TO REPLACE PETROL

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20906, 11 September 1939, Page 12

TO REPLACE PETROL

PRODUCER-GAS UNITS TRIAL IN CITY RECALLED WIDE USE IN EUROPE Whether the present restrictions on the use o'f petrol are continued over a considerable perior or whether they are lifted very shortly, it may still be in the national interest to conserve supplies of imported fuels. Inquiries are already being made into the practicability of making up producer-gas units for attachment to trucks and lorries for the generation of gas fuel, says a Wellington writer. There is nothing fantastic about this idea, for gas fuel is widely used in place of petrol in Europe—in peace days—and to some extent in Britain, and, if that seems too far away, pro-ducer-gas was used by the City Engineers’ Department on a five or six months’ test in Wellington with very fair results, in fa : ct, with surprisingly good results, though the equipment on trial was a long way from 'being a finished job. The test was made with the ‘‘sump eductor” (the vacuum cleaner which sucks sludge and debris from street channel sumps) and also with a stationary engine driving a pump on one of the big stormwater drainage works. The truck fully laden weighs about nine tons, so there was no question of gas power to handle heavy haulage. The main difficulty, even greater than maintenance of apparatus, which was largely experimental, as the basis of a more finished design, was in securing suitable solid fuel, for this plant was designed for coal, which is not the generally accepted fuel for producer-gas installations. Attracted No Interest Even so, the nine-ton truck went about city business for five or six months and attracted no particular interest; it was just another truck. Its operation was naturally not so convenient as that of a petrol-driven truck, but its efficiency was high, and so little modification of the engine was required that the truck was started up on petrol and then switched over to producer-gas. The test ceased when the maker who submitted the apparatus for trial asked for its return. The stationary engine buzzed round with good efficiency through the whole period. In fact there was no call for surprise that the truck plant ran satisfactorily, l'or producer-gas has been used in industry for long enough past, until it was virtually wholly displaced by electric power, petrol, and diesel engines; producer-gas plants as standbys to electric power have only recently fully retreated. The only new feature was that the producer unit was small enough to be carried on the truck, but that had been done overseas, in Europe and also in Australia. European Consumption France, Germany, and Italy, as well as using a number of substitutes for petrol and natural oil, compressed gas and mixtures of oils and alcohol, have consumed on enormous quantity of wood fuel in driving motor vehicles on producer-gas. An American oil authority has estimated the total wood consumption at 450,000,000 pounds annually in these three main petrol substitute countries, equivalent in motor operation to 14,000,000 gallons of petrol. Some cars are built directly for using producer-gas from wood, but more often gasoline types are converted by adding a stove to burn the wood (or oilier solid fuel), cooling pipes, filtering agent, tanks to collect condensed water, tar, and acids. The cost of ! conversion this writer put down at from £OO to £IOO, a figure which looks to be. any amount high, considering the comparatively simple type of construction —fuel hopper, combustion chamber, hand-blower (to start up, after which the engine's induction carries on), cooling pipe, and simple filter chambers. Chemical Process The thermo-chemistry of it is not complex. When mixed air and steam are driven through glowing coke (charcoal, wood, or whatever it is), the air keeps the fuel glowing and produces carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide (carbonic acid), and nitrogen; the steam produces hydrogen and carbon monoxide, and the resultant mixture has a high heat (ana power) value, running up towards 80 per cent of the heat value of the solid fuel. Fuel cost is low, by the pound or by the bag, but the consumption is fairly high. The test made in Wellington, it is understood, did not show up economically, compared with petrol running costs, but prices then were considerably lower than to-day, without taking into account restricted supplv. At any rate the possibilities are interesting, for it is clear that, should it be in the national and Empire interest lhat this Dominion should shorten its demand for oil fuel while still carrying on its business, these comparatively simple producer-gas units can be rapidly put together from materials available to New Zealand. The total weight of a gas generator for a standard lorry, with a fuel hopper sufficient for about 100 miles of running on one charge, may, in a welldesigned unit, be kept down to about .3 cwL