Read Ebook: Conservation Through Engineering Extract from the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior by Lane Franklin K

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Are there no substitutes for coal which we can use and can not export? This question immediately raises the water-power possibilities of our land, of which only the most superficial study has been made. Sell coal and use electricity would appear a thrifty policy.

As petroleum is being used as a substitute for coal--and inasmuch as the whole problem of fuel supply is one--we are ultimately compelled to an investigation of the ability of our petroleum supply to meet its present drain and to meet the expansion in its use, which is the most surprising development of our day in the study of power creation.

This spells a program of development and conservation which should challenge the ambitions of this Nation, and on a few of its features perhaps a few further words would be justified.

SAVING COAL.

The two ways by which coal in greatest volume can be saved are the discovery of the method by which more power can be taken from the ton and the discovery of what kind of coal is best fitted for any particular use.

It has been everyone's business to save coal, hence.... The railroads have experimented with some success. They get perhaps 10 per cent of the heat energy from a ton shoveled beneath the locomotive boiler, 10 per cent of the total in the ton. They use one-quarter of all the coal mined. Next to labor this is the greatest expense which our railroads have. This shows how great the problem is to them. Some have adopted a system of paying a bonus for the greatest distance made on a given quantity of a given coal. But this laudable effort has not met with the cooperation that would be expected from the firemen, for reasons that go far afield. Industries, especially those which generate electric power, have made similar effort to gain from their fuel its greatest potentiality, and with varying success. We can overlook the stoking of the domestic furnace as a national concern, for the amount of coal used in this way amounts to not more than 17 per cent of the national coal bill, and this whole charge could be saved, it is estimated, by giving care to the 75 per cent of our coal which is burned under boilers to make steam. Here there is a maximum figure of 13 per cent of the energy of the coal put into harness, and the average is less than 10 per cent, even in the larger plants.

COAL AND COAL.

The Government should sample and certify coal. We do this as to wheat and meat; it is just as necessary to avoid injustice in the case of coal, and it is thoroughly practicable. The public should know the kind of coal it is buying, because it should buy the coal it needs. There need be no prohibition against the mining or selling of any coal, but coal should sell in terms of its capacity to deliver heat. Some coal that is only a pint bottle is selling as a quart bottle. And the quart is hurt by the competition of the pint. A bill to effect such fuel inspection has been drafted and will be presented to Congress. It is not a bill commanding anything, but rather gives to those who are willing an opportunity to have their product inspected and attested and thus acquire merit in the eye of the world as against those who are not willing to subject their coal to the official test tube. Coal is coal in the sense of the classic traffic classification. Coal is, however, not always coal, nor is it altogether coal when put to the pragmatic test of the furnace. If such a bill were passed it would promote the interests of those who schedule their price upon the merit of their goods and make against the hauling of slate and dirt, its storage and handling under an assumed name. The plan is not to punish the malefactor who attempts to impose upon the public a slender number of thermal units as a ton of coal, but rather to give to ever man an opportunity to advertise the number of such units which his particular article contains, thus enabling the injured public to strike against an unfair mine.

Furthermore we are to become great exporters of coal, unless all signs fail, and such certification should be required as to every ton sent abroad.

EXPANSION ABROAD.

It has been said that we have too many mines in operation, as we appear to have too many miners, if we are to maintain only our present output. Rapid expansion in the development of industry in general may justify the existence of such mines and so large a corps of workers, even with an adequate car supply and more abundant local storage facilities, which are greatly needed in almost all places, and a more even demand. If, however, this should not be so, there is a foreign demand for the best of our bituminous coals, which at present we are altogether unable to meet for lack of credits on the part of those who wish the coal, and lack of ships to carry it. England's annual production has fallen 100,000,000 tons, according to Mr. Hoover, and the European demand next year will be more than 150,000,000 tons above her production. Whatever the world need, it can not be supplied. It is too large for any possible supply by ship, even if all necessary financial arrangements could be made, either by loan or credit. Europe, indeed, will sadly learn through this winter how little coal she can live on and how more than perilous is the state of a people who are short of power, light, and heat.

As this country prior to the war sold abroad no more than 4,500,000 tons as against England's 77,000,000, it is quite manifest that here will be a new field for American enterprise, the enterprise being needed not for the winning of markets as much as for finding ways of dealing with the larger phases of a heavy overseas trade with those who are without immediate resources.

