FEAT OF SCIENCE

Taranaki Daily News, 11 May 1935, Page 22 (Supplement)

FEAT OF SCIENCE

BRITAIN MAKING OWN PETROL. 30,000,000 GALLONS IN A YEAR. It is expected that by the end of June petrol will be produced from British coal at Billingham at the rate of 30,000,000 gallons a year. Compared with Britain’s annual consumption of petrol, amounting to 1,170, 000,000 gallons, this is a small quantity, yet it is an; excellent beginning, and there is no doubt it will increase as the months go by. t ’ ' The new plant, which has just been completed, is the latest of many at Billingham which have revolutionised production and have. made Imperial Chemical Industries one of the most famous firms in the world. ' It is only three or four years ago that petrol wa's made from coal at Billingham, but the scientists there have spent more than £1,000.000 in research work, which has been so successful that another £3,000,000 has been spent in erecting plant on 60 of the 800 acres covered by the firm’s works. The steel used in the new works in itself cost oyer a £1.000,000. In this process of obtaining petrol from coal hundreds of thousands of tons of coal will be used a year, meaning employment to the workers in the neighbouring Durham coalmines. Over 1500 men will be employed at Billingham in the actual processes, grinding the coal, mixing it with oil until ft flows, treating it with hydrogen, and refining the resultant oil into petrol. It has been estimated that this petrol can be. produced at less than 7d‘ a gallon, and as the Government has promised to tax it at 4d less than -imported petrol it 'should easily hold its own against rival supplies. This new discovery, now firmly placed ton- a commercial basis, promises to help enormously in bringing back prosperity and usefulness to England’s greatest industrial asset, her coalmines, an asset which petrol itself has long been threatening to rum.