PROSPECTS FOR COAL.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 264, 29 November 1928, Page 3

PROSPECTS FOR COAL.

| CONFERENCE IOR EXPERTS. ) | The TTorld Fuel Conference in London a few weeks ago. at which 200.0 delegated were present, wad unique in the circumstance tlhat experts whose interests were identified with fuels 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 t'he conference dealt with coal would seem to indicate sufficiently the place which that commodity still holds among the fuc Is available for the use of man. Coal is fighting to hold its own. Science, I 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 scien- I tlific ally lies the hope of coal for the ! future. No country is more deeply I 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-fifths of the volume of British exports and one tenth of their value normally consist cf 1 coal. The British coal industry has, however, fallen on evil days, with results that have been reflected in a decline of t'he country’s prosperity. That it is not raw coal that will restore it, but the new scientific processes to which coal will be subjected, seems to be generally agreed by

those who are most competent to judge. In the course of a most instructive address to t!he Fuel Conference, Sir Robert Horne said: “The modern prosperity of Great Britain was created by coal and by coal it will be saved, but it will only be by adopting improved methods of using it. The pouring of raw coal in a crude state into _ furnaces and domestic grates must now be recognised as a tragedy from which we mush 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 ferm, can no longer be produced at a price tk> compete with that of some other fields. Modern applied science has been experimenting for years past with a view to the discovery of ways of applying the energy that resides in coal to alto-

i. i gether bettier purpose. In a variety • of new processes there is promise of I | restoration of coal as a fuel to equal I terms with oil. The methods which I have been investigated include pul- I I vet Jatiki-' . low temperature carbon-j I iaacioii;- and di .t.ration ib produce | 1 -iq'-iid fuel. Sir Robert Horne said j ”'"t 1. ’ jo* ed'vrith the m.st hop : to j i the development of some of the pro- j i Cesses for t'he carbonisation of coal at ! j low temperatures. Some ' n o pro- j j cesses, he said, had been .ried, the jdi culty being to produce a semiI coke that could easily be consumed j ; both industrially and domestically, the j j value of which “long with that of the j by-products, wculd be sufficient tlo * 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 the processes. I j the Germans have successfully turned ! to commercial account the carbonisaj tion of brown coal at low temperatures. Though the similar treatment of bituminous British coal involves a more difficult problem, a promising measure of practical success is said tlo 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 be every prospect of a steady development both on land and sea. Steamers are now being de- I signed to carry equipment by which I the raw coal may be pulverised before j being fed into the furnaces. Other economies in the use of fuel irp in- 1 dustry are receiving increasing attention. If the expectations that some of the processes, systematically operated with adequate equipment, will render fuel available for industry at very much less than its present cost are not unduly sanguine, it should be 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.