WHAT THE NEXT CENTURY MAY SEE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18768, 23 January 1923, Page 8

WHAT THE NEXT CENTURY MAY SEE.

In a suggestive interview reported by Brewster S. Beach to the Nation's Business (Washington), Ur Charles P. Bteinmetz, the Lieneral Electric Company s scientilic expert and one of the world s best known electric engineer's, sketches some of the improvements that may be brought in future by proper and enective use of- our present {rower re-sources—water-power, coal, oil, and gas. Dr fjteinmitz does not reject such radical ideals as the posible transmisiou ot {rower bv radio, utilisation of the sun s energy, and of the atomic energy of radio-active substances, the achievement of “cold light,” and the unification of power distribution. Said Dr Stemmetz :

“First, we must utilise our water-power resources to a greater extent, and we will so utilise them. Untold amounts ol energy are going to waste in oiu streams, rivers, and waterfalls. We must reduce this waste power and use all our hydro-electric endowment in order to save our diminishing supplies of fuel. Secondly, we must increase the efficiency of power nreduction from coal, oil, gas, etc., by ’utilising a higher percentage of its chemical energy, which we now waste, and turn this* into productive power. T-he future holds great promises in this direction ai-'o. , , t ■ “Under present-day methous of convert- > ing the chemical energy of coal over into electric energy we obtain only 10 to I U - c f cent. The remainder is thrown away as heat. We use enough coal in a year to equal in bulk the Great W all of China. With the chemical energy represented by another year’s production we could raise that great mass up into space for a distance of 200 miles. It is clear, therefore, what the perfection of methods that would result in the utilisation of a trreater percentage of the coal we burn would mean to industry. , What is true of coal is true of oil and gas. Some day we shall come much nearer to obtaining 100 per cent, cffici ency from them. Although we use only a small part of the possible water-power resources, what we do utilise we use at high efficiency-—about 70 to 80 per cent. Our third’problem is one of applying energy more efficiently after we have produced it. We must, and we will, reduce the waste of power application so that less power can be made to do more work. , “It is interesting to note-the promise held out by the use of mercury vapour in sucli a connection. By employing this vapour instead of steam in turbines, the turbines mav yield from 40 to 60 per cent, more power with the same fuel consumption. After it is exhausted from the turbine, it still contains sufficient heat to generate steam in a steam boiler, and the steam so generated is available for driving a second turbine. Of course, one may well ask why there are not Other Sources of Power which may be utilised in the future. The tides, the wind, the waves, for example. These are, of course, possibilities, but in a remote sense. The amount which can be economically developed is so small that it does not come into consideration in the general power problem. It would be useless to think of artificial means of impounding the tides—the expens© could never justify it. Volcanoes might be utilised, but the same principles hold here, and the volcanoes are few and “There are, however, two vast sources of power available, each of times greater than we could ever use — solar energy and atomic energy. In solar energy we have us yet no practical clue as how to utilise it. Of- all the claims put forward in favour of the sun boiler, present investigations indicate them to be economically impracticable. I would not care to say that in a hundred years some means cannot be found utilise this great potential power, for it might be posaible. '“There might be, however, another way of utilising solar energy. Means may be found to develop plants of unprecedentedly rapid growth. These plants will store awav a very large amount of energy in a short time—just as the tree does in 75 or 100 years. They will yield un this energy as burning fuel. The result of this will be to make available tremendously increased quantities of fuel, to take the place of our present forms of fuel when the latter arc exhausted. This is something which we may look forward to as within the realm of probability. It is one wav in which we may be able to make use of this great solar energy. If it can ever be utilised, the arid regions of the United States alone would give about a hundred times as much solar energy as all the posible water-powers of the United States and all our present coal production combined. Now as to atomic energy, the underlying fact of the great store of atomic energy of radio-active substances is undeniable. An evolution, we understand dimly, is going on among these substances, carried through thousands of millions of years, whereby energy is being given off at an exceedingly slow rate. “Were we able to harness this energy, we should have a force beyond anything known before in terms of power. If we could extract, at will and whenever wo pleased, the energy in a pound of radioactive substance we should derive therefrom as much energy as we could by burning about 1500 tons of coal; and there would be as much expansive or explosive force in that pound as in 1500 tons of dynamite. “At', present the most concentrated source of heat is obtained from the combustion of hydrogen and oxygen. Yet we are told that the same volume of radium emanations yields ten million times this amount. Distributing Power.— “Intimately joined witn the sources of power, the effective use of these sources, and the efficient application of power to human needs, is the problem of distributing it. “A hundred years from' now—yes, in a much shorter period than that—l can see the whole country using electric energy supplied to it by a network of interconnected generating stations like a railroad system. The problem which we will solve will be one of interlinking isolated sources to one another, so that the widest possible economical distribution may be obtained. “The obstacle to trausmision is the resistance of the wire. Heat is generated by the resistance of the wire to the current passing through it, and as the heat of tire wire increases its resistance also increases. If we could evolve a> method of keeping the wire cool—as cold, for example, as the temperature of liquid air —the resistance would be less than onethird, and the transmission possibilities would be increased in proportion. Incidentally, this would of course mean a decrease in the size of the wire, and hence, in the aggregate, an enormous sav ing in copper and other materials. “It has not yet been uecesary to solve the problem. Wo must first exhaust the possibilities of this network distribution system that I have described before we try to take up direct long-distance transmission. When, and if, it becomes imperatively necesary to do it, it will be done. “Means may, and perhaps will, be developed to send our energy broadcast by wireless, just as we now broadcast speech, and to pick up this energy anywhere. “This will be dependent on our ability to prevent waste of the energy when not being used. At present radio waves are absorbed in space as they travel outward from the generating source. They get weaker and weaker as they get farther and farther away. If vve could generate powerful wireless waves just as we now generate powerful electric currents for distribution, and ensure no appreciable waste of current until the switch is closed and the circuit completed, why should we not fill the air with this energy, which would always be ready for instant use anywhere within the radius of the generating or energy broadcasting station? “Electricity is always at our service at the end of a wire. The generating apparatus keeps on going, but the current is not used until the consumer closes the switch. The energy, however, is not wasted. Once we are able to worjc out a similar system for wireless we can have broadcasting stations constantly supplying energy for every need, ready to be picked up as occasion requires it.” “If we will be able some day to trans- [ mit power by radio, can not we expect

also to transmit vision ?” asked the interviewer. “Possibly, but I hardly think so in a practical way. The transmission of sound and the transmission of vision differ so radically that they cannot be judged by the sanie standards. No; a prediction of this to-day would be impracticable. 1 will not say, however, that it is impossible.”