BOTTLED GAS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 423, 6 January 1933, Page 3

BOTTLED GAS

EXPERTS CONSIDER PRACTXCAL RESULTS NOT FAR DISTANT. Leeds, Eng. Is "bottled gas" about to revolutionise industry, transportation, and the social amenities? The question was partly answered at the annual meeting of the British Commercial Gas Association when Mr. A. W. Smith, general manager of the City of Birmingham Gaa( Department, indicated that bottled gas in portable form is being exploited for a variety of novel purposes. He revealed that the home office has sanctioned the use of test vehicle on the roads for the purpose of demonstrating the possihilities of bottled gas. The vehicle is fitted with special cyclinders containing gas at a pressure of 3000 pounds per square irif'.b.

The general public will not have long to wait for piYictical results from bottled gas, Mr. Smith averred. "Abready we have had small • cylinders of capacities from 1.9 to 5 cubic feet manufactured which on test have given extremely satisfactory results," said Mr. Smith when delivering a paper on "Industrial Gas Achievement and Prospect." The chief ambition of the industry is to use compressed gas to run internal combustion engines, but its usefulness in many other direetions, partieularly in places remote from gas mains, is obvious. Mr. Smith emphasized the progress now being made hy citing that by eertain modifications to the design of the original air-gas mixers which were used.in place of the petrol earburetors, a further 10 per cent._ increase in efficiency had been obtained when running on gas alone without any enrichment with benzol. It was also pointed out that experiments ] have shown the maximum power out- j put of a standard low compression engine running on gas is about 78 per cent. of that obtained with petrol. This figure, it is said, has now been improved hy more than 10 per cent. with a possibility of reaehing a p'ower almost equal to that obtainahle with petrol. Turning to other uses of compres- • sed gas, Mr. Smith said they had already received inquiries for lighting I and h'eating country houses,. garages and cafes, and also for use on yachts.^ As regards picniekers' requirements, a numher of tests had shown that it was impossible to boil a three-pint kettle in less than three minutes in the open with a high pressure burner supplied from gas in steel bottles. This was appreciaoiy quicker than the time occupied hy the average type of P'araffin or spirit stove. ^^nVjTT^YyvmTjressiTie^in^^

in various parts of the country for experimental work. The gas industry, he eoncluded, while in a position generally to meet other competition, is not yet able to meet entirely the I competition, from oil fuel; hut they are in much stronger position than I two or three years ago, when fuel oil