POWDERED COAL

Otago Witness, Issue 3495, 8 March 1921, Page 23

POWDERED COAL

LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER. In a letter to the Prime Minister, the use of powdered coal on the New Zealand railways is strongly recommended by the Hon G. M. Thomson, cf Dunedin. “It is nearly two years ago (writes Mr Thomson) since I first brought under ycur notice the advisability of using powdered coal on the' railways of tho dominion. Making all allowance for difficulties in obtaining the iron and eteel necessary for the conversion of the existing locomotives, and the mechanics required to effect the change, it is evident that the chief difficulty which has not been overcome is the vis inertiae of the Railway Department. Besides, when new locomotives were being! tendered for, apparently the advisability of using powdered fuel as a means of raising) eteam was not taken into consideration. Formerly we were faced with tho difficulty of getting hard bituminous coal for the railways, a difficulty which is being met at a great cost to the country. Now we are faced with another in that the fuel supplied is of the poorest quality. All the time we have almost unlimited quantities of excellent fuel in the dominion, including immense accumulations of slack from the West Coast mines and elsewhere, and yet the department is making little or no effort to use these. “ Let me recapitulate briefly some of the advantages of this powdered coal: (1) Almost any kind of coal can be burned, including? lignites of poor quality. But in the case of New Zealand there is no need to fall back on poor coals, while there is so much waste material of fine quality available. (2) The combustion is complete, and therefore a maximum! of heat is obtainable. (3) There ia no accumulation of ash, cinder or clinker, and consequently no lose of heat from the interference of these waste products, and no wasting of tho fire-bars. (4) There is no risk of fire from locomotives passing through dried-up country. (5) No stokers are required, as the coal dust is fed in automatically. Therefore one man less is needed on each locomotive. (6) The large expenditure of money now going on for the importation of foreign coal would' be avoided. “ There need be no difficulty about obtaining powdered coal. Every cement worka : uses it, and they have the necessary plant for drying and grinding the fuel. I am not suggesting theoretical considerations. The use°of powdered fuel has_ been adopted successfully and economically in many countries, notably in Brazil. I know there are difficulties in converting from one system to another, but they can b© overcome, and in view of tho much more serious difficulty with ! which the country is faced, a more earnest effort to meet the former should be made”