FUEL PROBLEM SOLVED.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 20, Issue 68, 27 August 1909, Page 5

FUEL PROBLEM SOLVED.

BURNING WATER ! Capt. Edward Warren has invented a new hydrogen motor with which he expects to revolutionise the science* of power .production. This invention is nothing less revolutionary than manufacturing fuel out of water ; the process represents in the ; broadest sense the burning of water. We now secure power from water by utilising its weight on an oldfashioned water wheel or a modern turbine. We also utilise the power of water by turning it into steam. Capt. Warren’s invention separates the chemical constituents of water and takes advantage of the explosive capacity of these elements in recombining to produce power. The product of' recombination is water, which, of course, may be used over and over as many times as extraneous forces are applied to decompose or separate it into its elements. “Burn water ?’’ said Capt. Warren when interrogated. “Only in the sense in which wo burn carbonic acid.. Both are products of. combustion. The constituent elements of each are combustible when isolated. The only problem is to separate or isolate them after they have once been combined.. This nature is constantly doing, and we have only to accelerate or ‘ short circuit' her processes in order to restore immediately these combustible substances t 0 their elemental slate and have them ready to re-unite at our bidding in the phenomenon of combustion.' “Burning, or combustion, is simply the manifestation of the action of chemical affinity. We burn the elemental substances, hydrogen and oxygen. by bringing them together under conditions favourable to the operation of the affinity which causes them ’to unite in a new chemical compound ,which when condensed is i water. We separate these elements by subjecting their compound, water, lo" conditions which overcome or neutralise this affinity. “When wo can burn hydrogen for power, when • the industrial world awakes to the fact that prodigious expenditures for coal and liquid fuel a,re entirely unnecessary, and that there is right within our grasp an unlimited supply of fuel substance available practically without costfor it is' self-producing—there will be a revolutiqn in'the industrial world. When the century-old theories of the indestructibility of matter and the conservation of energy and matter have once become really understood by men, we shall witness |he utter collapse and extinction of one of the oldest and most gigantic Of human industries, the mining of coal, “And, further,” he continued, "speed would receive a now impulse We could have a fifty-mile boat and a three-day •’Lusitania.' To-day the fastest? ship of the seas carries S.OUH tons of coal in her' bunkers and 15,000 tons Of machinery necessary to drive her. By the installation of ray propulsion devices and new motive power the ’ Lusitania ’ would he so lightened iha/t, slur could, by changing her cousl.ruclion somewhat, make the trip of 2,720 miles to New York in three days, or less. “She would have more cargo room and be free from the terrific vibration that now characterises all high speed ships, for the. new system does not involve extensive machinery. -It consists of a process partly chemical and partly mechanical. The entire propelling mechanism now used would be eliminated, as the pressure 'of expanding aqueous vapour would bo applied directly to projecting water astern.

"That hydrogen may be manufactured from' water by more or loss complex and expensive processes is, of course, well known," said Capt, Warren, "but my process is the first by which it may be produced economically and utilised in an engine or a motor.

"In the process of burning coal and generating' steam power in an engine an efficiency of from 5 to lb per cent is the best. Hint is realised with the most highly developed mod ern equipment, and this is not. ink ing into account the maiiulactui ing cost of the coal—mining, cleaning and transporting—oi even the prodigious cost of merely shovelling it into the furnace, this latter item alone in the case of the ’Lusitania' amounting to nearly n.«« Tiiiich as the cost, ol the coal delivered aboard ship. All this is eliminated when we maniilar. ture oui fuel as we go along, drawing our own supply of raw material without cost from the boundless ocean of water and air.

"Suppose carbonic acid, the product of carbon and oxygen in combustion, were readily condensible into liquid form at atmospheric pressure and temperature, would we not then be found endeavouring to effect its immediate decomposition into its elements in order that we might again avail ourselves of the energy liberated by their union V Hut the natuial cycle of carbon carries it through the complex evolution of plant life before it is finally returned to a concentrated condition. In carbonic acid it retains its gaseous form at all ordinary temperatures and pressures and so is difficult to deal with. Not so with hydrogen. 'When burned with oxygen it takes the form of highly rarefied aqueous vapour which is immediately condensible into water at ordinary temperatures, and .we can immediately recover it in, form adapted 1,0 our needs. "The heating value of hydrogen in combination with oxygen is 60.000 heat units per pound. The heating value of the best coal is about 14,0,00 heat units per pound. Heat units mean [rower iitiils, and it is heat nnils we want when we buy fuel. Hydrogen is a perfect fuel. Ir leaves no ash. makes no smoke or poisonous gas, and, being derived from water and being made as required. it. requires no transportation or handling. ■ ‘The secret, of the production of hydrogen for fuel lies in the successful manipulation of that mysterious force in nature called chemical affinity ot elements— in-other words, the isolation ot the hydrogen under certain conditions, and i'Ls recombination through combustion with the oxygen with which it was originally associated in the form of water.— "Popular Science Siftings."