SUNSHINE TO ORDER.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1013, 31 December 1910, Page 6

SUNSHINE TO ORDER.

HEW USE FOR ELECTRICITY. CONTROL OP THE CLOTIDS. In an inaugural address at the opening of the new premises of the Institution of-Electrical Engineers in London in November, the president, Mr. S. 0 Fcrranti, explained a scheme for io universal supply, of electricity for an purposes, which would reduce the average cost of current to one-eightli of a penny per' unit, whereas it is now about twopence. ' . ; Electricity at one-sixteenth of its present cost would not only bo supplied for heating, lighting, power, and for immense industries, such -as the manufacture of pig-iron, but by generating it on scientific and properly controlled jmos tho by-products of the coal used would give sufficient ammonium sul-phates-artificial manure—to render intensive cultivation, of the whole of the cultivated lajid in this country, a feasible and straightforward matter. Our coal supply would also last twice as long. Elcctrical Defenco on tho Coast. ' "It may safely be said," declared Mr. do Ferranti,' "that, wherever coal, gas, or power are now used, everything for which they are used .will be better done when ciectricity is the medium of application. ' "I believe the time will come when it will be thought no more wonderful largely to control our weather than- it is now thought wonderful to control the' water after it has fallen on the land. I think that it'will'be possible to acquiro knowledge which will enable us largely to control by electrical means the sunshine which reaches us and, in a climate which, usually'lias ample moisture in the atmosphere, to produce rainfall when .and where we require it. "It seems-to me that it may.be possible, whe£ we know a great deal more about electricity than we do to-day, to set up an electrical defence along our coasts 'by which we could cause the moisture in the clouds to fall in the form of rain, and so prevent , these clouds drifting over the countrylbetween ourselves and the 'sun which they now blot out. It also seems to me that it will be ..possible, when more, water on. the country is required, 'to cause the falling of rain from the clouds passing' over tho highest part of the ,country and • si> produce an abundance of water which, properly, used, would greatly add to the fertility of the country." Creat Saving of Coal.

.Mr. do Ferranti subsequently made a statement to of this journal. "All the coal we ' have to burn,'"' he' said; . "should be turned into electricity, and->'all, our wants which we now meet by burning coal should be filled by electricity. In other ..words,* we should convert our coal wholesale git a few big centres only • and retail it .in'the form .of electricity to . all present users of coal over the entirecountry. 1 • ; ■ "Once this policy can be carried out •we should save annually at least ninety million tons of the coal we now bum at home, and _we should be able,' by intensive cultivation, using the fertiliser byproduct of the coal, to grow on our present acreage all our food requirements without importation from' abroad. Wo should be more secure from interference! from abroad and more' secure j in case of war."' "