Eastman Kodak was once one of the largest and most skillful chemical companies in the world. George Eastman was a very far-sighted business leader, who set up many chemical subsidiaries to ensure supplies of the basic chemicals he needed for his photographic film business. Over time, he branched into other areas as he leveraged his corporate intellectual capital into other profitable areas, among which were explosives and other things of interest to the government.
During the Manhattan Project, Tennessee Eastman operated the gigantic Y-12 plant that was used to purify the U-235 that was used in the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. This plant used mass spectrometry at industrial scale to separate the 235 isotope from the far more common 238 isotope. One of the many remarkable things about this plant was that the enormous electromagnets that made the process work used windings made of pure silver; a substantial fraction of the US Treasury’s silver bullion reserves were used as electrical conductors to make these magnets (395 million troy ounces, according to Wikipedia). It was all returned when electromagnetic processing became obsolete; about 0.036% was unaccounted for.
When Kodak was in the process of shutting down their operations at their corporate headquarters, it came to light that down in the bowels of one of their chemical laboratory buildings was a pretty large chunk of weapons-grade U-235, obviously taken from Y-12 some time long ago when controls on such things were far less rigorous than they’ve become in recent years. Federal authorities were called, and the chunk was taken away.
“(395 million troy ounces, according to Wikipedia). It was all returned when electromagnetic processing became obsolete; about 0.036% was unaccounted for”
142,200 ounces of silver missing.
to ensure supplies of the basic chemicals he needed for his photographic film business
That’s about as vertical a company as you can get, much like Henry Ford’s Rouge River plant, where minerals went in and Model A’s came out.
That is roughly the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere. If we apply climate change theory to the US treasury,that amount should have caused it to melt the polar ice caps.