Peter Bridenbaugh Alcoa aluminum vehicle economics communication (October 2001)

Personal communication, October 11, 2001. Tom hedged his "all-aluminum vehicles need $4/gal gas" claim to avoid offending Bridenbaugh, who at the break confirmed Tom's actual $2/lb working figure.

I gave a talk once and I reference Peter Bridenbaugh in here. Private communication, October 11, 2001. I went to a conference, and there was Peter — graduate of this department, senior executive vice president of Alcoa. He was in charge of all the stuff to make aluminum. We were both in the same session. I got up and gave a talk about this type of stuff, and I knew he was in the audience, so I said: all-aluminum vehicles, automobiles, will not really be economical until gas costs about four dollars a gallon. Because I didn't want to offend him — I was syruping it up. I'd used two dollars for four years in the 1990s, but this was early 2000s. Peter came up to me at the break and said: no, Tom, it's two dollars a pound. He was using the same number I was, because that's what the real number was back then.