SOURCES OF POWER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3899, 4 December 1928, Page 34

SOURCES OF POWER.

COAL AND ELECTRICITY. A NEW ZEALANDER’S OBSERVATIONS. AUCKLAND, December 2. Important conferences in the United States and in Great Britain were attended by Mr S. Irwin Crookes, a member of the Auckland City Council and of the Auckland Electric Power Board, who re. turned from a four months’ trip abroad by the Rotorua from Southampton to. day. On his way to the United King, dom to attend the World Power Confer, enee Mr Crookes was a delegate at the conference of British and American Chemical Engineers held in the United Statw;. and he also attended at Niagara a conference of the New York Society of Chemical Industry. Discussing the Power Conference Mr Crookes said he was one of the New Zealand representatives present. Forty, eight countries were represented, and the delegates numbered 350. These included leading electrical engineers from different parts of the British Empire, Europe, and America. The main points discussed. Mr Crookes stated, were improved methods for utilisation of coal and its by-products including oil, motor spirit, and pitch, and the cheaper development of electric power. The cost of developing electric energy from coal had been brought down to very low level, making it nearly competitive with the cost of hydro-electric power. Although owing to natural conditions al* most all the electrical energy used in Great Britain was developed from coal Mr Crookes said that New Zealand was not making a mistake in going in for hydro, electric undertakings. New Zealand had facilities for developing power along these lines.

“ Some of the papers read at the ci nference dealt with the use of pulverised coal for steamship purposes,” Mr Crookes stated. “ This threatens to become a serious rival to the use of oil. One Ameri-can-ship fitted for the use of pulverised coal has made six trips across the At. lantic. and shipping people are closely watching the developments.” In its organisation of electric supplies New Zealand was developing along the right lines, and in many respects the progress made hers was remarkable. For instance, Mr Crookes said, nowhere else in the world had he seen a distribution of areas for reticulation as there was in this country. The New Zealand, system of power boards was, in his opinion, an economical way of handling power supply. Mr Crookes spoke on the cost of supply at the conference and the delegates were astonished at the low rate being charged for domestic supply in this country. These charges compared more than favourably with similar charges in Great Britain, On the other hand many commercial concerns using a great amount of power received their supply on a lower basis than the commercial rate existing in the Dominion. As a member of the Tramways Committee of the City Council Mr Crookes also investigated transport and roading problems abroad, and his observations will be the subject of a report. He stated that in Great Britinn motor transport, particularly in the form of charabancs, was coming into keen competition with the railway companies. Charabancs, fitted up elaborately with sleeping accommodation and other facilities, were now plying daily between London and the cities of the north, such as Liverpool and Edinburgh. This competition had induced the directors of the railway companies to seek ways and means to combat it and all sorts of concessions were being made.