The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-09-28

That great body of representative American business men who met at At lantic City last week heard nothing that gave them greater qualification
 than the assurance that no matter what
 the demands may be for mineral oil or petroleum an abundant supply will be
 furnished provided only there be econ omy in the use of oil and especially gasoline. The oil situation some weeks ago gave the government some concern Production seemed to be falling off. and warning was given to the people that at the prevailing rate of consumption there would be practically little or no surplus of oil within year.
 Earnest efforts were made to speed up the oil industry, and the attention of Congress was called to the fact that the government had authority over great reaches of oil producing territory in southern California. Heretofore the gov- ernment has not permitted any exploit ing of this oil producing territory, nor would 1t undertake itself to utilize these resources. Now, business men and the government are assured that production has been increased and the output will be so carefully conserved that there
 need no longer be apprehension of a
 dangerous famine in oil.
 This applies, however. only to the
 present and to the duration of the war
 There is apprehension that the world
 supply of petroleum may be exhausted
 within the next 25 or 30 years. In fact,
 the experts who are familiar with tho
 productive oil fields of the world are of
 the opinion that this natural resource
 now so vital to industry of all kinds.
 will be exhausted by the end of the next quarter of century.
 What that would mean to industry and
 especially to the newly developed indus
 ing engines both for steamships and the railroad, is not difficult to conjecture.
 Either wholly unexpected new resources,
 vast in amount. must be discovered and
 exploited or else something must be dis covered or invented which can take the place of oil.
 pr. Edward Goodrich Acheson. the dis-
 coverer of the process by which carbor-
 undum and artificial graphite could be
 secured, in an address delivered to the
 members of an important scientific body two or three years ago, stated that in
 his opinion 1t is of far greater conse-
 quence to the people of the United
 States and the rest of the world, that there should be utilization and conser-
 vation of the inexhaustible resources
 which nature provides. than that there
 should be conservation of the exhaust
 ible resources. The utilization of the
 stupendous and inexhaustible natural re-
 sources Is made possible by the applica-
 ton of electricity in combination with
 chemistry. This is new science, whose
 beginnings were as recent as the last decade of the past century. or 1t may be little earlier. It was utilization of this science so far as 1t was possible at that time to utilize 1t, which en- abled pr. Acheson to produce new commodity now of widely recognized commercial value; in fact. two commodi- ties. carborundum and artificial graph ite. The raw material used Is furnished by some of the inexhaustible natural re- sources.
 Doctor Acheson pointed to the neces- sity of discovering and perfecting some commodity obtained by electric chemis- trv from inexhaustible natural resources ;toh haustion of the supply of mineral oil. He also said that sometime in the fu- ture, perhaps not many years hence, as 1 the life of nations Is estimated, the world supply of coal will be exhausted But he felt confident that electricity
 and chemistry working in combination would discover commodity which l could be obtained from inexhaustible
 natural resources and make good the future inevitable exhaustion of the worlds supply of coal
 i There has been in session in this city 1 this week a representative body of American chemists, whose purpose is to aid through this science hand in hand with electricity in making the United ! States independent of other nations so | far as certain commodities are con
 cerned and also to stimulate the won-
 derful work of research now in progress. whereby electrical chemistry may be 50 l utilized as to cauture abundant re- | source4 from the inexhaustible. but
 hitherto unused resource of nature