PULVERISED COAL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21019, 7 May 1930, Page 3

PULVERISED COAL.

EXPERIMENTS ON S.S. HORORATA (From Otje Own Correspondent.) on, i March 6. Ihe New Zealand Shipping Company’s ss, Hororata, with all her boilers, except the reserve one, fired by an automatic process, set out for New Zealand yesterday, ihe vessel has already made two journeys to the Dominion with half her boilers heated by pulverised coal. It is now hoped that she will do with five boilers the work for which six used to be necessary under the coal system. Before the Hororata left sue was visited by a party of people interested to see the plant’ at work S? R°bm Horne, MA 1 ., the chairman of the Howden-Buell Combustion Company, was among them, and at a luncheon be spoke of his hopes tor the British coal industry through the now system. He aaiti u the process of changing over from ■ to oil in shipping were to go on' indefinitely there was no question at all about the adverse effects it would have on fr e fortunes of Great Britain. He thought the installation in that ship was an answer to the statement that oil was S i. to ,Ilflplace „ coal as fuel for ships, and he was confident that they would make a success of the system. It bad already been a success on land, and there were great opportunities for developing Us uaea, SAVING HOPED FOR. Mr John Silley, a partner of the firm m , anufactur ea the plant, said its mam features remained the same to-day as .in the first installation, but 18 mouths or hard research had been done in the matter of pulverising mills. They had run with all kinds of coal—British. New , American. Indian. South X 1 their mill had stood the tests remarkably well. The longer it ran the better it seemed to now-installed-six mills m tnat ship where there was previously room ™ Dly -n eee ’ and the "eeded for every mill was only about-9 h.p, to, 10 h.p., one-third or one-fourth of what it sarv ag j would be neees-•arJ-flli? l ba J ah 'P the adoption of pulverjsed fuel had reduced the stokehold crew cb 'neent. a saving of £I2OO tl 500 a y . ea , r -. Ultimately it was hoped to show a total saving of 15 to 20 per jnd, though they had- not gon« P so nlv/?’ T°ol d be disappointed if the Sve KS? Sh i 1 M P ‘ n ii Company did not save somewhere like {SOOO a year bv the ST' ? e ¥ iaved they were going to verhL? Ucb , a State of perfection with pul- ® ed fja l that in a Tew years handfirmg would ben thing of the past. There ™ spheres in which coal could not compete with oil; m others, coal had a irie W o »ll^ ey eXpe ° ted to be ab i® to with th?ee boile°rß. eVen “ tramp Steamers .ADVANTAGES OF THE SYSTEM. The Howden-Buell Company's avKtpm irU" K installed by Messrs .R. H. Green and then Jr d^v ir ‘A C i? al is firat cru shed and then delivered by a conveyer and a set stokloM f mto P'dverisiug mills in the stokehold, from which it is blown bs air EnfwL re uni 0 4 be burners under the 11 200 Hor S r ?ta is a vessel - of ii,2UO tons grosß and is driven by engines of nearly 6000 horse-power. She has six of which five are mow fired bv pulverised coal and one remains, handthe j° the requirements of of rado, so that in the event fn, a breakdown steam could still be raised tor steerage way, electric litrhtinff. and other essential services. . lol l g voyage a , lrea dy made with h«L n # w e j ßte mil Beyeral advantages have been found* The absence of clinker for instance, has meant that a Uniform kead ££ u l d be maintained for days at , -U* e fluctuations, which occurred y „ f ? ur hours with the hand-fired boilers, because of the need for cleaning avoided. .Bettor com* ba £ * e d‘to some economy in fuel, and there has been a notable saving’ in the Stokers Since the first trial, the pulverising mills have been improved both ;4,iA SIKa an £.?? efficiency. The stokehold which was hitherto , filled by three purjnoWjboußes '«x, and the coal is being reduced to an even finer powder. NO EXTRAVAGANT CLAIMS. h„ Thf T po , wer us ? d to drive these mills r. a ®, aI , 8 P been reduced by the new 'design miftr-f eaS r °P e ‘ tbird an d possibly to onequarter of what was at first believed to be necessary. From 9 h.p. to 10 h.p. is mllhd ™ to dr - ive one of th ese miUs, so that the proportion of the ship’s mSI ffi r i dev ° ted to this purpose ia not more than 1 per cent., and may be still mure even firing leads to a raising of the average power developed. The Ini? n llof ,RlDeer V e iP ort fa vournbly on the installation, and hope to seeure greater 4i,y p °^ y ?nd effiemney during the coming j“ yag ? - T he manufacturers of the plant claS for P lt r t0 T {* ave , made extravagant fl 1 f ° r »t- Th( W do not assert that « is likely to compete With oil fuel plants S < pa ?f;ss r jeweH but they expect it f n cargo boats of this class ana in tramp steamers, particularly as it has _been shown. capaWe of consuming almost .every kind of coal. 1 - f»bil ecia 4 preca ?? ions ' s uch as must be taken when a ship carries oil tanks are wl J b coal - and bunkers my m hilw at +J )ort ( B all over fhe world. It therefore, among certain types otbJ!i llpP i ln i!! t ’ ePU OB6 the tendency towards, oil by showing that there are more economical methods.of using coal. . The capital coet of transforming a ship from nat ba m d ’ dre j to the automatic system needfl to be set off by a long •!, c °i, no -V 1 / m working, but it is said that ip.,building a new ship the cost of instnlhng thff coal plant is less than a similar plant for oil-burning, ihe voyage-pf the Hororata will provide useful comparative figures, for there are several sister ships- which are still hand° fired, working on the same service.