Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-09-02
Copyright, 1917. by Frank C. c.rpenter.)

Copyright, 1917. by Frank G. Carpenter.)
ENSLEY, Ala.
-HE war is revolutionizing the
steel industry of the United
States. 1t is increasing its
q efficiency and wiping out the
waste. 1t is creating new by-products
and is making our country independent
of many things which it formerly i'm
ported from Germany and other parts
Of the world. One sees evidences Of
this at every step in going through
great plant like that of the United
States Steel Trust at Ensley. The plant
covers almost twenty acres, and con-
nected with 1t are many great buildings
devoted to the utilization of by-prod-
ucts which not long ago went to waste.
Just back of the mighty furnaces, which
are now smelling more than three
quarters OF a million tons of iron
year. are loog rows of the old-fash-
Toned beehive coke ovens, which only
q few years ago made most of the coke
of the United States. These ovens are
of brick. Each of them is about twelve
feet in diameter. and SO tall that
man could stand upright within it. The
in the top 1t 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
hand There was a great waste Of ma
terial. time and labor.
Today the coal is turned into coke
in ovens which cost hundreds of thou
sands of dollars to build. The ovens
are in a great series as high as
three-story house and several hundred
feet long. They are charged automati-
cally by steel cars. which carry the
coal on tracks high above them and
drop it into the ovens. After the coke
Is made. steel hands worked by ma
chinery push the blazing chunks into
steel cars. and the train Is carried under
sprinkler which floods 1t with water.
AS the cold water touches the super
heated mass volcano of steam rises
like mighty cloud into the air. At
nrst the cloud il black but a second
later it turns to the color of milk and
forms huge mass of vapor more WON
derful than the pillar of fire which led
the Israel ties through the wilderness
II takes only ffty-fve seconds to cool
the great mass.
In this new method of making coke
about the only thing that is lost Is this
steam. Philip ID. Armour the man who
did SO much 10 build up the meat
packing 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
ana In the ma king of pig iron they
are creating valuable by-products out
OF everything that goes into the piC
In these new coke ovens the monthly
saving is greater than the output of !.
large coal mine. j have this statement
from Mr.. George Gordon Crawford,
president OF the Tennessee Coal, Iron
Gnd Railroad Company, which operates
EnSley Said Mr.
ford:
BY means of the by-product ovens
we are able TO save every month more
than $4,000 tons of coal. This is on the
basis of an output of 100. 900 pounds Of
coke per month. The saving comes
from the fact that every hundred
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 pounds
of nut coke and coke dust from every
hundred pounds Of furnace coke thai
we make. and the total saving is about
$4,000 tors. Forty-three Thousand
tons would be big monthly output for
ore of our largest coal mines; and such
a mine would probably be exhausted
within thirty years. The saving We
are ma X ing here will go on continually
and we shall create that amount Of
new coal every month as long as the
plant Is kept working"
Mention some Of your other by
products. Mr.. Crawford" said i.
We use the coke dust and nut coke
as fuel. and the result; is hundreds of
millions of cubic feet of gas, which we
use for running our works. Twenty
fve million cubic feet of such gas goes
TO the steel plant. where il is used for
Sne creation OF power And then We
have the by-products from the gases
created in making the coke. which
yield in round numbers. from each
hundred thousand tons of coke. more
than one million gallons of tar, over
fifteen hundred tons of sulphate OF
ammonia and almost sixty-three thou
sand 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 it in
great pipes, and the various products
elA manufactured from thai aa in re-