The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1928. THE PROSPECTS FOR COAL.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 November 1928, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1928. THE PROSPECTS FOR COAL.

The World Fuel Conference in London a few weeks ago at which 20(10 delegates were present was unique in the circumstance that experts whose interests were identified with iucls of all kinds, sometimes commercially antagonistic, were assembled for the first time to give each other freely the benefit of their researches. The fact that two-thirds of the 167 papers that were submitted to the conference' dealt with coal would seem to indicate sufficiently the place which that commodity' still holds among the fuels available for the use of man. Coal says a report of the proceedings, is fighting to hold its own. Science, which has brought other fuel to the position of being able successfully to challenge it, is now being actively pressed into its service. In its scientific ally lies the holm of coal for the future. No country is more deeply interested in the outcome than Great Britain. It is estimated that onetwelfth of the population of Britain is dependent on the coal industry for its livelihood and that four-lifths or the volume of British exports and one tontn of their value normally consist of coal. The British coal industry, has however, fallen on evil days, with results that have been reflected in a decline of the country’s prosperity. That it is not raw coal that Avil! restore it, hut the new scientific processes to which coal will he subjected, seems to he generally agreed by those who are most competent to judge. In the course of a most instructive address to the Fuel Conference, Sir Robert Horne said : “The modern prosperity of Great Briton was created by coal and by coal it will be saved, but it will only he by adopting improved'- and more economical methods of using it. The pouring of raw coal in a crude state into furnaces and domestic* grates must now he recognised as a tragedy from which we must find a way of escape.” The manufacturing greatness of Great Britain was based on cheap and abundant coal. The supply is still plentiful, but the coal, if used in the crude form, can no longer lie produced at a price to compete with that of some other fields. Modern applied science has boon experimenting for years past with a view to the discovery of ways of applying the energy that resides in coal to altogether hotter purposes. In a variety of new processes there is promise of the restoration of coal as a fuel to equal terms with oil. The methods which have been investigated include pulverisation, low temperature, carbonisation, and distillation to produce liquid fuel. Sir Robert Horne said that he looked with most hope to the development of some of the processes for the carbonisation of coal at low temperatures. Some 400 processes*, lie said, had been tried, the difficulty being to produce a semi-coke that

could easily be consumed, both industrially and domestically, tbe value of which, along with that of the by-pro-ducts, would be sufficient to cover the cost of the process and the original raw material. There were, at last, he added, signs of emergence from the experimental stage and of entrance upon the industrial and commercial period of development in connection with some of those processes. r l he Germans have successfully turned to commercial account the carbonisation of brown coal at low temperatures. Though the similar treatment of bituminous British coal involves a mure difficult problem, a promising measure of practical success is said to have been secured in the case of at least- one enterprise, resulting in the production of electricity at a price as low as any in the world. In the use of pulverised fuel, the advantage being the realisation of a much greater amount of the calorific value of the coal, there seems to l.e every prospect of a steady development, l)oI li oil land and sea. Steamers are now being unsigned to carry equipment by which the. raw coal may lie pulverised before being fed into the furnaces. Other economies in the use ■of fuel in industry are receiving increasing attention. If the expectations that some of the processes, systematically operated with adequate equipment, will render fuel available ''or industry at very mud) less than its present cost are not unduly sanguine, it should he possible to look forward to the opening of an altogether brighter chapter for coal in Great Britain. In the outcome of the investigations and experiments of the fuel experts in relation to coal, our own Dominion and other parts of the Empire are, of course, closely interested.