The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1906-01-03
ELECTRICITY FROM COAL.

world of electricity.
I'VE are cropping on the verge of
another great epoch in the worlds
history, he said In an interview at his
laboratory in West Orange. 1T would
not surprise me any morning to wake
up and learn that some one, some
group of the 100000 scientific men who
are investigating an over the earth,
has seized upon the secret Of electric
ity by direct process. and begun an
other practical revolution in human af-
fairs.
"It can be done. It will be done. /
expect to see il before | die
"The first great change in the pro
duction Of electricity will abolish car
rylng coal for that purpose he SAID.
Instead of digging gross material out
of the earth. loading It on cars, and
carrying It, say, 500 miles, there to
put It under a boiler and burn and so
get power, we shall set up plants AT
the mouths of mines. generate powe-
there, and transmit It wherever it 8
needed by the copper wire.
"It Is preposterous to keep on put
ting coal mines on wheels 1t is too
clumsy. It Is too costly. There IS
no necessity for It.
'It is easier to carry molecular vi
bration by millions OF waves a second
than freight cars full Of crude matter
We can ship 100000 horse power over
the wira quicker and more economi-
cally than we can send the equivalent
in coal over a railroad track.
I'VE must eliminate the railroad al
together from this problem. What IS
the use of It. We don't want coal any
how. II does no good to look at #.
What we want Is the resultant of the
most energy that can be produced
And there Is no sense in carrying
around millions Of tons of rawimaterial
like coal when we can get product
delivered to us by wire.
Everything points to the fact that
in the near future electricity will be
produced for general consumption by
great power houses at the mouths of
coal pits. That is the logical and com
mon sense outcome of present
events.
Now. the truth is that it will cost
a third less to transport electrical
power by wire than to carry it in the
form of coal in railroad cars Assume
the price of coal to be 81 at the mouth
of a mine. and assume the freight to
be $3.50. Now, we can turn coal into
electricity at the rhmes and convey
It by wire at less than half of the cost
of the freightage OF coal.
electricity will take the place of
horse. 1t will solve the vehicle ano
traffic problem of cities. My new elec-
trio storage battery itself will make
electricity cheaper than horses. In
the spring we will be ready to furnish
the new batteries. Not only will they
take half the space of horse traffic,
bat they will go twice as fast. They
can be stored on upper floors by
means Of elevators. The saving of
stable room in New York will cover
at least 200 million dollars worth o.,
property.
Not only will electric power be
developed and distributed from coal
mines in the future, but all the water
power in the world will be used for
the production of electricity. That
movement has begun and is advancing
rapidly. In California, where men
have nerve enough to overcome hab-
it, they are transmitting electric pow
er 275 miles by wire and running
street cars and lighting cities by it
That is the sort of spirit ,'.t will
wake the world up one of those days
| wish that spirit in California would
spread everywhere"