Evening star., 1918-02-10
Enormous Waste Fuel Consumption and How to Prevent

one-hundred-thousan of an ounce
The weights were bits Of platinum and
platinum wire.
The samples o1 coal when they come
powder, and thfmbleful of this. or
one gram, is enough for test. This
amount Is first examined for moisture.
It is put in a little cup of bone ash and
then left in furnace which registers
Just the amount of moisture that comes
out of the coal. After this the thimbie-
full of coal is put into another furnace,
which is exceedingly hot. 1t burns 1T
to ashes. and the ashes left in the cup
show proportionately the amount OF
ash in the coal.
AS it is. few people realize the enor-
nous waste that is going on In burn.
Ing coal. We are letting millions OF
dollars a day fly up the chimney and
and smoke we waste every year. We
have begun to save some of these losses
by the new ovens which have been re.
Gently introduced for the making OF
steel plants. They are rapidly in
creasing in number. and the amount
saved by them is already in the neigh
borhood Of ss0.000.00o per year. I saw
$4,000 tons of coal every month, by
getting nine pounds more coke out OF
a ton of coal than was done In the
old-fashioned way. l saw some at
Gary which turned four-fifths OF the
coal into coke. and out of the balance
made 10O.OO0.OO0 cubic feet of gas
every twenty-four hours. In addition.
they produced vast quantities OF am
monia-sulphate and benzol and the by
products which come from coal tar
and take the places Of the drugs and
dyestuffs which we bought from Ger
many up until the outbreak OF this
war. The Germans have been selling
us something like $10.000.000 worth
q coal tar dyes per annum. They have
made them out of materials that We
have allowed to float away on the air;
They have sold us millions of dollars
worth of drugs that came from the
waste smoke and gases of coal. and
have annually made from the same
source something like 50,000O00 gal
Ions of benzol, which is equal to the
best gasoline sold in America.
X
But this saving relates only to the
coal used in the making of coke. which
is something like 60.00o.000 tons every
year. Why should not a similar saving
be made as to the remainder OF bitumi-
nous coal we consume? The amount Is
something like 500, 100000 tons. I asked
this question of one of our expert geolo-
gists who has made a special study OF
the saving Of by-preducts. He replied:
1.-THE chief difficulties as to the crea-
tion of such plants for small factories
or for saving the by-products in house
hold consumption is the enormous cost
of the new ovens and in the marketing
Of the by-products. The plants now In
use each cost $4,000 and upward. and
they have their own market for the
gas saved in the great steel plants
with which they are connected. By
product plants could not be erected to
serve small communities or individual
household consumers. but I see no rea-
son why one costing. say $4,000.
should not be invented that would serve
for the heating and lighting OF cities
of 10000 population or more. They
might be installed by the municipali-
ties or they would pay It owned by
would furnish all the fuel and gas for
the town. The fuel would be made of
the tar and coke in the bituminous coal
and 1t would<be fully equal to anthra-
cite in quality. The gas in the same
for cooking and lighting.
Moreover, this could probably be done
at such a low cost, in comparison with
what the two cost at present, that
either the light or the heat would be
congestion Just now is largely due te
the demand of the people for anthracite
coal. Our anthracite comes from one
little field in eastern Pennsylvania, and
it has to be shipped from there all over
the country. The people like 1t because
1t burns without smoke and has high
heating qualities. The by-products
plant suggest would mean tho crea-
ton Of little anthracite mine at every
large town in the country. 1t woul6
: supply a fuel, made Of the coke and tai
in the coal combined into briquettes
which would have the same heating
value as anthracite and burn without
!, smoke. The briquettes would be the
sama as those now made 1t the minei
OF anthracite dust with tar as q binder
/ For every ton Of bituminous coal con.
sprnod there would be seven -tenths ,o1
atom OF fuel equal q enthtacits:"