WORLD'S FUEL RESOURCES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23189, 8 November 1938, Page 5

WORLD'S FUEL RESOURCES

OIL SHORTAGE FORESEEN RUSSIA'S HUGE COAL SUPPLY \ The world's resources -of coal and oil were compared "by LieutenantColonel J. H. M. Greenly in an address to the Institute of Fuel in London. He emphasised the need for research which the comparison revealed. At modern rates of consumption, he said, Britain's store of coal in the earth would last for another 860 years. This was a short period when set against the coal reserves of some other countries. The Soviet Union's proved and probable reserves would give an estimated life of 35,470 years. In Germany they would have a life of 1950 years. Canada's supply would last |or 25,000 years. The present known resources of petroleum, Colonel Greenly went on, amounted to 4,066,000,000 tons, which gave a life of the world's oil fuels of no more than 18 years. The rapid discovery of new oilfields, however, was keeping pace with the growth of production. But it could be taken as more than pirobnble that the world's oil reserves could not indefinitely withstand the ever-increasing demands for natural liquid fuels, and that a shortage would mako itself felt within measurable time. " The consideration of the relative reserves of oil and coal in the world,'' Colonel Greenlv declared. "must,» I think, focus attention on the transport problem. . a . '•lt is estimated that in the United States alone £-.500,000 to £3.000,000 are spent 011 research and development in the refining of petroleum. In no country, except possibly Russia, does expenditure 011 coal utilisation research come within one-tenth of that'figure."