COAL GAS.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16945, 21 September 1920, Page 6

COAL GAS.

PAYMENT ACCORDING TO CALORIFIC VALUE.

TRIBUNAL'S RECOMMENDATION

(tress association* telegram.) AUCKLAND, September The Auckland Prices Investigation Tribunal, which took a quantity of evidence and heard expert opinion soino j days ago as a result of complaints about j the quality of the Auckland gas. sub- •] milted its report to the Hoard of Trade i last week. This report, which is now • available for publication, recommends, i inter alia, that legislation be introduced j providing for payment for gas according jto its caloritie value. Summarised, tho conclusions of the tribunal are as follows :— | (1) That tlie meters of the Go--; Coni- ! panv's customers correctly recorded tho volume of "gas" which passed through ; thorn during the month of August'. ! (2) That the quality of the gas supplied was in.satisfactory from tho fact that it contained an undue proportion of (a) inert gases, due. in part to the lengthy carbonisation of gas-yiekling coal, and (b) water gas, which is of low heat value. | It would appear that tho primary | causo of the unsatisfactory gas supply | was the coal shortage and the very serious difficulties resulting therefrom 'which have confronted the gas supplyling company. The position of the mana- ' ger. Mr Lowe (whose prompt assistance in this investigation is entitled to frank acknowledgment), has been a most unenviable one. He appears to have attempted to satisfy tho urgent demands with an altogther inadequate supply. To this end lie adopted practices which aro recognised bj* the industry, the result being that consumers have been called upon to pay for a product in excess of the actual value of its constituents in heat-producing gases, such values being basod upon ordinary conditions of supply. As at tbe present time there is no legal standard of the quality of coal gas which may be supplied in New Zealand, and consequently no legal safeguard of the interests of tho consuming public, your Tribunal recommends that tho i Government be asked to introduce legis- • lation to govern tho simply of coal gas by companies or corporations, ' (a) So that consumers shall be charged for the volume of gas which is supplied upon the basis of the lieat units actually available in that volume, such calorific value to bo determined at frequent intervals by some authority independent of the supplying bodies. (b) To provide for authoritative tasting of and supervision over gas motors.