OIL FOR THE NAVY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14300, 21 February 1910, Page 5

OIL FOR THE NAVY.

♦.—,.,■■■' - •" By Telegraph.—Press Association —Copyright. London, February 18. . , The Admiralty has offered to purI chase 20,000 tons of Scotch oil; for the use of the navy. '/ Sir Boverton Redwood, DSc!, president of the Society of Chemical Industry, at the " last annual meeting ■■. delivered an address 5 on the adequacy and duration of the world's supply of petroleum in relation to the use of liquid fuel in the /belligerent marine: ser-r 3 vice. It was knowledge, he said, 7-that, the British Admiralty was fully alive to the question. ■> In the smaller vessels; of our navy, the torpedo-boats and destroyers, remarkable results had recently been :: obtained .byvthe employment of .fuel oil with the new Admiralty burner, the . Thorheycroffcv destroyer • Tarta,' with water-tube boilers and turbine engines of the Parsons type, having developed a, mean speed on- her trials -of no 'less' ' than 35.672 knots, ' while the difficulties •at first experienced ; ; in obtaining smokeless, combustion had been completely overcome. The larger vessels 'of ?. the . navy-4-the, battleships and armoured % cruisers— all now fitted to burn liquid fuel, but only as a t valuable adjunct >to coal, giving increased radius -of action : without replenishing 1 bunkers and i; providing the ..means';: of very I rapidly raising steam in an emergency. The .' results of the trials carried-out by . the . United 'States' Naval Liquid Fuel .Board ■ showed that the evaporative efficiency of .oil' as compared with coal was in the ratio of 18 i to 10, and although liquid fuel had -not; hitherto been employed in -the American ■ navy, it was reported : that the new destroyers were to be fitted to burn that fuel:, ; - In engineering circles there had been latterly some discussion of the suggestion that even our. largest battleships might be pro- j polled through the agency of gas engines and gas producers, but the highest authori- . ties evidently considered that there was .no probability of so radioal change being effect-:, • ed in the near future. It might safely ;be • said that just as the incandescent mantle had enabled coal gas to withstand the competition of electricity as a source of light, and had given it a new i lease of life as an illuminating agent, so the substitution _of the Parsons turbine for the reciprocating steam engine, coupled with trie use of liquid fuel, would delay for a long time the introduction of the internal combustion engine as . a source of power in the larger ships. '.;.'■■