GIANT GERMAN ELEGTRIC PLAN.

Hokitika Guardian, 31 May 1924, Page 4

GIANT GERMAN ELEGTRIC PLAN.

PROVIDING CHEAP POWER EVERYWHERE.

MAKING UP FOR LOSS OF THE ltUHit. Last week’s cables contained a message from a Berlin newspaper correspondent announcing that a further step had been taken towards the perfection of' a vast scheme for the electrification of Germany, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year. The following article gives an account of the scheme, whose purpose it is to provide Germany with the cheapest jiower in the world. BERLIN, March •?.

No sooner had the world war broken out than Germany realised that for industrial power, lighting, and cooking the future lay with electricity. Not only would electricity, generated from co. 1, be cheaper, cleaner, and pleasanter to handle than coal, bill, by making electricity at the pit’s mouth and sending it everywhere hy hightension transmission, the transport of vast quantities of coal by rail wotdd be avoided.

Besides that, all the valuable byproducts of coal distillation—tar, ammonia, benzine, lubricants, and the like—would lie saved, and could be used as raw materials in industry.

In 191.=5 the Germans began their great task <.f dispensing with the direct use of coal. They worked silently hut with terrific energy all through the years of the war. The loss of part of Upper Silesia and tile occupation of the lliilir only caused them to concentrate oven more intently on the task of making good their losses 1 1 coal-hearing territory. That stupendous transformation is very nearly complete.

What this means to Germany in increased competitive (lower will be clear from a glance at the whole plan.

EVERYTHING USED. Tn brief if is as follows. In Bavaria, where there are last-flowing livers, wider power is the new source of electrical energy. Round Cologne and all over Saxony electricity is to be generated from brown coal. \ asl research works in Germany have been eoncenlating on finding out how brown coal can be put to the same uses as black coal.

Jn East Prussia, Oldenburg, and Hanover, electricity is being generated from peat, while from the industrial areas like Upper Silesia and the Rhineland waste furnace beat is being used for electrical generation.

Thus in every part of Germany everything able to yield electricity is being used, the euireuL being transmitted everywhere hy high-tension aluminium cable. One of the first things that will he undertaken when this new organisation is completed is the electrification of the railways. A most important effect will be the decentralisation of industry. Factories will no longer have to be near (lie coalfields.

Germany, in fact, will be independent of, Ruhr coal. It will no longer be posihle to cripple German production by occupying any special part of the count ry. Next year at least nOO.IIO!) tuns of brown coal will be distilled in Saxony, yielding about AO,OIK I tons of chide oil, from which fuel for motor traffic, lubricants, and raw materials for the chemical industry will lie obtained.

Soon everything in Germany will be run by electricity. Coal and oil will no longer be imported at all. Germany will tease to have any one vulnerable spot such as the Ruhr now is, and German goods will again lie Ihe cheapest in the world.

RERUN. March -20. Every precaution is being taken in Germany to prevent attention from being drawn tn Ihe fuel- thin during this week another section of the vast plant for the electrification ol Germany will lie set into position in Saxony. This ambitious scheme was started in I9IA, and is being completed stage by stage. It is expected that ii will be finished within a year. It will give Germany the ehoapesr electrical power in the world. lints enabling her to produce lu-r maim facta res more cheaply than anv of her rivaL.