November 19, 1915.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

1027

FUEL ECONOMY.

ADDRESS BY PROF. W. A. BONE.

At a joint meeting of the North Staffordshire Institute
of Mining and Mechanical Engineers and the English
Ceramic Society, held at the Central School of Science
and Technology, Stoke-on-Trent, on Saturday, an
address on “ The National Importance of Fuel
Economy,” was given by Prof. W. A. Bone, D.Sc.,
Ph.D., F.R.S., chief professor of chemical technology at
the Imperial College of Science and Technology. The
chair was occupied by Mr. John Gregory, president of
the North Staffordshire Institute of Mining Engineers.

The Chairman, in introducing Prof. Bone, said a
comparatively few years ago it would have seemed
strange for the president of the local Mining Institute to
occupy the chair when the subject of fuel economy was
under discussion. During the last few years, however,
great advances had been made, and they were now far
broader minded than they were. In dealing with coal,
they were dealing with a subject quite different from any
manufactured product, for the coal that lay in the earth
could only be worked once; it could not be replaced. No
one knew better than the colliery proprietor and the
mining engineer that it was to the national advantage
that the utmost use should be made of this valuable
asset. He might state in what way the colliery owners
were interested in fuel economy. The coal raised at the
North Staffordshire collieries was approximately 6|
million tons per annum, and when it was remembered
that the bulk of that had to be raised from great depths,
sometimes exceeding half-a-mile, and that a great
amount of power had to be used for raising it, for under-
ground haulage and for pumping, it would readily be
seen that the collieries were large fuel consumers. No
figures were available as to the amount, but it could
not be less than half-a-million tons per. annum. For
some years the colliery proprietors had recognised this,
and he did not think any better examples of plant for
securing economy in combustion could be found than at
the North Staffordshire collieries.

Prof. Bone said his object was to stir up interest in
a subject which at this time was of great national
importance. He considered that, notwithstanding
the fact that according to the official returns for the
year 1913, we were raising in Great Britain about 287
million tons of coal, of which 189 million .tons or about
four tons per head of the population, were consumed
at home—more or less wastefully, as he should show—
and that almost every competent observing person was
conscious of enormous waste going on, it was remark-
able that so little was being done in the direction of
establishing some systematic control of fuel consump-
tion in all our large industrial areas in the national
interests, because, not only was fuel economy the
interest of the individual manufacturer, but, for reasons
which the chairman had well put to them, it was a ques-
tion of national importance. It must be clear again to
every intelligent person who could get beyond the stage of
accepting the inevitability of present conditions that the
ugliness and sordidness of most of our great centres of
industry and population were largely due to the smoke
nuisance, which, as an ever-present, but quite curable
evil, deprives us of much beauty of form, colour, and
light that we might enjoy in Nature and air, and much of
the beauty that we might create, and spells disease and
stunted development, both physical and intellectual, to
countless thousands of our fellow men. When they
computed, if anyone could compute, the measurable
and immeasurable damage done to this country and the
people inhabiting it by the smoke nuisance, they would
realise its seriousness. For instance, it had been
estimated by a committee of the Corporation of
Manchester—and it was stated by the chairman of the
committee at the British Association meeting recently
held in Manchester—that the measurable loss to
Manchester on account of the smoke of its atmosphere
was not less than one million pounds per annum, and
that that did not take into account any question of the
deterioration in physical health, and so forth, of the
people, which was, of course, an unmeasurable quantity.
John Bright was once reported to have said that eight
hours of sunshine were worth a million pounds to the
inhabitants of this country, and who could compute how
much we waste of this wealth which heaven so freely
bestows upon us?

The speaker referred to the value of coal, not only
as a fuel, but for its valuable by-products; and in con-
nection with the production of toluol, the basis for the
new high explosives, he remarked that while the German
chemists had been discovering the properties of tri-
nitro-toluol, the Germans had been securing a maximum
production of by-products by the substitution of modern
by-product coking plants for beehive ovens, whereas we
were still carbonising 6| million tons of coal in beehive
ovens.

He thought they would agree that the utilisation of
coal should be as effective as possible, whether in con-
nection with manufacturing operations or with domestic
heating, and this would become one of the most impor-
tant national questions during the trying years that
would follow hard upon the war, because it was tolerably
certain that, with a systematic supervision of fuel con-
sumption, we ought, with existing appliances, to save
several millions per annum, and, with improved appli-
ances, more millions. The British Association had
appointed a committee, consisting of engineers,
chemists, and technologists, with sufficiently wide terms
of reference, and with power to add to their number,
whose duty it would be to consider the whole question

from a national standpoint, and to report through the
association to the public, and, if need be, to the
Government, the chief directions in which economies
could be effected, and the best means by which the
community could ensure the realisation of such
economies; for not only did it appear to him that the
community had a foot interest in the proper economical
use of its coal supplies, but, if need be, the Govern-
ment should be called upon to take such action as would
check the most flagrant cases of wastefulness and abuse.

