The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-09-02
Enslev. Ala.
Ensley, Ala. 7H1 HIS war is revoiutionizing the steel l industry of the United States. It sJl Is increasing it's efficiency and

b~1 r@I iAAS War IS FeNoiuu0nlzing the steel
 industry of the United States. It
 is increasing its efficiency and
 wiping out the waste. It is ere ating new by-products and making our country independent of many things which it formerly imported from Germany and other parts of the world. One sees evi- dences of this at every step going through plant like that of the United States Steel trust at Ensley. The plant covers almost 20 acres. and connected with it are many great buildings devoted to the utiliza tion of by-products which not long ago went to waste. Just back of the mighty fur aaces, which are now smelting more than foe.ooo tons of iron a year, are long rows Of the old-fashioned beehive coke ovens. which only few years ago made most Of the coke of the United States These iWens are of brick. Each of them is about lz feet in diameter and so tall that a man could stand upright within it. Tine coal was put in by hand through a hole In the top It was fired by hand and the volatile gases passed off and were lost in the air. The coke was dragged With rakes and the cars were loaded by nand. There was great waste of ma terial, time and labor
 Today the coal is turned into coke in ovens which cost hundreds of thousands ol ooiiars to build The ovens are in great series as high as three-story house and several hundred feet long. Ihey are charged automatically by steel cars, which carry the coal on tracks nigh above them and drop it into the ovens. After the coke is made, steel ~a1 plazing chunks into steel cars and the train is carried under sprinkler which Hoods 1t with water. As the cold water touches the uper-heated mass a volcano or steam rises like a mighty cloud into the air At first the cloud Is black but second later 1t turns to the color of milk and forms a huge mass of vapor more wonderful than the pillar of fire which led the Israelites through the will derness. It takes only 55 seconds to cool the great mass
 In this new method of making coke about the only thing that is lost is this steam. Philip D. Armour, the man who did so much to build up the meat pack ing business of Chicago. once said that he was able to save every bit of the hog but the squeal. By means of recent inventions the steel makers are now able to save every bit of the coal and in the making of pig iron they are creating val uable by-products out or everything that goes into the pig In these new coke ovens the monthly saving Is greater than the output of a large coal mine. I have this statement from MT. George Gordon Crawford. president of the Tennessee Coal. Iron and Railroad company, which operates the great Ensley plant Said MT. Crawford:
 By means of the by-product ovens we are able to save every month more than 43,0oo tons of coal. This is on the basis of an output of 100000 pounds of coke per month. The saving comes from the fact that every 100 pounds of coal will make nine pounds more coke in the by-product ovens than we are able to get from the same amount in the beehive ovens. We are also able to save more than six
 Of nut coke and coke dust from st 100 pounds of furnace coke that we
 and the total saving Is about 5000
 Forty three thousand tons would big monthly output for one of our Va sat coal mines, and such a mine ge probably be exhausted within 30 @ The saving we are making here
 90 on continually, and we shall
 } that amount of new coal every as long as the plant is kept work
 ention some of your other by F ucts. MT. Crawford" said I.
 Fe use the coke dust and nut coke at lel and the result is hundreds of ons of cubic feet of gas which we N for running our works. Twenty 3a million cubic feet of such gas goes te ie steel. plant, where it Is used for tA creation of power. And then we
 the by-products from the gases ers ted in making the coke, which
 d in round numbers, from each 4ea poo tons of coke. more than 1,o00.- 3e gallons of tar. over 1900 tons of -A,Dhate of ammonia and almost 63,0o0 gallons of benzol products"
 During my stay at the works have gone through the by-product plant which creates these great savings. The gas from the coal Is carried to 1t in great pipes. and the various products are manufactured from the gas in re torts and machines of one kind or oth CT. The sulphate of ammonia, which is so largely used for fertilizer, comes From the ammonia gas in the coal sfThis Is passed through sulphuric acid and the mixture Is reduced to a pow der by running 1t through a centrifu- gal machine like that in a sugar re- finery. When the stuff comes out t looks much like brown sugar, but it Is really combination of sulphur and coal It Is worth about s90 ton at the present war prices. and as the