The Daily Alaska empire., 1936-10-16
D|ESELS MAY
 SHIFT POWER
 SOURCES NOW
C. L. Cummins Makes Fore cast in Issue of Ro-
 tartan Magazine

We are on the brink of one of the major shifts in the worlds sources of power, according to c. l.. Cum, mins, president of the Cummins Engine Company. If you think this is sensational prediction" he
 writes in the Rotarian Magazine, put it away in your ticker file marked January l, 1940', and see
 what you think of it then in the light Of intervening developments in the field of Diesel power.
 We prophecy a major trend away from gasoline engines and in- to Diesel engines for large num- Der of automotive tasks-but by no means all. We believe that the gas oline engine has definite place in the field of transportation.'
 MT. Cum m ns bases his guess about the future of the Diesel en- zine in the automotive field on the present stage of the industry. "As yet" he says, we have not found how to make them as inexpensively as gasoline engines can be made. We are contenting ourselves with predicting that in the field of pas senger cars they will take over only those tasks where the per-mile cost is of major importance.
 Az lao ,tfi1ifxy irt.c of passenger and freight transporta- ton, I believe we shall have this al- most entirely Diesel-powered with in a very few years. The trucks which haul freight on the roads are already proving the economy of Diesel engines.
 AS I see it, he continues, "the biggest field for Diesels right now is in railroad use. While Diesel engines on the highways can ruin the steam railroads, Diesels on the rails are the one possible salvation of privately-owned railroads in the United States. The railroads are discovering this and are making the necessary adjustments in equip ment.
 Another industry which will be radically affected by Diesel power is the electric utilities Mir Cum mins forecasts. My own guess is that the Diesel is a greater threat to their continuance than was any thing proposed at Washington dur ing the last session of Congress. The fact is, we can produce electrical power for Diesels at as low cost as the largest, most efficient steam or water-power plant. and do it right on the spot, thus saving the capital costs and the transmission losses inherent in super-power lines.
 The most startling effect of Dies els that I foresee should come in the oil industry, from the producers to the retail outlets. And these chang es should be all for good Right now, the big demand is for gaso- line, which is among the higher fractions in crude petroleum. Re- liners have surplus of other frac- tiOns. When Diesels are used in large quantity, they are bound to improve that situation. They will make a more balanced market for the refiners, obtain from this great natural resource a more economic usefulness than it now has, In other words. Diesels will get more useful work out of each barrel of crude oil, and thus conserve the natural resources. The more inn portant effect upon the oil industry is that it should get the industry a much larger proportion of the worlds traffic, and thus broaden the markets.
 For the present, the Diesel is on the upturning wave. The Diesel in- dustry probably, our own company certainly, is on the way to rapid and profitable development. I look for an expansion in this single field
 which may well be large enough to prove the way out of the depres- sion and out of technological un- employment for a. good many
 years"