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The Future. The Committee is not hopeful about the future of the whole industry. With production this year estimated at 531,000,000 lb., a solid 46,000,000 lb. above estimated requirements, WPB is already planning cutbacks. Despite its lightness (one-third lighter than aluminum), the big use for magnesium is still in incendiaries, which burn up about 40% of U.S. production. About 30% goes into planes. Thus, demand at war's end should plummet. However, there is a cheerful note: the cheapest magnesium on a commercial basis at 20¢ per lb. can almost compete with aluminum at 14¢. But the big problem yet to be licked is magnesium fabrication, a difficulty which was one reason 1939 U.S. usage was a piddling 2,800.000 lb. And U.S. industry must find hundreds of new peacetime uses for the metal. Concluded the Committee: if the U.S. does not do so immediately it will have to write off most of its half-billion investment as a necessary war loss.