FUEL WASTE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 90, 9 January 1918, Page 9

FUEL WASTE

Fuel economy is a very engrossing proposition, and one in regard to which it is to be hoped that the future will furnish ideas and methods that will make past efforts in this direction appear very primitive and inefficacious. Let us consider, first of all, the amount of coal mined in the world for one year, and the possible extent of the wastage of that year's supply of coal. For 1910 tho amount was about 1,300,000,000 tons, and it is improbable that anything like 5 por cent, of this fuel was ever turned into actual useful work. This means that 1,235,000,000 tons of coal were mined only to bo wasted in heat radiation and other losses. Until petroleum becomes available in bountiful quantities, and its price is brought down to reasonable limits, the only fuel to consider is coal. Now coal should be used as mined, m the furnace direct, or in gas producers adjacent to tho furnaces. The process of coking tho coal is only a means to obtain a clean, smokeless fuel, of intense heat value, at the expense of considerable wastage during this costly process of coke manufacture.— "engineering."