LIQUID FUELS CAN BE MADE FROM COAL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19268, 3 January 1931, Page 6

LIQUID FUELS CAN BE MADE FROM COAL.

POSSIBILITY OF NEW INDUSTRY IN BRITAIN. A duty of 4d a gallon on imported petroleum products would make possible the establishment of a large new industry in Britain, according to Dr Herbert Levinstein, president of the Society of Chemical Industry. “We imported from abroad in 1929 810,000,000 gallons of motor spirit (at 6d a gallon the bill for this amounts to over £20,000,000 a year), and, in addition. a very much greater quantity of crude and refined heavier oils,” he wrote recently. "But coal can be turned into liquid fuel, both light and heavy, by treatment with hydrogen. This process, called the Bergius process, though oY foreign origin, has received a great deal of attention in this country, and admirable work has been accomplished and a good deal of money spent in adapting it to our own coals. No raw material is required for this process except our own coal, for hydrogen itself is produced from steam and coal, nor any labour save that of our own miners and workers. Could any industry be more desirable? Of how many of our national industries can it be said that all the raw materials and all the labour can be found within this island ? The present fourpenny duty on petroleum is enough, or nearly enough, to cover the difference in cost between motor spirit so produced at home and motor spirit imported from abroad. WhyJ cannot we decide literally to liquefy a portion of one of our main national assets? Great plants would be required, the construction and erection of which would employ much British labour. Do we lack the courage to-day; to undertake great schemes that chemical research has shown to be practicable? I think not. We lack merely the security that people must have before launching great enterprises. We lack merely a guarantee that this duty, now annually imposed, shall continue for a period of years.”