Gaoled Scientist’s Research On Use Of Thermal Energy

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22890, 9 March 1949, Page 4

Gaoled Scientist’s Research On Use Of Thermal Energy

(From a Reuter Correspondent in Paris.) A member of the French Academy of Sciences says there are yeat possibilities in a report on ift -> substitution of thermal acttivity from beneath the earth for coal.

The report was drawn up by the 80-year-old scientist. Georges Claude now imprisoned for life for collaboration with the Nazis.

The calculations in the report which described the prospects of heat GOO times greater than that generated by i coal are perfectly correct, the academy ; member says. ; Claude, who was the war-time : Vichy Government’s leading propa- j gandist, has been working on the de- i velopment of thermal energy in the | prison or Chairvaux in Eastern France, ; since he was sentenced to life impris- I onment in 1945. !

Claude is being assisted in his experiments by his scientist son, AndreGeorge, who visits him once a week. Claude, who denied allegations that he invented or helned to invent the flying bomb, waited in his cell while the academy debated whether it would receive his report. With only two dissenting votes the Academy decided to receive the report. The Acndemv member who lead the reoort said, “Claud has evaluated thermal energy and found it to be GGO times more nowerful than coal eight kilometres (five miles) down. His id?n is to penetrate below the earth layer with artesian wells and build thermic factories. Claude invented neon lighting and is an authority on the production of gases, liciuid air. and artificial nitrates. He created widespread interest in 1934-35 with his experiments to obtain electric power from the sea off Rio de Janeiro. This is not the first time Claude has attempted to utilise thermal energy. In the period between the two wars he experimented on producing energy from the difference in temperature in tropical waters between the air and the surface of the sea and the cool depths of the ocean He sank an enormous cylinder for the purpose of his experiments. He abandoned this attempt in 1935.