NEW MOTOR FUEL.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1883, 17 October 1913, Page 3

NEW MOTOR FUEL.

CHEAP SUBSTITUTE FOR PETROL.

1 Tho Petrol Substitutes Joint Committee, appointed' by the British Royal Automobile Club, tho Automobile Association, and tho Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders to find an efficient substitute for dear petrol, has discovered a process which, it is claimed, will produce 40,000,000 gallons of British motor spirit annually without in any way tlepleting the country's mineral rc.sources. It is expected that this process will revolutionise the mo-tor-spirit industry and render Great Britain partly, independent of foreign supplies. ! .

Tho importance of such a discovery (says the "Daily Mail") can hardly be overestimated, as the chief trouble of 'the motor industry to-day is tho exorbitant price charged for petrol—at present Is. 9d. a gallon for tho best quality and Is. 7d. for "seconds."

"Tho present annual consumption of motor spirit in the British Isles," said Mr Stenson Cooke, secretary of the Petrol Substitutes Joint Committee and of the Automobile Association, "is about one hundred million gallons, and, of course, it increases every year. During the past three years tho price of petrol has risen from Is. Id. a gallon to Is. 9d., an increase of over 50 per cent., and any future change of prico will probably bo in ail upward direction.

"The Joint Committee have tested a substitute which involves the utilisation of a by-product of coal hitherto unsuitable for motor fuel. The very full- . est investigations have been made by our experts'and the results are excellent. A full-sized commercial plant is now .in course of building, and we have every hope that this will be equally successful. "Present indications suggest that when the process is in full work at least 40,000,000 gallons of tho spirit will be produced annually. It will be sold to the consumer at not more than Is. 2d. a gallon, probably less, and will be equal to the best quality petrol. Within six weeks i\'e shall have full knowledge of the commercial possibilities. "The names of our committee —which includes Mr. S. F. Edgo, late of Napier's; Mr. Albert Brown, chairman of the Minerva Motor Company; Mr. Shrapnell-Smith, chairman of the Commercial Motor- Union—all of whom have investigated the new process—are a guarantee that it is no wild-cat iclieme. I cannot, of course, give' any details of tho process, or of the material on which it is employed, but wo have the satisfaction of knowing that tho idea of applying the particular process to the particular substance emanated from our committee." The liquid fuels 'at present obtained from coal include benzol or benzene, anthracene, naphtha, creosote, and paraffin.