Coal Consumption.

Progress, Volume II, Issue 2, 1 December 1906, Page 49

Coal Consumption.

In the course of his address to the Glasgow University Engineering Society the president (Mr. G. T. Beilby) stated that there are, in Great Britain, steam engines and boilers with a yearly output of at least 5,000,000 h.p. The coal consumed by these is not less than 5 lbs. per 1 h.p. hour. By the use of gas engine and steam turbine that coal consumption might be reduced to i£ lb. per l.h.p. hour. The saving in coal, therefore, would be equal to about 28,000,000 tons, value at The cost of making this change need not exceed or, if the power is to be delivered in the form of electrical energy,

The assertion that the rare earth metals of the incandescent gas mantle emit sparks on being scratched with a file has been investigated by Baron yon Welsbach. He finds that the sparks are produced only when the rare metals are alloyed with 30 per cent, of iron, and he proposes to apply this property of the alloy to the automatic lighting of gas. As the gas is turned on, a file gently rubs the alloy, producing a brilliant shower of sparks, which immediately ignites the gas.

According to the report of the Inspector of Explosives, a workman was fined £2 last year for having pockets in his clothing when working in a danger building.