Mexico weekly ledger., 1876-12-07
THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE.


Gas to- Take the Place of Coal and Wood
Enormous Waste of Heat i'm Fur
naces and Stoves.
There is, probably, no branch of en-
cheering skill in which SO little i'm
provement has been made and in which
there is SO wide and inviting a field for
the exercise of ingenuity as in the utll-
ization of fuel. frof. Gruner states:
"In the wind furnace, which is from
this point of view the most imperfect
apparatus, there is utilized in the fusion
OF steel in crucibles, but 1t of the total
heat capacity of the fuel, or at most 3
per cent. of the heat generated. In the
reverberatory, when steel is melted in
crucibles, the useful effect is 2 per cent.
of the total heat, or 3 per cent. of the
heat generated. In the Siemens cruel
BILE furnaces, 3 to 3.5 per cent. in
Siemens' glass-furnaces, operating on a
large scale, $50 to 6 per cent. /; in or
binary glass-furnaces, 3 per cent. in
fusion upon the open hearth of a re-
verberatory, of glass, Z per cent. OF
iron, 8 per cent; in well arranged
Siemens and Ponsard furnaces, up to
10, Is and even 20 per cent. of the total
heat is utilized"
AZ . SdAO " cb5oulIO Cu1U LII OLuludkf
steam engines, where the steam is gen
Grated in plain cylinder boilers, the
economy attained ia the use of fuel is
not much greater than in reverberatory
furnaces, while in domestic use, in open
CRATES especially, it is doubtful if as
large a per centage of the heat capacity
of the fuel is utilized. Yet though the
extreme w-astefulness of our methods of
using fuel have long been subject of
remark, no inventor has yet explored
with success 3 field that offers a prize
greater than the princely reward of the
fortunate inventor of the Bessemer pro-
cess for making steel. There are many
causes which contribute to the enor-
nous waste experienced in the con-
sumption of fuel. Among the most i'm
portant is the large amount of heat alb
sorbed in the furnace itself, in the gasi-
fication of the carbon-that is, in the
preparation of the fuel for combustion,
and, further, in the fact that the guam
tity of nitrogen admitted with the at
mospheric air necessary to furnish the
oxygen for combustion is so great that
it materially reduces the temperature
of the furnace, and, as a consequence,
reduces, in a still more rapid ratio,
the effective work performed by
the fuel. The maximum of econ
omy would naturally seem to be
attained by admitting to the combus-
ton chamber fuel in a condition ready
to burn, i. e., in a gaseous form, and
in the form of the gas or gases possess
ing the highest temperature of combus-
ton. Hydrogen and carbonic oxide
seem to be the most available, and so
generally has this fact been recognized
mat for many years efforts have been
made to manufacture these gases by
the decomposition of water in contact
with coal; these efforts have not until
recently been successful in an economi-
Cal sepse. The reports we have pub
lished from time to time during the
past year or two, recording the per-
formances of the Lowe gas process,
seem to place the matter of the econom-
ical manufacture on a large scale, of
water gas of d very high calorific value,
among the settlod questions. 1t is not
of illuminating GAS, however, that we
would To- speak, but of heating gas,
for we are convinced that the question
of the economical production OF a good
heating gas once settled, the business
of manufacturing it greatly overshadow
by its enormous proportions that of
making illuminating gas. There is
scarcely a use to which we now apply
coal in our cities that would not be tSsn-
Gifted by the substitution of beating Gas
if the price were sufficiently low. lit
is said that water gas, manufactured
according to the Lowe system, can be
made at a cost not to exceed fifteen
cents per 1000 cubic feet, Il figure
which should allow of it's distributor,
in the enormous quantities required for
domestic and manufacturing purposes,
at a very small price, say fifty cents per
1000 feet. If water-gas, having more
than four times the caloric valuel of
Siemens' gas, can be produced here in
the seaboard cities, where coal cdsts
from 81 to So a ton, by the Lowe or any
other process, at a cost of fifteen cd nts
per 1000 feet, it must be evident that a
new era in the development of industry
is dawning upon us. 1t is not too much
to expect that, under these circdm-
stances, gas would take the place of
coal in most uses; its cleanliness, even
if there were no great economy, Would
secure that result for domestic use, hnd
the increased efficiency and convenience
of gas and the improved quality of the
products obtained by it's use would be
sufficient to secure its adoption for m IAN
u~facturing purposes. When we q ION
Isider the question of the distribution
of gas for fuel, for domestic p&EpUses,
the high calorific power of the gas be-
comes still more important than when
it is manufactured directly at the works
at which it is used. We confidently an
ticipate the Introduction, before the
lapse of many years, of heating gas for
general domestic use; but though this
will be attended with an enormous
economy in the consumption of ccal, we
see nothing in it to injuriously affect
the coal trade. Experience has shown
that every economy in the use of fuel