CHEAPER GAS?

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 93, 19 April 1940, Page 6

CHEAPER GAS?

INVENTOR'S CLAIM.

20 PER CENT SAVING. INVESTIGATION PROMISED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SVD.VEY, April 10. The companies controlling Sydney's ga< Mipply have applied to the (lovernliient for permission to raise the price of gas. It'is necessary for the companies to obtain Government sanction because their trading ojx-rations are under a pertain measure of Government control in return for the monopoly which they enjoy in their respective fields in the metropolitan area.

For thi#* reason public interest wn

aroused this week .by the claim of h Manly, inventor, Mr. H. F. Walshain, that a new process invented l>y him would enable the companies to reduce

the. price of gar* by 20 per cent, or alternatively increase their profits if thev were allowed to.

A ton of coal produces 18.000 cubic feet of gas and as a by-product there is produced IS gallons of tar. Mr. Walsham claims that his process enables the recovery of an extra 3600 cubic feet from the tar. and that the additional

plant required can be installed for only £.->O. He stated that hie method had been used by Wagga Municipal Council for four months, and had enabled the council to reduce the price of gas from 6/3 to 5/10 per thousand cubic feet, and this statement was corroborated by the manager of the Wagga Gas Works who said that there was no doubt that satisfactory result* were obtained with Mr. W'alsham's process. Strange to say, however, neither of tho two principal ■Sydney gas companies, the Australian Gaslight Company and the North Shore Gas Company, appears to have liwrl ~f the invention* However.

Hie Minister for Work*. Mr. Martin, has promised that he will have the matter

investigated iin mediately, and referred to the Board of Inquiry dealing with the companies' application f,»r an increase in the price of gas. Air. Martin also stated that any hi? saving in production costs would have to be passed on to the public. Mr. Walsham is an employee of the Manly Gas Company. Ho stated that that company had used his method for six months in io:t(i, and achieved a 20 per cent saving in production cost. The process was later dropped without any reason being given.