 residents were evacuated within four miles of the facility, including parts of Port Neches, Nederland, Groves, and Port Arthur, Texas. The mandatory evacuation was lifted on Friday morning. Four workers were injured, none seriously. Local residents reported respiratory, eye and throat pain caused by the acrid smoke from the fire at the Port Neches facility.
In 2018, the Port Neches facility released the second-highest illegal amount of cancer-causing butadiene in Texas. The November 27 explosions were part of a series of major explosions in 2019 in Texas's petrochemical corridor. Environmental advocacy organizations helped organize residents to demand more consequential action from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) than what they described as the typical inadequate fines imposed by the TCEQ for violations by the petrochemical industry. In response to the detailed testimony by residents concerning the November 27 explosions and fire, the TCEQ referred the matter for criminal prosecution.


Forewind

Forewind Limited (Forewind) is a consortium comprising four leading international energy companies - SSE (Scottish and Southern), RWE, Equinor and Statkraft - which joined forces to bid for a Zone Development Agreement as part of The Crown Estate’s third licence round for UK offshore wind farms (Round 3).
On 8 January 2010, following a competitive tender process, The Crown Estate announced that Forewind had been awarded development rights for the largest zone: Dogger Bank. The Dogger Bank zone is 8660 km2 and is located in the North Sea off the Yorkshire coast, between 125 and 290 kilometres offshore.
Originally projected to produce up to 9 gigawatts of power, the plan was scaled down to 7.2 gigawatts in 2014, and scaled down even further to 4.8 gigawatts in 2015. The zone has a potential for up to 13GW. This figure is equivalent to almost 10 percent of the UK's projected electricity requirements.
Planning consent for the first phase of the project (Dogger Bank Creyke Beck) was granted by the UK government in February 2015, and consent for the second phase (Dogger Bank Teesside) was granted in August 2015.


