FUEL INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 150, 21 December 1929, Page 17

FUEL INDUSTRY

ITS MANY PROBLEMS

POOLING OF BRAINS

THE COALS OF BRITAIN

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 18th November.,

From the report of the Fuel Research Board it would seem that increasing world-wide interest is being shown in the subject of fuel. During the year [the Gas Light and Coke Company j opened new research laboratories at their Fulham gas works. Imperial Chemical Industries, Limited, and other firms are spending large sums on those aspects of fuel research of more special interest to their activities, and the National Federation of Iron and Steel (Manufacturers has formed an Industrial Research Council, which will receive financial assistance from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in the same way as research associations.

The development of low-temperature carbonisation of coal has now reached a definite stage' (says the report). A number of commercial plants, on several different systems, have been, or are being, erected, and the processes will now stand or fall according to the financial results obtained in actual working. iCompanies with a total nominal capital of Borne £5,500,000 have been formed to ' develop some 26 different processes; some of;these are now working and others should be .producing in tho near future.' It is unlikely that all will prove successful, and some have unfortunately been launched without ithat careful trial of full-size unit plant 'which is so essential.

The investigations carried out at the fuel research station have shown the type of products that can be expected from the low-temperature carbonisation of a variety of different coals, and have furnished data of value for the development of .'..any type of low-car-bonisation process. ;'■'-' Much consideration h?ts been given to the use of pulverised coal "for steam, raising, and increased attention is being given to the subject. A number of vessels, both in this country and in America, have had their boilers adapted experimentally to use pulverised fuel, and close touch has been kept with the trials that are in progress. LOW-TEMPERATUBE CARBONISATION. Dealing with the progres that has been made in the commercial development of low-temperature carbonisation, the Director of Fuel Eesearch, in his report, states that the capacity of the plant installed in this country, and actually producing, has been materially increased, while a number of further plants are under erection, Plant with a rated capacity of well over 1000 tons a day is in existence in this country, while further plant with a nominal capacity of over 6000 tons a day is stated to be in course of erection.. .

The director adds. tha,t it is still too early to say whether, low-temperature carbonisation of coal /will evantually prove an economic success on a really largo scale, or to say which of the various processea arc most likely to prove successful. _It does hot follow that1 a plant which is successful in one environment will be necessarily successful if operated elsewhere on a different coal, or vice versa. Neither does it follow that an extension of an existing successful plant will necessarily always be a success. The. cheaper grades of coal are only cheap because they airo essentially a by-product resulting from the production of the higher-priced grades, and in most cases they do not dear their full share of the mining costs. In consequence, the availability depends on the demand for higher-priced grades. In so far as manufactured coke can compete nnancially with' high-priced coal it will affect the demand for the latter, and hence the supply of coal for coke manufacture." The scale on which low-temperature carbonisation is carried out at present is insufficient for this effect to show itself to any appreciable extent, but should any considerable proportion of the 40,----000,000 tons of raw coal at present burned annually for domestic purposes be replaced by .smokeless fuel, the demand for household coal will be correspondingly reduced, and the resulting loss to, the mining industry cannot be made g6od if coal for carbonising is sold at the price "now ruling for slack coal. ■:" ' ■'■'.■ INSTITUTE DINNEE. Mr. J. H. Thomas, M.P., speaking at the dinner of the Institute of Fuel, said that all those engaged in the fuel industry must be brought to realise that they were no different from any other industry. "There must be a pooling of brains and ideas," he said. "It is no use quarrelling over spilt milk.. Every year £800,000,000 must be provided in this country to buy from outside the things that are essential. There are only two ways of paying debts—gold and kind. Gold is ruled out; we have to pay' in kind. Whatever may have been the slipshod methods of the past, concentration and organisation must be the dominant note of the future."

Sir David Milne-Watson. (president of the Institute of Fuel) said that he: was not criticising the coal, marketing scheme, "but merely 'to advance prices in the coal industry is not going to solve the great problem with which this country is faced." ■. In his presidential address at the conference of the Institute of Fuel, Sir David Milne-Watson said that it was not good that one of the chief coalprodueing nations should find itself compelled to burn imported fuels for purposes for which gas, electricity, and pulverised coal could all be used successfully. In this connection the development of a motor vehicle engine designed to use heavy oils produced from coaj was of the greatest interest and likely in the near future to take its place as the most outstanding advance in fnel utilisation of recent years. There was a need for further co-ordination of information and the spread of know-" ledge in different industries, and for improved liaison between allied industries to avoid duplication of effort and waste of energy. PULVERISED COAL AT SEA. Mr. Carl Jefferson, head of .the Fuel Conservation Section of the United States Shipping Board, said that the Mercer, the first ship to cross the Atlantic burning pulverised fuel, showed, since her conversion, on 11 voyages, an average saving per voyage of 18 4-10 th per cent, compared with hand-fired ships of the same class, taking into account the differences in the quantities and prices of fuels and the reduced personnel. The Mercer belonged to one of the most efficient groups of the board's freight ships. She had fully demonstrated the reliability of pulverised fuel by running to her sailing schedule throughout the eleven voyages. The use of pulverised fuel in the West Alsek, which was previously not in so efficient a group as the Mercer, had resulted, on her.first voyage with that fuel, in a saving of 38 per cent.

Another subject touched upon by the president was that of damage to scenic beauty. The policy of concentration of the generation and utilisation of energy in whatever form carried out, he said, inevitably resulted in difficulties from air pollution, from noise,' and other forms of unnatural disturbances

which became more prominent at points of concentration. While keeping the ideal before them, they must not allow progress which benefited the whole community to be hindered unduly by sympathy with a small minority.

Cheap hydro-electricity power could only be secured at the expense of the beauty of the countryside. At the same time, while recognising that where genuine: benefits were secured to large numbers of the community there was always the> possibility of collateral disadvantage to 'the "minority, they must not allow the principle to be extended too far, or used as a pretext for inflicting damage and disturbance in the name of progress. Unfortunate instances of this would no doubt occur to his hearers. For example, the recent attempt, which would have the effect in many unprejudiced persons' minds of spoiling the beauty of the Highlands by the promotion of hydro-electric schemes which, on the promoters' own showing, offered no advantage over fuel-fired stations nlore conveniently situated. As Britain developed: industrially, preservation of its beauty spots would become an urgent matter, and it would become a crime to spoil its playgrounds and breathing places.