SAVING COAL BY SAVING ELECTRICITY.

It is three years since Congress was urged that we should be empowered to make a study of the power possibilities of the congested industrial part of the Atlantic seaboard, with a view to developing not only the fact that there could be effected a great saving in power and a much larger actual use secured out of that now produced, but also that new supplies could be obtained both from running water and from the conversion of coal at the mines instead of after a long rail haul. A stream of power paralleling the Atlantic from Richmond to Boston, a main channel into which run many minor feeding streams and from which diverge an infinite number of small delivering lines--the whole an interlocking system that would take from the coal mine and the railroad a part of their present burden and insure the operation of street lights, street cars, elevators, and essential industries in the face of railroad delinquencies--this is the dream of our engineers, and a very possible dream it has seemed to me; of such value, indeed, that we might well spend a few thousand dollars in studying it, not with the thought that the Government would construct or operate even the trunk line, but that it might so attract the attention of the engineering and financial world as to make it a reality.

To tie together the separated power plants of 10 States so that one can give aid to the other, so that one can take the place of the other, so that all may join their power for good in any great drive that may be projected--this would be the prime purpose of the plan; and from this would evolve the development of the most practicable method of supplying this vast interdependent system with more power--perhaps from the conversion of coal, as it drops from the very tipple, using the mine as one might use a waterfall, or by the development of great hydroelectric plants on the many streams from the Androscoggin to the James.

WHITE COAL AND BLACK.

This would be a plan for the wedding of the stream and the mine, the white coal with the black. "White coal" they call it in imaginative France, this tumbling water which is converted into so many forms; and a much cleaner, handier kind of coal it is than its black brother. And cheaper, for the water goes on to return again and fall once more and forever into the pockets of the turbine which whirls the dynamo and so gathers or releases that mystery which we name but never define. Farsighted, purposeful Germany fought four and a half years upon the strength of great power plants run by the snows of the Alps. She did not rely on these alone for power, nor were they her main reliance, but they gave her a lasting power which otherwise she would not have had. And we may expect her to improve on that war-time experience for the conduct of the hard fight she is to make in the industrial field. France saved enough territory from the invader to permit her to make new adventures into this field and so to some degree offset the coal loss of Lens. Italy found that she had still left unused opportunities for hydroelectric development sufficient with the coal she could secure from England and America to see her through the war. And with coal conditions as they are in Europe we may expect a still greater push to make use of water power to turn the industrial wheels of peace. It must be so likewise here.

And it is likely that the long-pending power bill which will make available the dam and reservoir sites on withdrawn public lands and make feasible the financing of many projects on both navigable and unnavigable streams will soon have become law. We shall then have an opportunity that never before has been given us to develop the hydroelectric possibilities of the country. And this raises the question as to their extent.

The theoretical maximum quantity of hydroelectric power that can be produced in the United States has recently been estimated by Dr. Steinmetz, who calculates that if every stream could be fully utilized throughout its length at all seasons, the power obtained would be 230,000,000 kilowatts . It is clear that only a fraction of this absolute maximum can ever be made available. The Geological Survey estimates that the water power in this country that is available for ultimate development amounts to 54,000,000 continuous horsepower.

The census of 1912 showed that the country's developed water power was 4,870,000 horsepower, about 9 per cent of the maximum power available for economic development and less than 2 per cent of the total that may be supplied by the streams as estimated by Dr. Steinmetz. According to the census, stationary prime movers representing a capacity of more than 30,000,000 horsepower, furnished by water, steam, and gas, were in operation in the United States in 1912. The average power furnished by these stationary prime movers was probably not more than 20 per cent of their installed capacity, so that the power produced in 1912 was equivalent to probably not more than 6,000,000 continuous horsepower.

As the estimated available water power given above represents continuous power the country evidently possesses much more water power than it now requires, so that there would be an ample surplus for many years if the power were so distributed geographically that it could be economically supplied to the industries that need it. But as a matter of fact the water-power resources of the country are by no means evenly distributed. Over 70 per cent of the available water power is west of the Mississippi, whereas over 70 per cent of the total horsepower now installed in prime movers is east of the river. Therefore unless the East is to lose its industrial supremacy it must press and press hard for the development of all water-power possibilities!