Agfacolor

Agfacolor was the name of a series of color film products made by Agfa of Germany. The first Agfacolor, introduced in 1932, was a film-based version of their Agfa-Farbenplatte (Agfa color plate), a "screen plate" product similar to the French Autochrome. In late 1936 Agfa introduced Agfacolor Neu (New Agfacolor), a pioneering color film of the general type still in use today. The new Agfacolor was originally a reversal film used for making "slides", home movies and short documentaries. By 1939 it had also been adapted into a negative film and a print film for use by the German motion picture industry. After World War II, the Agfacolor brand was applied to several varieties of color negative film for still photography, in which the negatives were used to make color prints on paper. The reversal film was then marketed as Agfachrome. These films use Color Developing Agent 1 in their color developer.
Agfacolor Neu, called simply Agfacolor after its predecessor had been retired, was the German response to Technicolor and Kodachrome. Like Kodachrome, introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1935, the new Agfacolor film was an "integral tripack" with three differently color-sensitized emulsion layers. Unlike Kodachrome, the corresponding color-forming dye couplers were made integral with each layer during manufacture, greatly simplifying the processing of the film: with Kodachrome, the dye couplers had to be introduced one at a time during a very complicated development procedure that required special equipment and could only be done at a Kodak processing plant.
History of Agfacolor.
Development.
Realizing they were at least one year behind their American competitors, German technicians decided to steer away from Kodak’s approach to capturing color images on film and invested in their own technology. Their work bore fruits in the summer of 1936, when chemical engineers of the Agfa company in Germany tested their new material Agfacolor at the swimming competition of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Although the German technology promised the use of one and the same material for different purposes, ranging from photographic negative film for prints to photographic slides and motion picture films, it took another three years—until July 1939—for any German motion picture film studio to experiment with the film.
Early use in German motion picture films.
The Third Reich's Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels was in a hurry. He admired Hollywood movies and examined them carefully in regular private screenings (sometimes with Adolf Hitler and his staff). Technicolor films such as "The Garden of Allah" (1936), "Gone with the Wind" (1939) and Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) made him realize that Hollywood feature films presented a threat to Germany's internal market, and that Hollywood's dominance of color film technology should be matched, at least if Germany was serious about engaging in a cultural war with the US and Britain.
"Women Are Better Diplomats".
It was not until the beginning of principal photography for "Women Are Better Diplomats" (German: "Frauen sind doch bessere Diplomaten") a 1939 musical starring the popular singer/dancer Marika Rökk and actor Willy Fritsch that Agfacolor was used for major motion picture. The use of Agfacolor was reinforced by the top of the Nazi film industry, Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels, and the executives at UFA eventually gave in to his pressure. Agfacolor was then used throughout the entire film shoot of "Women Are Better Diplomats".
Throughout the shoot, the film yielded mixed results as it was still very sensitive to different color temperatures caused by solar altitude at different times of day. Thus, outdoor shots were difficult to handle: A lawn in front of a castle appeared completely yellow, later brown, then bluish. The technology was not fully developed, and Agfa labs were virtually using the shooting of the film as testing grounds for their new stock, continually changing the formula throughout the shoot based upon unsatisfactory results, so that entire scenes had to be repeated once a new formula was being tested.
Meanwhile the production costs had risen from 1.5 to 2.5 million Reichsmarks. More than two years after its start date, "Women Are Better Diplomats" opened in October 1941. Despite its rather weak color quality, the film proved to be a major hit, earning more than 8 million Reichsmarks by the end of the war.
"The Golden City".
After the process's growing pains had been overcome throughout the production of "Women Are Better Diplomats", the following Agfacolor movies were shot and printed much quicker and with better results. The technology was improved at a rapid pace. Veit Harlan, perhaps the most prominent 'official' film director of the Third Reich, was allowed to shoot his next picture in Agfacolor. Between the summers of 1941 and 1942, Veit Harlan finished "Die goldene Stadt" (Eng: "The Golden City"), a dreamy propaganda fairytale starring his wife Kristina Söderbaum as a young, innocent country girl who comes to the golden city of Prague and is seduced by an unscrupulous gigolo.
"The Golden City" premièred at the Venice Film Festival in September 1942 and was awarded for its outstanding technical quality, and actress Kristina Söderbaum won an acting award. Shot by cameraman Werner Krien, who had done black-and-white pictures before, and assisted by special effects specialist Konstantin Irmen-Tschet (once in charge of the SFX camera in Fritz Lang’s "Metropolis"), the film displays an impressive symphony of colors.
Later Agfacolor films during the Third Reich.
Made for UFA's 25th Anniversary, "Münchhausen" (1943) was the third German feature film – out of over a dozen – to be produced using Agfacolor film between 1939 and 1945. Other notable Agfacolor productions include "Kolberg" (1945), a dramatization of German resistance throughout the Napoleonic Wars and the regime's last major propaganda feature film. A significant number of Agfacolor movies shot between 1939 and 1945 survived the war, but most of them exist only in fragments today.
Legacy of World War II.
Towards the end of World War II, large quantities of raw Agfacolor stock were seized by the Soviet Union and served as the basis for the Sovcolor process, which was widely used in the USSR and other Eastern bloc nations. One of the best-known Sovcolor films is "War and Peace" (1965–67).
After the war, Agfa's former production plant at Wolfen was located in the Soviet occupation zone which was to become East Germany. After the war, the Wolfen plant continued producing Agfacolor films, until in 1964 East Germany lost the licence to the Agfa brand name. From 1964 onwards, the plant was renamed ORWO (short for "Original Wolfen"), producing color films under the name of ORWOcolor.
Agfacolor consumer products were also marketed in North America under the names (from Agfa's then-US subsidiary, Agfa-Ansco). Prior to World War II, the film had been imported from Germany. After the War began, the American subsidiary was seized by the US Government. At the request of the War Department, Ansco then developed a similar color film, which it produced in its own factory in Binghamton, New York. Anscochrome was widely distributed, but met with limited commercial success in competition with Kodak product.
Ansco Color was also used in Hollywood films, including some produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Films shot in Ansco Color included "The Man on the Eiffel Tower" (1949), "Bwana Devil" (1953), "Kiss Me, Kate" (1953), "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1954), "Brigadoon" (1954), and "Lust for Life" (1956), the final film shot on this film stock. Anscochrome films for still photography were manufactured until 1977.
Agfacolor during the Second World War.
Famous professional early works made in Agfacolor were war photo reports made during Invasion of Poland (1939) by Hugo Jaeger; Paris during German occupation (1940-1944) by André Zucca; Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) by Zbigniew Borowczyk; Warsaw Uprising (1944) by Ewa Faryaszewska and during Hungarian Revolution of 1956 by Jeno Kiss. All of works excluding Jaeger were made by resistance members active against their occupants. All photographs survived in excellent condition.
In 1978, Agfa ceased production of color film based upon the original Agfacolor process, switching to Kodak's C-41 process.
Reborn.
Agfa film for aerial photography is being perforated for 35mm still camera use and being marketed by Rollei. The same film stock is also being perforated and slit for 16mm cine and Super8 cine use by Wittner Cinetec of Hamburg, Germany. Agfa are now the sole producers of 70mm Perforated Type II film for still cameras, such as the Graflex Combat Graphic and 70mm film backs for Hasselblad and Linhof. This is a panchromatic black and white film, with extended infrared sensitivity but is usable as a regular daylight film. It is branded as Rollei 400S.