In the first instance, he would give them a series of
statistics which he was preparing as chairman of that
committee-. He would point out how rapidly the world’s
output of coal was increasing. He had chosen three
years at intervals of five years. The total output in
1903 was 800 million tons; in 1908, 1,000 million tons;
in 1913, 1,250 million tons. The three chief producing
countries—the United States, Great Britain, and Ger-
many—were responsible for practically a constant pro-
portion of that output—about 83 per cent. The United
States had the largest output; we followed with about
a quarter of the output; and Germany had maintained a
pretty constant level of about 14 or 15 per cent. With
regard to the world’s resources of coal, in 1913 there
was an international congress of geologists held in
Canada, and their task was to frame an estimate, as far
as available information went, as to the total resources
of the coal of the world. They estimated that the total
of the world’s resources was 7,397,553 million tons.
Dividing that into the three great classes of coals, they
found that anthracite represented 6’75 per cent., bitu-
minous 52-75 per cent., and sub-bituminous 40-5 per
cent. Taking the continents, America possessed 69 per
cent., Asia 17-2 per cent., Europe 10*6 per cent., Oceania
2-4 per cent., and Africa 0-8 per cent. He thought, by
the way, that the Asiatic estimate was too low, because
it had not been explored as the other coal fields had.
The Chinese estimate was certainly too low. Taking
countries, they found the following percentages :—
United States, 51*8; Canada, 16-4; China, 13-5; Ger-
many, 5*7; Great Britain, 2-6; Siberia, 2-8; Austria,
2*2; Russia, 0*8, etc. The great resources of anthracite
were chiefly in China; the great resources of bituminous
and sub-bituminous in the United States. The next
highest resources of anthracite were in Russia, which
had only about 1 per cent, of the resources of the world.

Prof. Bone exhibited curves showing the coal output
in millions of tons for the United States, Great Britain,
and Germany for the period 1900-14. They would see
that the United States output had gone mounting up;
ours had increased not so much; Germany’s had
increased rather more than ours. If they smoothed out
these curves and took quinquennial periods, they would
find approximately the increase in the output had been
at the rate of 6 per cent, compound interest; Britain,
2 per cent.; Germany, 4 per cent. The percentage of
the total output which we consumed at home had
diminished. We were exporting a larger and larger
proportion of our total output of coal, and here was
a question that would doubtless come up for discussion,
as to whether we should re-impose the coal export duty.
That was a question which he was not going to express
an opinion about, but he thought it was probable that
the question would come to the front again. When the
last Royal Commission on Coal Supplies reported in
1905, Mr. George Beilby, who was an eminent chemical
engineer, made an estimate of the various uses to which
coal was put in this country. That estimate was made
from statistics collected by the Board of Trade, and,
therefore, from quite reliable sources. On that they
could to some extent make an estimate of the possible
savings in our fuel bill. It applied to the year 1903.
We were then consuming 167 million tons of coal at
home. In factories and mines we were consuming 71
millions, or 43 per cent, of the whole; in iron and steel
works, 28 millions, or 17 per cent.; in gas works for the
manufacture of town’s gas, 15 millions, or 9 per cent.;
on the railways, 13 millions, or 8 per cent.; for domestic
supplies, 32 millions, or 20 per cent.; and for all other
purposes, including the pottery industries, 8 million
tons, or 3 per cent, of the whole. The first thing he
wanted to point out was that if they lumped together
mines and factories, iron and steel works and domestic
supplies, those four items accounted for 80 per cent,
of the whole consumption, and it was precisely in those
classes that there was room for the greatest economy.
It was estimated that out of the 71 million tons that
were being consumed in mines and factories, 52 million
tons were employed in steam raising. That averaged
out at 5 lb. of coal per horse-power hour. Accepting
that as substantially correct, they had to consider along-
side it that at that time by using the best types of
modern boilers and turbines, the consumption need not
have exceeded 2 lb. per horse-power hour, and with
gas engines, etc., it should have been reduced to lib.
per horse-power hour. Supposing that for power raising
we had been .able without inconvenience to replace ail
the inefficient units by the most efficient steam combina-
tions, then we should have saved 30 million tons; and
if replaced by the most efficient gas combinations, we
should have saved 40 million tons. It was now possible
to produce on a steam set one horse-power hour for less
than 1 lb. of coal, so that the steam turbine was getting
down to the best types of gas engine. Whether they
used steam or gas, if they generated on a sufficiently
large scale and with the best appliances, it was possible
to get their power for 1 lb. per horse-power hour. Mr.
George Beilby’s estimate had not been kept up to date,
and it would be one of the first and most important
tasks of the Committee to bring that calculation up to
date. There was no doubt there had been some general
increase in the efficiency of our steam raising since
1903, but it was quite evident there must be still a very
large margin on the coal used for the production of power
for saving.

