Montour American. (Danville, Pa.) 1866-1920, 1907-07-11
Relating to Coal Supply.

The insistence of Eastern cities that
manufacturers and others shall con-
tinue the use of anthracite coal in
stead of bituminous, in order to lessen
the smoke nuisance, is losing game
according to government experts.
In spite of themselves, the large
municipalities that have heretofore
enjoyed the benefits derived from an
thracite coal will soon have to come TO
the almost universal use of bitumin-
Gus, for the United States has already
reached the maximum of its yearly
hard coal output and from this time
on the amount of anthracite mined
will decrease from year to year and
the price naturally will soar until this
fuel becomes an absolute luxury
"At our present rate of consumption
there will be no anthracite coal left in
seventy-fve years, says Edward W.
Parker, the coal expert of the United
States Geological Survey. Hard coal
will never be cheaper to consumers
than it is now. The production of an
thracite in 1906 was SO, 645, ,0l0 tons.
According to one coal expert, the an
thracite available for mining in 1901
was /, 765. PIG, $50. "
From the above figures, evidently
there is not enough anthracite coal in
the country for power purposes in the
large cities of the East, - said Dwight
T. Randall, engineer in charge of
smoke abatement, United States Geo
logical Survey,
lin the year 1905, New York City
burned nine million tons of anthracite
coal and three and a half million tons
ci.-----4:z> is,, ol-aaa -
changed and will continue until bit
luminous coal is in the ascendency.
1T is estimated that New York and
Philadelphia are now using one-fifth
of the total yearly production of an
thracite. Thus it is seen that we must
conserve the hard COAL if we wish it
to last any length of time
I'VE have found it entirely feasible
to abate smoke in power plants, great
and small, but it is next to impossible
to prevent smoke issuing from the
chimneys of residences burning soft
coal Therefore, it would seem that
the logical thing TO do would be to
utilize the rapidly waning supply of
hard coal for the homes and use the
soft coal in the factories and power
plants.
THE real problem before the East
is the abatement cf smoke from soft
coal. New York is now showing that
this can be done in the experiments
that are being conducted by the New
York Edison Company.
'There are number of ways TO
solve the smoke evil. The burning of
soft coal by improved methods in
large, central heating stations in place
of many small, poorly conducted plants
is one of the promised solutions of the
problem In number of cities these
mammoth plants have been installed
and are doing good work.
Another method is to convert the
fuel into gas and coke, at big plant,
selling the gas and coke both of which
are smokeless to the consumers.
Still another method is the establ-
ishment of great gas producers. gas
engines and electric generators at the
coal mines the gas producers operat-
ing the engines and the latter in turn
the generations, sending the electricity
into the cities for power, light and
heating purposes. Electricity can be
sent in this manner, 250 miles. 1t is
also hoped that in the near future, the
railroads will use such power in oper
ating their trains. This would do
away with a big part of the smoke
nuisance