COAL, PEAT AND ALCOHOL.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 November 1928, Page 2

COAL, PEAT AND ALCOHOL.

ALCOHOL FROM VEGETABLE PRODUCTS. LONDON, October 5. At one session of the World Fuel Conference, held at the Imperial Institute, interest centred round the treatment of coal, the storage and handling of solid fuels by the users; peat, and power alcohol. -Mr C. Lam bourne (Cardiff) said that the seams of British good coal were becoming depleted, and there was a necessity for cleaning small coal that in the past had been ignored. It was no use the coalowner saying that the process of cleaning was too costly. The discussion revealed that properly cleaned coal would mean a saving of £1,500,000 a year in British industry alone. Dirty coal, which contained a high percentage of slate and shale and entailing a heavy, wastage when used, coot just as much in' .Transport as coal of greater purity, and involved additional work in the factories, which, in turn, resulted in an unnecessary increase in labour costs. k Captain Shaw, R. N., mentioned that in the last two years fires which had broken out in the bunkers of 250 different ships had been investigated to ascertain the cause. The first cause was one which would come to many people as a surprise; it arose through supplies of new coal being tipped on to coal that remained in the hunkers at' the end of a voyage. The old coal was dry, and the oxidisation set up went on just the same when new coal was tipped on to it, but ffie heat could not escape, and fjre ensued. The second cause was the passage of air through a leaky bulkhead, and the third cause, responsible for 60 per cent, or more of all the fires, was far too close proximity for the coal to the boilers and engines. Tins was a cause which ought not to be present, and yet they found that shipowners were not prepared to alter their ships to obviate the danger.

AERATING COAL.

.Mr H- W. Brook (New York), with respect to the transport of powdered coal, told a story of the discovery in the United States of the aerated method of handling which was now generally followed in America; Six experts failed to solve the problem, and then an accident occurred to one of the barrels Being experimented 1 wftth, causing a leak of air to percolate through. When the barrel was toppled over the powdeped coal ran out like fluid. Investigation showed that this result could be obtained by aerating coal to the extent of 1 per cent, of the amount of air necessary for combination, causing it to flow as a liquid that could not he pumped.

WATER IN PEAT.

With regard to the possibility of using peat as fuel, Dr C. H. Lander said the outstanding difficulty was the elimination, of the large quantities of water which are present in the raw peat. Professor Makarieff, of the Scientific Experimental Institute of Peat, Moscow, told of the progress that had been made with various methods of drying. Electric power generation from peat fuel was now an establishing process.

ALCOHOL AS FUEL.

Colonel Sir F. L. Nathan read a paper on the possibility of producing ethyl alcohol for use as a fuel for internal combustion engines. Like the question of winning peat for fuel, it was one that he feared had. no great future before it. Alcohol could be made by simple processes from all vegetable materials containing sugar or starch, so that the raw materials were available everywhere, and were easily renewable. It was a satisfactory fuel under suitable conditions of use, but up to now it had not been possible to produce it at a price comparable with that of petrol. In GreSt Britain, potatoes, mangolds, sugar heets, and Jerusalem artichokes would be suitable sources of starch and sugar; but none of them cpuld be grown for alcohol production either in sufficient quantities or at sufficiently low cost. Alcohol for power purposes was made in France from sugar beet', and in Germany from potatoes, but' the quantities were insignificant as compared with the consumption of liquid fuels in those countries.

In the tropical portions of the Empire cassava and sweet potatoes could be grown; in the sugar-producing countries molasses, and in Malaya and British North Borneo nipha palm juice was available. All were excellent raw materials, and there was some likelihood of alcohol production from them in countries of their production whilst in Natal alcohol for use in motor cars was being produced from molasses. The use for the purpose of tropical grasses, straws, and waste vegetable materials bad been investigated under the direction of the Fuel Research Board, and, as a result, a process had been developed up to the semi-tech nical scale. But the process must be worked on a large scale at places where the materials were available, in order to ascertain if it had commercial possibilities.

Synthetic alcohol from the ethylene of gasworks and coke ovens had been shown not to be a commercial proposition in this country but it was being produced on a small-scale in France in connection with synthetic sulphate of ammonia manufacture. The cost of synthesising alcohol from carbide, even where cheap waterpower was available had proved to be too hgh to enable the alcohol to compote with petrol. A' consideration of the whole question led to conclusion that, whilst it might

be possible to produce alcohol on a small scale to meet local requirements where conditions were favourable, petroleum ■would continue to be the main scource of liquid fuel for internal combustion engines. Where, however, petroleum was not indigenous there was an increasing jx)ssihi 1 ity that liquid fuels would be derived from coal.