The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-11-28

D6n6l1I OIL uldnhlIlu. ne believes the
world to be on the brink of some aston
fishing advances in the art of power
development; that certain theoretical
and fundamental facts are soon to be
made commercial use of in ways that
will amount to revolution of life and
brought about by the steam engine or
the telegraph or the telephone or the
dynamo.
Some of the scientists" he said,
have been specializing as to what the
world will do for power when its sup
ply OF coal has been burned up. At
the same time the commercial in
ventors of this age are working hard
TO ind out practical solutions of this
problem, and there is not the slightest
doubt in my mind that more than one
method for getting a great deal more
power than we shall ever need will be
practically and successfully worked
out long before there will be actual
necessity for decreasing coal consump-
ton.
SO long as the sun shines man will
be able to develop power in abundance,
no matter whether there are coal mines
or not. and when its rays have been
quenched power will no longer be
needed. 1t is from the sun, in fact
that we get all our power now, for
coal is only stored sunshine, and the
rays that fall upon the earth's surface
today are as full of power as they
ever were.
John Ericsson showed by his expert
mentS with the sun engine, on which
he was working when he died, that
each square yard of the earth's surface
receives sufficient heat from the sun,
when its rays fall perpendicularly
through a dry atmosphere, to make
enough steam to run an engine of one
horse power. The one obstacle to the
direct use of the suns concentrated
rays for the purpose of making power
in this latitude lies in the fact that,
excepting in midsummer, the sunshine
does not fall vertically, but at an
angle. There are many days when
the sun does not shine at ALL and
many more on which its rays have to
pass through an atmosphere filled with
an invisible vapor that absorbs a great.
portion of their heat before they ever
reach the earth.
"On the desert sands of Africa and
in some parts of our own southwest,
where the sun shines uninterruptedly
through dry air, the use of its rays in
this manner would be more practical.
OF course the amount of power that is
theoretically available in this way is
almost beyond computation-enou
could be got from the desert parts OF
the earth alone to operate the machil,a
cry of many worlds like this
No one who has not familiarized
himself with the experiments OF the
scientists along these lines can appre-
ciate the possibilities of the scheme for
getting power direct from the sunshine.
As matter of theoretical and demon
strated fact, it is possible to get enough
power from the suns rays that fall
on territory no larger than Manhat-
tan Island to operate all the machinery
of the world
If, as Ericsson demonstrated, heat
enough to make a horse power may be
developed from each square yard.
from one square mile enough may be
collected to make as many horse pow
erS as there are square yards in A
mile, or 3,0S9, 500. At the outside. the
city of New York does not use more
than 100000 horse power, and this
amount would operate all it's cable,
electric, horse and elevated cars. haul
all its trucks and carts and wagons.
run all its steam engines, and all its
other machinery of every kind.
Chicago probably uses a little less.
Paris about the same, and London
about twice as much, or say, 1000 goo
altogether. These four great cities,
then, use more than a million horse
power, altogether, than one square
mile would produce.
Now, Manhattan Island contains %
square miles, and such an area, ac-
cording to the calculations just made.
absoTbs enough heat to make a,971. 200
horse power, whenever the sunshine
rails directly and uniTnpededly upon it.
twenty-five square miles of territory
on Sahara, or even in Arizona, could
furnish all the power humanity has
use for at this stage of its industrial
development.
Although the greatest possibilities in
the way of changing sunshine into
power exist in the dry sunny south,
there are great possibilities, even in
the latitude of New York and Chicago.
suppose, for the sake of argument.
that there is an average of clear. di-
rect sunshine of only one hour a day
the year through That would be 300
hours, or 80 working days (holidays
not counted). and square mile of ter
rltofy would therefore produce the
equivalent of more than 100000 of
horse power for one month
rms power, however, would be fur
nished intermittently. There would be
days and days when the 5000 900 odd
morse power would be developed. and
other days and sometimes weeks. when
hardly any power at all would be
available.
1t is because of this that no plan for
making power out of sunshine is vet
commercially profitable.
But, given a perfect storage battery.
so that the power made on bright DAYS
could be packed away for use at night
and on sunless days, the power pro
duced in 300 hours would be equal to
100000 horse power-the amount used
by New York for all purDosss-for
every day during the seven months and
a half.
And two square miles of the jersey
marshes, just across the North river
from the big city. and at present I'M
used for any purpose whatever if fitted
up with big sunshine cOndensing anna
ratus, would give power enough to keen
all the wheels of New York. and Brook
lyn, too, for that matter, whiriing the
whole year through.
With regard to the storage battery
Mr. Edison said today:
Except for light power uses. electric
storage is not vet a commercial sue
cess. The storage battery of today is
heavy, awkward to handle and expen-
slVe. 1t wears out too quickly and
costs too much to renew, and unless
some new thing is found electric stor-
age Will not come into general use
There is no reason 10 doubt. however
that electric storage will eventually be
brought to approximate perfection. and
when that is done q great step for
ward will have been taken.
Theoretically, it ought not to be
impossible TO store any quantity of
electric energy. nor to transmit it IL
llmltaDIy. But electricity is an eva six,a