3.9. Lesson 21: Use Disaster
"Edison's folly," it was called—a decade-long endeavor to create an industrial plant to electromagnetically separate iron from very low-grade ore. Had he succeeded in making it work on a consistently commercial level, Edison would have become the nation's source of cheap iron and steel. He would have created yet another civilization-altering invention. But he never was able to make the process work reliably on a full commercial scale, and the venture stretched on as a time-and cash-consuming disaster.
Yet Thomas Edison was determined to find a use even for disaster. Deciding to get in on the business of Portland cement, he was determined to recoup as much of his iron ore processing investment as possible by using ...
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