With regard to the coal used in the iron and steel
industries, we were consuming in 1903 28 million tons;

the figure was now about 30 million tons for a produc-
tion of 10| million tons of pig iron and 7f million tons
of steel. It had been estimated that if our iron and steel
industries were organised on the best possible plan,
namely, that they were brought together on one site,
by-product plant, coke ovens, blast furnaces, and steel
works—the .total consumption of fuel, instead of being
30 million tons of coal, which he thought it was at
present, ought not to be more than from 15 to 20 million
tons. He had to make some allowances for the manu-
facture of special steels, such as in the Sheffield industry,
where the expenditure of fuel was necessarily higher;
but, allowing an ample margin, he did not think we
need consume much more than a-half or two-thirds of
the present consumption in the iron and steel industries,
because that had been demonstrated in English works,
and also in Belgium and other countries.

Then there was the question of the carbonisation of
coal. Of the 189 million tons of coal consumed in the
United Kingdom in 1913, 40 million tons were car-
bonised, as follows:—Gas works, 20 million tons;
by-product plant, 13-5 million tons; and beehive ovens,
6*5 million tons. Supposing we coked the whole of our
metallurgical coke by means of by-product ovens, then
there would be a very considerable saving. He would
calculate very roughly the profits we were now losing,
because we were still carbonising 6| million tons in the
wasteful beehive ovens. He estimated that the profit
on the ammonium sulphate would be about two-thirds
of a million pounds. The profit on the benzol would be
another two-thirds of a million. The profit on the tar
was rather difficult to estimate, and then there would
be the profit on the surplus gas, which was a very valu-
able fuel in the industry. With regard to the latter, if
they took it at 3d. per 1,000 cu. ft., we should realise
another quarter of a million. He reckoned, if they also
included the fact that a larger yield of coke was
obtainable with the by-product plant, that the realisable
profits that were passing into the air because of that 6|
million tons carbonised in beehive ovens was not less
than two million pounds per annum. The disappear-
ance of beehive ovens was only a matter of years, but
the question should be considered as to whether the
public interest would justify the Government in fixing a
time limit during which the beehive ovens could remain
in operation.

Time did not permit of going in detail into the ques-
tion of domestic consumption of coal, but he would
throw out one or two suggestions. Notwithstanding
the Englishman’s love of a fire, it was really too
barbarous a custom to use raw coal in a fire, and those
who had had experience of fires stoked with semi-coke
found that from the aesthetic point of view they had
just as good a fire, and from the point of view of heat-
ing, a far more effective fire. The use of the gas fire
was extending, and during the last six or eight years
it had advanced in efficiency and healthfulneps. How-
ever, unless we could get the price of gas down very
much below the present figure, gas fires, which would
deservedly extend in use, would be principally for rooms
that were occasionally used. Where a room was used
every day and every hour of the day, he thought we
should have to keep not a coal fire, he hoped, but some
form of solid fuel fire, and he thought the problem
would be solved in the direction of semi-coke. A friend
of his had had in his house for the last 30 years grates
which now burned nothing but coke, and burned it very
efficiently and effectively, giving a beautiful radiant fire,
that could not be surpassed by any coal fire he had seen.
Therefore, he did not regard the use of coke as ruled
out of the question. The solution of the domestic
problem lay to some extent in the extended use of gas
fires in rooms occasionally used, and semi-coke or gas
coke fires in rooms which were regularly used. Prof.
Bone suggested that the meeting should pass a resolu-
tion urging that steps should be taken of a co-operative
character, in order not only to bring before the public
this important question, but to help effectively in its
solution.

On the motion of Mr. A. G. Richardson (Ceramic
Society), seconded by Mr. E. B. Wain (Mining
■ Institute), the following resolution was passed : “ That
this meeting approves of and pledges its support for
some organised attempt to achieve a state of national
economy of fuel.”

Mr. E. B. Wain, in seconding the resolution, said it
seemed a little inconsistent for one whose whole life
had been spent in producing an article to be asking the
world to economise in the use of it, but it was the
constant desire of every progressive colliery owner and
manager to economise in fuel. He was old enough to
have seen some of the worst forms of coal consumption
in collieries, and he could remember 14 per cent, of
the output of a colliery being consumed for the purpose
of raising coal. Matters had progressed a little when
the figures of Mr. Beilby were given to the Commission
on Coal Supplies 10 years ago, and then they found
6 to 8 per cent, given as the average. He considered
that in taking 6 to 8 per cent, it was a very moderate
estimate, and that the larger proportion of the collieries
were then consuming more like 10 per cent, than 6 to
8 per cent. But there had been decided progress in
colliery practice in this matter of coal consumption, and
they had recorded cases in which only 2| per cent, of
the output was used for the purpose of raising coal.
There was certainly a field for economy when they
considered that for producing the coal itself they were
using a larger quantity than the whole railway system
of the country, a larger quantity than the gas works
of the country, and about four times as much as the
pottery and “ other ” industries of the country. An
industry such as theirs, which employed somewhat more
than a million men, and which had been able to give up
a quarter of a million men for the Army, and still
supply fairly well the needs of the country, was an
industry of very great importance, so that any economies
that could be effected must necessarily tend to the