Hans Falk (bellmaker)

Hans Falk, (probably Nuremberg around 1578), also known as Ivan Falk or Johann Falk (), was a Dutch and Russian bellmaker of German origin. In The Netherlands he was known as Hans Falck van Neurenberg. In the 1610s he lived and worked in Den Bosch and in 1619 he became a citizen of Leeuwarden, where he started a foundry. A lot of churches in Friesland and a few in Groningen bear his name on their bells. Around 1634/1635 he left Friesland for Russia. His foundry in Leeuwarden was taken over by Jacob Noteman.
The name of Hans Falk, as a Moscow Cannon Yard craftsman, was first mentioned in historical documents in 1627. From then on and until the late 1650s, he was considered as the main cannon and bellmaker of Moscow. Falk was paid an official salary and given a "gift from the tsar" once a year. He was granted a workshop made of stone at the Moscow Cannon Yard, while other Russian foundrymen had to work in those made of wood. Hans Falk lived at the household of Knyaz Mikhail Kozlovsky on Rozhdestvenskaya Street. In April 1641, he filed a petition in the name of Mikhail Fyodorovich, asking the tsar to provide him with his own household, which would soon happen.
A German scholar Adam Olearius, who travelled through Russia in the 1630s, mentions Hans Falk in his book "Beschreibung der muscowitischen und persischen Reise", saying that he was a very experienced craftsman from Nuremberg and taught Russians how to cast cannons. Adam Olearius also says that Falk was able to make cannons that could discharge 26 pounds (11.8 kg) of iron with 25 pounds (11.3 kg) of gunpowder. According to Olearius, this is what made Hans Falk famous in Holland.
In 1641, Mikhail Fyodorovich ordered Hans Falk to cast a 700-pood (11,500 kg) bell for the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, which would shatter 10 years later. In 1652, Falk took issuance with some of the Russian bellmakers (led by Danila Matveyev and Yemelyan Danilov) on recasting of this bell and lost the court battle.
Hans Falk worked in Russia for more than 25 years. He rarely affixed signatures on his works; therefore, only a few bells can be attributed to Falk:
It is also known that Hans Falk recast one of the bells for the Ivan the Great Bell Tower and cast the "Yunak" harquebus.
It is not clear how Hans Falk's service at the Moscow Cannon Yard came to an end. He could have returned to his motherland, when his services were no longer needed, or he could have died of plague in the 1650s like many other Russian craftsmen. Nevertheless, his work had significant impact on the Russian founding art of the second half of the 17th century. Historical documents mention four of Falk's apprentices: Stepan Orefyev, Timofei Timofeyev Utinkov, Ivan Timofeyev Reztsov, and Ivan Ivanov. A certain succession of Falk's casting traditions can be traced in the works of Yemelyan Danilov, Alexander Grigoryev, and the Motorins.


