OIL FROM COAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 26, 31 July 1939, Page 7

OIL FROM COAL

A BRITISH REPORT PLEA FOR NEW ZEALAND ACTION I am a visitor, to this country and, like many others, am particularly interested in the letter by "R.H.S." under the above heading, so crave space in which to extend it (writes Mr. Charles Turner). The letter begins with the undisputed statement that ". . .one of the problems of New Zealand . . . is the question of liquid fuel in sufficient quantities for national use," and ends with the questionable assumption that the Department of Mines will support any attempt to procure the required liquid fuel from coal. Although it is of great interest to them, it may be that "R.H.S." and other interested readers of your paper have not heard of the report by the Falmouth Committee on the production of "Oil from Coal." Allow me to comment upon it. The committee was appointed on April 26, 1937, and the terms of reference were "to consider and examine the various processes for the production of oil from coal and certain other materials indigenous to this country, and to report on their economic possibilities, and on the advantages to be obtained by way of security of oil supplies in emergency." Usually, it is advisable to examine first and then to consider, but the committee kept to the 'terms of reference and, after consideration, decided that the various methods of producing oil from coal were hot worthy of serious examination. Then the committee took evidence from selected witnesses who could be relied upon to give the replies required and visited the hydrogenation plant at Billingham and the Fuel Research Station at Greenwich where, after ten years' fruitless effort to design, a retort that would make oil from coal, the role of creator was relinquished for that of critic. Criticism, ready made, was what the committee wanted. It was worth the short journey from London to Greenwich. THE GERMAN EXAMPLE. The- committee mentions in its report that "Germany has embarked on a general policy of self-sufficiency and part of that policy consists in a great programme for the building of plants to manufacture oil from coal." But London is much farther from Germany than from Greenwich, and the committee decided that consideration would suffice without examination to justify the conclusion: "It does not appear to the committee that because Germany has thought fit to undertake her great programme, this country should necessarily follow that policy." Germany, with the Rumanian oilfields at her back door, still considers it worth while making oil from coal, but the committee dismisses this activity with a few generalities about the different conditions in the two countries and some observations on the fact that a great deal of the coal in Germany is brown, whereas in England it is all black, a condition which, in the eyes of the committee, creates an outlook of similar hue. "R.H.S." and many other readers will not be surprised, therefore, to learn the conclusion reached by the committee, as follows:— "The Committee have come to the conclusion, as the result of their examination of the various important factors, that.in general a policy of • depending on imported supplies with adequate storage is the most reliable and economical means of providing for an emergency; and they cannot recommend the reliance of the country in wartime on supplies of oil from indigenous sources especially established for this purpose, unless any particular aspect of the case can be shown to be exceptional. "Note: —It would not be in the national interest to publish particulars of the Committee's inquiries into such aspects. Very detailed examination has been given to them and a confidential report and recommendations have been forwarded to the Committee j of Imperial Defence." DOMINION SHOULD ACT. New Zealand, with its resources of coal, brown as well as black, will find Germany's activity in the matter much more worthy of consideration than the committee-room conclusions of the Falmouth Report. The aim should be not the production of oil from coal, but the production from coal of its utmost value in solid, liquid, and gaseous products It is this conception that has *>een dominant in the development of «he brown coal industry in Germany. It has been realised in the linkage of h dustrial processes, in combined plants for the supply of gas and electricity with oil as a by-product, in the use of exhaust steam from turbo-generators, after super-heating, to dry and to distil the coal, and in the application of the high calorific value gas generated to metallurgical processes. Along these lines should the production of oil from coal in New Zealand be developed, co-laterally with the development of electro-che. ical and electro-metallurgical industry for which there are abundant supplies of raw materiel* awaiting ,s_plo_tatioi__ t