ARTIFICIAL COAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 August 1917, Page 6

ARTIFICIAL COAL.

A BRIGHT IDEA. PROCESS THAT WOULD SAVE 20,000,000 YEARS* 'ln contrast to the twenty million years which Nature takes to produce coal a process by which coal slack, coke dust, sawdust, and household ashes cap be ''concreted" into a fuel equally vain able was described by Mr. R. Goulliuv Lovell in a paper read to the Society of Architects of London. This prorc-.-, lias been evolved by Mr. Lovell and Mr. 0. M. Hughes, and they declare ,tji»t in ■anv locality the fuel can be made without pressure at any industrial locality from the waste products possessing itny calorific value to be found there. During millions of years the contortions of the earth's surface by gloat volcanic upheaval had produced innumerable varieties of coal throughout Ihe world, ami it would not be dillicnlt to understand, said Mr. Lovell, that man must not expect to produce it on any one uniform plan. It had been ascertained, however, that certain relative proportions could be determined of a more or less uniform character.

Mr. Lovell then showed coal concreted from coaldust alone, others from cokedust alone, destructor ash alone, clinker, and bar ash and sawdust. "It will be -ecu in the lire." he said, "that the better grades burn like Nature's coal, ithe lower grades like coke. These artificial coab a ill be found to be more lasting in the same way that a good artiffl-ial stone i- move lasting 'than most stones made bv Nature.

The machinery and plant, the speaker declared, practically existed in all industrial centres. The essentials are crushers, or breakers, screens, drying tables, mixers, and moulds, such as castaway pails, baths, etc. The cost, Mr. Lovell said, depended upon the value put upon the bases, but labor and establishment charges wouid not be more than 5s a ton, and the fuel could be sold at roughly £1 per ton.