The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-08-09

Copyright. 1896, by S. S. Mcclure,
Limited.)
No announcement in practical sci
ence Of recent years has been calculat-
ed to excite so much interest as that
made the other day that the problem
of the direct conversion of coal into
electricity had been solved. The an
nouncement came almost simultan-
eously in this country and in Germany.
In Germany from an eminent chemist
that the thing could be done, and,
Enthusiastically in this country,
from an electrician Of high standing
that it had been done. DR.. Cochin, a
German chemist of note, has been ex-
perimenting at the problem for some
time, and as a result of his researches
announced a short time ago his belief
that it would be possible to transform
coal into electricity directly. The same
month DR.. William w. Jacques, an
electrician Of the Bell Telephone COM
pany, filed letters of patent upon a
process accomplishing exactly this re-
suit.
Just what all this means was best
put in a lecture by Professor Oswald
Two years ago, when he said: Had we
cell in which electrical energy was
produced by the direct oxidation of car
bon, with an output approaching the
theoretical, we should be on the brink
Of an industrial revolution compared
with which the invention of the steam
engine sinks into insignificance'
This is putting the case strongly, but
1t is nevertheless in a large measure
true. As almost everyone at all ac-
quainted with the subject knows, the
amount of actual work that we get out
of pound of coal, burned in an ordi-
nary steam engine is absurdly small,
as compared with the total amount of
power resident in the coal. The finest
triple expansion engine on one of our
great ocean liners, which probably re-
Allies the highest efficiency known at
the present time, only secures about
II per cent Of the theoretical efficiency
OF burning coal An ordinary steam
engine does not realize over or Z per
cent. The remaining 80 per cent or
more is absolutely lost-wasted.
Furthermore, ir order to get the po-
tential energy of coal into a form where
1t is easily utilizable commercially, in
wolves still further loss and waste All
the power that is consumed in running
the dynamo is SO much energy thrown
away. A table recently prepared.
showing the workings of several hun
dred electric light plants in, the United
States, disclosed the fact that the large
plants of the very finest equipment
only secured about per cent in actual
work. or electricity of the potential
Of the coal. and that the smaller plants
only secured around . per cent. All
told it is probable that the averag e
for the whole country is less than 5
per cent.
Now, if a way could be found to an
proXimately reverse these proportions
it is easy to see what an industrial
revolution would result And DR.
Jacques of Boston believes that he has
done about this. He has devised "a
process Of singular simplicity. general
ing an electric current direct from coal
or rather from coke. and in a series of
tests was able to secure in one in one
instance as high as 81 per cent of a
theoretical efficiency of the coal used.
This, of course, was exceptional. bur
DR.. Jacques believes that he will be
very shortly able to produce electricity
commercially for somewhere between
one-ffth and one-tenth its present
cost.
Put in the very simplest way, DR..
Jacques process is this: Taking
quantity Of coke, he reduces this to a
powder, adds a little water Jams it
into a cylinder and makes a big round
stick Of carbon that looks a good deal
like a giant f1recracker or stick of
carbon for an electric arc light very
much enlarged. This stick of carbon
he suspends in a cylindrical iron pot
containing an eiectrolyte of melted
caustic soda And when a current of
air. introduced by a small tube, is
driven through this solution, electrical
action is set up. producing a current
of extraordinary volume.
To gain the necessary voltage or
electrical pressure, a hundred or more
of these iron pots are put together their
rims connected by wire. The whole
plant-it can hardly be called a, battery
is inclosed in al oven in order to keep
the solution at a uniform temperature
of about 400 degrees centigrade-
Practically that is all there is of this
epoch making invention. With the ex-
ception of a pump to drive the air
through the solution of soda there is no
machinery at all. Compared with
this marvelously simple affair. a, steam
engine and dynamo are, as Professor
Jacques observes, "hopelessly COM
pleX" There are no boilers, no engine,
no dynamo, no ashes to be removed, no