The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1937-09-02
Keeping Up
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How Long Will Our
Fuel Supply Last?
Here's the Answer
There's Plenty of Coal,
but Oils Running Short
@ Science Service.-WNU Service

New York.-UnleSS new meth
DDS of obtaining and processing
petroleum are developed, Amer
lea may begin to feel the
cramping hand of an oncoming
oil shortage in from 10 to 20
years. This is the verdict of DR..
Arno c. Fieldner, chief of the
technologic division of the Unit
ed States Bureau of Mines.
DR.. Fieldner outlined the present
resources of the nations fuels.
Of coal America has plenty, said
DR.. Fieldner. Enough to last hum
dreds and perhaps thousand or
more years. But natural gas and
oil obtained by present methods
may be exhausted in less than a
century, he warned.
Trend Favors Coal.
Here is the significant forecast Of
DR.. Fieldner on Americas future
fuels:
Coal will continue to be the chief
fuel for the generation of public
utility and major industrial power.
While improved burning of coal
might tend to decrease consumption
and the further development of wa
ter power may be expected to in
crease, DR.. Fieldner sees an in
creasing demand for total energy
needed by the country so that Goals
relative position should be favor
able. Moreover, after 10 or Is years
oil resources will become more diff
cult to exploit, so that the trend
will be the increased consumption
of coal.
"Tomorrow's power and central
heating plants will burn any kind
of coal completely and efficiently"
said DR.. Fieldner. There will be
no smoke, no dust, and no sulphurous
gases emitted to the atmosphere"
Heating Costs Remain Steady.
No substitute for metallurgical
coke has appeared, continued DR..
Fieldner. The coke-oven industry
should expand. Regulations prohib-
iting the waste of natural gas and
the urge for additional markets will
lead to the construction of more
long-distance pipe lines which al
ready go from Texas to Chicago and
to Detroit. Gas will find industrial
and domestic use and will displace
oil as well as coal for fuel in some
places. AS natural gas approaches
exhaustion gas from coal will take
it's place.
DR.. Fieldner sees a further use
of automatic coal and gas heating
of homes and believes improved in
sulation will permit heating at about
the present costs, despite the in
evitable advances in the price Of
the fuel
While oil-fuel Diesel engines on
railroads may be expected to in
crease, DR.. Fieldner foresees coal
retaining it's performance as the
fuel for freight traffic throughout
the age of oil and natural gas.
Three-fourths of the worlds ship
ing is now powered by oil fuel. Oil,
in fact, has energized marine trans
port. DR.. Fieldner foresees further
widening of oil as fuel in ships and
predicts that when natural petro-
leum sources dwindle, oil from shale
or from coal may come into use.
On the crucial question of gaso-
line supplies for automobiles DR..
Fieldner regards present pessimis-
tic fears of a shortage by 1945 as
unjustifed. Such warnings, he
points out, have been issued regu-
larly since the automobile came into
use. Scientific research, both in
cracking heavy oils to yield more
gasoline and the reverse proc
ess of polymerization where gaso-
line is created out of lighter gas
eous vapors, should hold the pro-
duction to levels of demand, states
DR.. Fieldner. Improved scientific
prospecting for new reserves of pc
troleum and the drilling of deeper
wells to tap now-unreachable
sources should be a further aid for
the next two decades.
Eventually, admits DR.. Fieldner,
gasoline supplies will dwindle. How
ever, improvements in engine con-
struction to take lower-quality fuels
and the expected improvements in
Diesel engine operation will help
materially.