K-Dow Petrochemicals

K-Dow Petrochemicals was a planned $17.4 billion joint venture between The Dow Chemical Company and Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC) of the State of Kuwait, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC). A joint venture between the two companies was signed in July 2008. However, critics to the deal from members of the Kuwaiti parliament lead to its collapse in December 2008. Dow sued PIC, and was awarded over $2 bn damages by a non-governmental court in 2012.
History.
Formation.
K-Dow Petrochemicals was to be a multinational corporation specializing in the manufacturing of plastics. It was an $11 billion joint venture between The Dow Chemical Company and Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC) of the State of Kuwait, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC). On July 15, 2008, the two companies announced the location of their headquarters was to be in Southeast Michigan. In the third quarter 2008 earnings conference call, Dow Chemical officials stated the K-Dow joint venture was on track to close by the end of the year. On December 1, 2008, the two companies announced that they had signed a memorandum of understanding outlining agreed-upon details about the joint venture. The transactions was expected to close on January 1, 2009. Operations were expected to begin on that same date.
Breakup.
Citing the global recession that begin in the later half of 2008, the Kuwaiti government scuttled the partnership prior to its launch on December 28, 2008.
Dow currently has arbitration pending against KPC. The original MOU had a damages clause that allowed for damaged up to $2.5 Billion. Dow Chemical has stated the damages they are seeking may be in excess of that amount.
Subsidiaries.
As a part of the Joint-Venture formation two of Dow Chemical's current joint-ventures with Kuwait Petroleum Corporation were to be transferred to K-Dow.


Beeston Boiler Company

The Beeston Boiler Company was a manufacturing company based in Nottinghamshire, England which produced industrial heating units for a wide range of uses, including commercial, horticultural and residential applications.
It was founded on 10 April 1893 and its registered office was at Mona Street in Beeston near Nottingham.
Originally, the company name was 'The Beeston Foundry Company Limited' but in 1923 the company changed its name to 'The Beeston Boiler Company Limited'. In 1943 it became a public company, and by 1961 was employing 850 people, and was at that time advertising itself as makers of cast iron boilers, garage and greenhouse boilers, hot water pipes, connections and cast iron valves.
The company was founded in 1893 by Henry John Pearson (1850–1913), in conjunction with his elder brother, Louis Frederick Pearson (1863–1943). Henry became the company's first chairman, followed by Louis after Henry's death. Louis Pearson then took on an important role during WWI when the company assisted with the production of munitions, eventually earning him a CBE. The company occupied a 28-acre site adjacent to the Midland Railway Company's line in Beeston, which it first occupied in 1896, and which became known to local people simply as 'The Foundry'.
In 1910 the company became engaged in some form of legal action against the Midland Railway Company, with detailed records of the litigation eventually deposited in The National Archives.<ref name="RAIL 1027/489"></ref>
The company ran into financial difficulties during the 1970s and became insolvent; an administrative receiver was appointed in 1976.
Robin Hood boiler.
The Robin Hood range of boilers was introduced around the start of the 20th century, with adverts appearing in The Times as early as 1912, both for the boiler and 'Beeston radiators'.
In the 1930s, two Robin Hood boilers were installed to provide horticultural heating in the large gardens at Calke Abbey in the 1930s. One of them, a New C Pattern model, was introduced by the company in August 1930. At Calke its six sections fed three circuits, providing heat to the mushroom house, the vinery, and the cucumber houses. The boiler remains on public view in what is now a National Trust property.


Columbia Wagon Works

Columbia Wagon Works, also known as Colonial Wagon Company, is a historic wagon factory complex located at Columbia in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The complex was built between 1889 and 1920, and includes seven contributing buildings. They are rectangular brick factory buildings with heavy timber frame construction. Six of the buildings are arranged in an "H"-shape. The buildings range in height from one to 3 1/2-stories. The wagon company closed in 1926, after which the buildings housed a tobacco warehouse operated by the American Cigarette & Cigar Company and produce warehouses. Between 1994 and 1996, the complex was converted to house 60 apartments.
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.


Mullins of Salem, Ohio

Mullins of Salem, Ohio, was the most well-known American zinc ornament producer in the late nineteenth century. The foundry was in Salem, Ohio and was one of many American companies in the 1880s that through their catalogs sold ornaments nationwide, such as “urns, eagles, civic ornaments, architectural details, and even cigar store Indians.” They did not purvey grave markers, which were the sole domain of the Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut.