THE VITAL SPIRIT

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 47, 23 August 1930, Page 26

THE VITAL SPIRIT

AGAIN THE PETROL PROPHETS ERR

For twenty years we have been told that our petroleum reserves must soon be exhausted and that "stepping on the gas" must disappear from the vernacular, says the "New York Times." Who does not remember the gloomy prediction of the National Conservation Commission appointed two decades ago to consider our natural resources? It was enough to make any automobile driver shudder and wonder whether or not he ought to trade in the old bus for a new one to learn that there was a minimum of but eight billion barrels of oil in the ground in 1908. Since then we have produced more oil than that. In the last eleven years alone over seven and a half billion barrels have been pumped up. The total of somewhat more than nine billion barrels reported by the United States Geological Survey in 192,2 as the beginning of exhaustion has been surpassed. And still we pump oil, and still we step on the gas. All this does not mean that oil prophets are to be greeted henceforth with derisive laughter. Each year marks the discovery of a more efficient method of prospecting for , petroleum and for bringing it to the surface. Tho chemist persists in discovering how to "crack" more gasoline from "crude." If, despite the predictions of yesterday, 25,000,000 of us still step on the gas, it is because no allowance can be made for the, advances of science. We de-

tect oil by means of artificial earthquakes now, something the old conservationists could not foresee. We manage to drive wells miles deep, whereas Colonel Drake reached a depth of only 69^feet in 1859. By more scientific refining methods we extract twice as much gasoline from a barrel of "crude" as wo did only ten years ago. Now conies' hydrogenationj a catalytic process which may possibly enable us to extract 100 gallons of gasoline by volume from 100 of crude oil. Who knows where, this will end? As a rule, scientific research has made art industry richer. In tho oi] industry it has brought' about overproduction both in crude oil and in gasoline. Surely it is one of the anomalies of economics that science and engineering should actually have so embarrassed an industry with riches that it is unable to reap an adequate profit. Such a paradox must soon correct' it-, self. The statisticians of the oil industry already regard their graphs as_ rainbows. There are signs, despite science, that gasoline production must at last fall to the level of consumption. Last year the gain over 1928 was 13.5 per cent.; this year it promises to be but 8.7 per cent. The time would seem ripe for another statistically supported warning that the next generation, which will motor not only on roads but in the air, must husband its petroleum treasures. iiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin.il niiiiimni iniHMiniHinmniiiii I