Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-01-30
ONLY 5 PER CENT OF GAS
:. ENERGY USED TO RUN CAR
Remainder Is Blown Out, Consumed by
Friction or Loss in Cooling-Experts
See Cracking" Possibilities Increased.

" HAT only per cent Of the
energy contained in gasoline
is used in propelling an auto
Il mobile forward. the remainder
being wasted was the state
inent Of Thomas A. Boyd, director of
fuel research at the General Motors
laboratories in Detroit, at a national
liquid fuel symposium held recently at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in Boston. The meeting was attended
by prominent men throughout the
country who are interested in fuel
research.
Among the other speakers were DR.
Graham Edgar, technical director Of
the Ethyl Gasoline Corporations labor
atorieS at YonkerS. y. Y. and former
head of the chemistry department of
the University of Virginia; DR.. Arthur
d. Little, president of the Petroleum
Chemical Corporation. and a past
president of the American Chemical
Society, who acted as chairman of the
symposium: DR.. W. X. Lewis, head
of the department of chemical engi-
neering at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, and DR.. a. {. Fieldner,
chief chemist of the United States
Bureau of Mines.
DR.. Little, as chairman of the sym
postum. officially described the meet
ing as the largest open meeting de
voted solely to the subject of liquid
fuels that has ever been held in this
country"
Where Energy Goes.
A third of the energy content Of
the gasoline is lost by the cooling ac-
ton of the water. Mr.. Boyd asserted.
another third is blown out with the
exhaust gas. while more is used up in
engine friction.
at is not likely that very many
airplane pilots or automobile drivers
have ever thought they were operat-
ing a chemical factory" Mr.. Boyd
continued But the thing that hap
pens to the fuel and air in the fiery
stomach of the gasoline engine is
just as much of a chemical reaction
as the making of TINT. or the syn
thesis of a beautiful dye. People
Just call it combustion for short
There is probably no reaction in
The world that means more to society
than this one does. And yet in large
measure, the use of the combustion
reaction just growed.' like Topsy,
without much control or analysis
even on the part of the chemical
profession. which, because of It's
chemical character, must be looked to
W Ice uldlS H.
1.-THE chemical manufacturer al
ways uses some means of controlling
what happens in his reaction watts,
and especially does he regulate the
speed of the reaction that he is work
ing with.
Rate of Chemical Reaction.
EVERY one knows what happens
when the maker of TINT. let's the
reaction run away from him. The
explosive manufacturer knows a num-
Der of ways of controlling the rate of
the chemical reaction that he con-
ducts in his watts and he uses every
one Of them.
But the only means the automo-
bile driver has to regulate the reac-
ton that goes in the engine of his
car is the throttle, and the throttle
does not control the rate of the course
of the reaction at ali. 1t just regu-
lates the amount of the reaction by
feeding larger or smaller portions of
gasoline and air to the engine.
Then, too, everybody knows that
gasoline, which is the principal COM
pound that enters into the chemical
reaction that makes the automobile
go, was not made to order at all. In
the main, it has consisted simply of
the volatile part of petroleum, just
as it happened to come.