The Motor World

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 22, 7 January 1928, Page 13

The Motor World

Matters of Interest to Car Owners

Cheap Synthetic Benzine

SCIENTISTS and experimente/s have long claimed that presentday methods of using coal, oil, electricity and other sources of power are extremely wasteful, and that, in fact, "e use less than half of the possibilities of power which nature has imprisoned for us, dissipating and wasting the balance BIS PROSPECTS IN ELECTRICITY With the rapid increase in the knowledge of how to control and use electricity, it i 8 possible that in a few years it may provide us with all our requirements as regards power, heating and lighting in an extremely cheap form and fro man inexhaustible source of supply. Meantime we are vitally interested in any discoveries which will enable us to make more economical, and therefore cheaper, use of the finds which are in everyday present use POPULAR POWER FROM PETROL The chief power in which the man in the street is interested is undoubtedly that which can lie used in small independent plants such as motor cars, and although electric nowor has undoubtedly been satisfactilv applied to drive these, there is no doubt that the most widelypopular form is propelled by the benzine-driven internal combustion engine. Enormous economics have already been effected by car-makers in the amount of benzine required to produce a given horse-power, but. even so, with the continued rapid growth of the numbers of motor vehicles in use. the exhaustion of the present known supplies of benzine is only a matter of a comparatively short time. SEARCH FOR SUBSTITUTES. To provide against this threatened shortage scientists and chemists have been busy in an attempt to manufacture a cheap spirit which will gradually be able to take the place of the petroleum product, and considerable success has already been secured in the manufacture of such products as wood alcohol, and other distillates from vegetable growth. In all such processes, however, the production of motor spirit has been the chief aim; it has not been a byproduct of any process which makes other use of the wood or vegetable used, hence its cost is comparatively high when consideration is taken of the fact that the source of supply is far from inexhaustible and a great deal of valuable vegetable matter is destroyed in the process. SCIENTISTS’ SYNTHETIC SUCCESS. Recently, . however, experiments have been conducted by scientists with a view to converting coal into forms from which its maximum power can be used, and it is claimed by’ a German scientist that he iias attained complete success Dr Bergius claims that with his process he cam -reduce coal to . synthetic petroleum—including motor spirit, heavy fuel oil for ships, and lubricating oils—and that these products can be manufactured and placed on the market at 25 per cent, under to-day’s prices. So confident are Dr. Bergius and his financial backers that they are now erecting a factorv which it is estimated will produce 19,000,000 gallons of synthetic petroleum annually, and as the process is further developed and simplified extensions and other factories will be erected.

BRITISH PATENT RIGHTS PURCHASED. If is stated that the British Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd., controlled by Sir Alfred Mond, have thoroughly investigated the process, and are so satisfied with the results that they have purchased the British rights. At present Britain spends approximatelv £50,000-000 per annum on imported petrol, but it is believed that in a few years this monev will be spent in the country in paving for petrol produced from British coal. WHOLE COMMUNITY BENEFIT. Though a reduction of so big an amount as 25 per cent, in the cost of petrol, and the comforting feeling of an enormously increased source of supply are by no means insignificant matters, there is a still more important direction in which this dis covery will affect the whole community. Cheap petrol, fuel oil and lubricating oil from coal will have an enormous influence in England in that it will mean prosperity on the coalfields; a stimulus to engineering and allied industries, a decrease in unemployment, and a comparatively smokeless atmosphere. It will also undoubtedly stimulate the «totor manufacturing industry and will encourage the use of internal combustion engines for power production where coal and steam are now almost exclusively used. SYNTHETIC PETROL MORE POWERFUL. With regard to the quality of the motor spirit produced, it is asserted

that exhaustive experiments have proved synthetic petrol to be not only cheaper, but more efficient than the existing spirit for almost every purpose, and that in recent hill-climing races at Treiburg, every one of the winning cars used benzine supplied by Dr. Bergius and manufactured in his laboratory. OTHER PROCESSES HAVE SUCCESS. While this German process cf manufacture claims complete success, there are other processes for the reduction of coal to synthetic petroleum which, though still in the experimental stage, show every prospect of ultimate success. One of these is a British process owned by the British company S. and H Distillation Ltd. and called the “Neilson” process. The second is the mak benzine process, which i. being exploited by a French company, and a tfiird is a new process for which patents have been taken out all over the world by a Dutch company. All these processes are stated to have reached the stage where they can produce petrol cheaper than at to-day’s prices. 100 GALLONS FROM A TON. The Bergius system of extraction is briefly as follows:— Goal is reduced to powder and impelled into retorts through which hydrogen is passing at high pressure. This converts the coal dust into a thick liquid, like tar. which, when refined, yields petroleum. The process extracts about 100 gallons of crude oil from a ton of coal. POSSIBILITIES FOR DOMINION. Should these new methods of petroleum manufacture prove to be what their advocates and the newspapers claim for them, there are great possibilities that synthetic petrol manufacture might become one of the big industries in New Zealand. With extensive fields of high quality coal we should have no difficulty in producing sufficient petroleum io supply al] our own wants at a cheap rate and there would be possibilities, also, of developing an export trade. It would certainly pay our Dominion’s manufacturers t« keep an eye on the development of the synthetic petroleum manufacture and forstall enterprising foreigners who would, no doubt, be only too ready to reap the benefits and profits resultant on the conversion of New Zealand coa] to cheap petroleum.