HOME PRODUCTION

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 128, 1 June 1935, Page 30

HOME PRODUCTION

MOTOR FUEL PROBLEM

GERMANY MAKING PROGRESS

The Nazi regime in Germany is fully alive to the danger of oil shortage due to an uncontrollable stoppage of imports, and is giving every assistance to scientists and research workers in the fuel industry. Their problem is a formidable one. In the year 1933 the consumption by vehicles of petrol, benzole, and heavy oil was no less than 1,891,000 tons. Of this total, 641,000 tons were composed of fuel produced in Germany itself, so that it will be seen that the scientists and research workers have by no means been idle. But there is a great deal of leeway to be made up before the position can give any comfort in official quarters. ' In 1933'the production of benzole by the gas companies amounted to 19,000 tons, and the numerous schemes and inventions now being brought into use will, it is hoped, raise this figure to 50,000 tons per annum. As regards heavy oil for Dieselmotored commercial vehicles, a system is being tried out at the Lichtenberg gas works, near Berlin, from which it is thought that a substantial part of the nation's demand would be satisfied. Lignite briquettes are being used as fuel, and it is estimated that if the system were to be employed by all the 20 great gas-producing companies in Germany, an annual output of 108,000 tons of lignite tar would be obtained. Experiments are also being carried out on a large scale with a view to using coal-gas in automobiles, particularly of the heavy commercial type. The great difficulty at present unsolved is that of storing the gas in sufficient quantities, in light receptacles. It is considered that the subject is worthy of the deepest researoh, for the buses in the Berlin district alone would effect an economy of 14,800,000 litres of petrol every year, and at the same time consume 30,000,000 metres of home-pro-duced coal-gas.