Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1908-06-20

:ric Company predicts that all young
men now living win see the exhaus
lion of our supply of anthracite. The
natural course then will be to rely
apon our deposits of soft coal for pro
lection against freezing, but the Gov
eminent, in DR.. Steinmetz's opinion
will be obliged to prohibit this or the
air we breathe will become permeatet
with poisonous gases. The hope Of
the future for life, as DR., Steinmetl
sees 1t, lies in electricity.
The United States that is to come
will be a country entirely devoid Of
Its present river scenery. The rivers
Of the future will be merely a success
sion of sluggish lakes, with electrical
power stations in between. All the
little streams will have been utilized
and their combined strength con
yerged into the great bodies of water
that are to supply the heat, light and
power of the future.
But even the outstanding of all our
water power won't be sufficient
There must be economy along other
lines. The energy of the sun itself
must be trapped and saved. Our
building methods will have to un-
dergo a change. Provision will have
to be made for the utilization Of the
! suns rays in the heating Of our Cor
somebody else's) homes.
Dr. Steinmetz also sees in the
minds eye the city of the future-a
collection of Office buildings, factories
and bachelor apartments All the
married men with their families will
have moved to the water-courseless
country. The development of the
uses of electricity is already bringing
this change about.
DR.. Steinmetz took this look into
the future in a lecture at the Amer
lean Institute of Electrical Engineers,
B3 West Thirty-ninth street. The lee
! ture was given for the New York
Electrical Trade School, and most of
The audience were students from that
institution. DR.. Steinmetz's subject
vas "The Future of Electricity"
DR.. Steinmetz said that the handi-
zap against electricity now is its high
cost Of production. That high cost is
occasioned largely by the irregular
nature of the distribution. Electricity
supplied for twenty-four hours to a
mill could be obtained on one cent
per kilowatt hour, whereas the cleo
tricity used for lighting purposes
would cost ten times as much. The
hope of the future for economy, in DR..
Steinmetz's opinion, lay in the Or
ganizing of electrical power supply so
that it would go out evenly over the
twenty-four hours, and not in a hap
hazard and unsystematic way as at
present.
"The cost of production" said DR..
Steinmetz, depends on the distribu-
ton of the loads and when they can
be evened out over the twenty-four
hours in a systematic way the end
will have come for kerosene and gas
as illumlnants.
The same conditions will usher in
the age of cooking by electricity, if
the coal supply hasn't given out be-
fore then.
"The time will come" said the pro-
fessor, "when we will have no more
coal, and it is not far in the future.
Anthracite will not last long; many
of us who are here will be alive when
the last is gone. Many of us will see
the time when there is only soft coal.
Some of you may see the time when
soft coal is exhausted, but probably
not, for there is supply of this even
in Greenland's icy mountains. But,
nevertheless, we can see the end, and
when we approach 1t what are we 60
ing to do to keep from freezing?
That seems to be the problem that the
next generation will have to meet,
and maybe we ourselves.
"But the Nation also will have to
wake up to the problem of the poison
that escapes in the burning of soft
coal. Look out around Pittsburg
where we see the pine trees dying.
They have been poisoned. The ever
green tree, like ourselves, has only
one set of lungs. Other trees get a
new set every year. II you go through
all those valleys where the great steel
plants are you will never find a pine.
1t may be even before the soft coal
Is gone that we may have to drop It's
use, that we will wake up to the vic
lousness of the practice of burning it.
And what does this mean? 1t
means that we must use electrical
power. When we reach the end of
the soft coal the only remaining
sources that will keep us from freez-
Ing are the water powers. We are
developing the country's water power
now, but we are only making a be-
ginning. In the single State of Mas
sachusetts there is more water power
going to waste than is found in Nj
agara herself.
Electricity in the future will have
to solve the problem of collecting the
water power. Now we convert 1t
where we find it into electricity; we
haven't started collecting 1t as yet.
We have been dreaming of transport
Ing Niagara's power to New York. |
They will never do that, but the diff
rerent powers Joined together may
feed the same system.
what we get to-day, however, of
our real water power is a mere moth
ing. No attempt is made to get the
enormous power that goes to waste in
the spring floods. Look at the enor-
nous unused power in the little
creeks and riyulets. New methods |
will have to be devised for collecting
the joint power of all these creeks
and rivers. That is what we will have
to do when we face the possibility of
freezing.
"There are hard times coming for
future generations. We can see now
in what direction things will tend. |
We think now 1t is not worth while
doing these things, but the time will
Il.