THE AGE OF PETROLEUM.

For a full century now we have been passing through different phases of industrial and commercial life which have been characterized by some form of power. First the age of steam, and then the age of electricity. We have passed out of neither and yet we have come into another age--that of petroleum. As a lubricant, it has become of such universal use that it has been called the barometer of industry, and no doubt after it has ceased to be a popular illuminant or a source of power it will live invaluable as the thing which lets the wheels go round. Its greatest popularity now arises out of its use in the internal-combustion engine, and of the making of these there is no end. It draws railroad trains and drives street cars. It pumps water, lifts heavy loads, has taken the place of millions of horses, and in 20 years has become a farming, industrial, business, and social necessity. The naval and the merchant ships of this country and of England are fitted and being fitted to use it either under steam boilers as fuel or directly in the Diesel engine. The airplane has been made possible by it. It propels that modern juggernaut, the tank. In the air it has no rival, while on land and sea it threatens the supremacy of its rivals whenever it appears. There has been no such magician since the day of Aladdin as this drop of mineral oil. Medicines and dyes and high explosives are distilled from it. No one knows whence it cometh or whither it goeth. Men search for it with the passion of the early Argonauts, and the promise now is that nations will yet fight to gain the fitful bed in which it lies.

In Persia and in Palestine, in Java and in China, in southern Russia and in Rumania we know that petroleum is, for it has been found there. How great these fields or others in Europe, Asia, or Africa may be no one would dare to say. As yet, however, the petroleum of the world has come from this hemisphere.

The "oil spring" which George Washington found in western Virginia and by his last will called to the especial consideration of his trustees was the promise of a continental well which last year yielded 356,000,000 barrels. Each year has seen the prophecy unfulfilled that the peak of the possible yield had been reached.

From the mountains of western Pennsylvania into the very ocean bed of the Pacific and even beyond and into the broken strata of upturned Alaska, the oil prospector bored with his sharp tooth of steel and found oil. Hardly has one field fallen into a decline when another has come rushing into service. Only three years ago and all hopes were centered in Oklahoma, and then came Kansas, and then the turn went south again to Texas, and now it looks toward Louisiana. Geologists have estimated and estimated, and they do not differ widely, for few give more than thirty years of life to the petroleum sands of this country if the present yield is insisted upon. And yet there is so much of mystery in the hiding of this strange subterranean liquid that honest men will not say but that it will become a permanent factor in the world of light, heat, and power. If this is not so we are a fatuous people, for with every fifth man in the country the owner of an automobile and the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars for roads fit only for their use, and with ships by the hundred specially constructed to burn oil, we have surely given a large fortune in pledge of our faith that our pools of petroleum will not soon be drained dry, or that others elsewhere will come to our help.

In 1908 the country's production of oil was 178,500,000 barrels, and there was a surplus above consumption of more than 20,000,000 barrels available to go into storage. In 1918, 10 years later, the oil wells of the United States yielded 356,000,000 barrels--nearly twice the yield of 1908--but to meet the demands of the increased consumption more than 24,000,000 barrels had to be drawn from storage. The annual fuel-oil consumption of the railroads alone has increased from 16-2/3 to 36-3/4 million barrels; the annual gasoline production from 540,000,000 gallons in 1909 to 3,500,000,000 gallons in 1918. This reference to the record of the past may be taken not only as justifying the earlier appeal for Federal action, but as warranting deliberate attention to the oil problem of to-day.

Fuel oil, gasoline, lubricating oil--for these three essentials are there no practical substitutes or other adequate sources? The obvious answer is in terms of cost; the real answer is in terms of man power. Whether on land or sea, fuel oil is preferred to coal because it requires fewer firemen, and back of that, in the man power required in its mining, preparation, and transportation the advantage on the side of oil is even greater. So, too, the substitute for gasoline in internal-combustion engines, whether alcohol or benzol, means higher cost and larger expenditure of labor in its production.

There are large bodies of public land now withdrawn, which, under the new leasing bill which seems so near to final passage after seven years of struggle and baffled hope, will in all likelihood make a further rich contribution to the American supply.

OIL SHALE.

And beyond these in point of time lie the vast deposits of oil shale which by a comparatively cheap refining process can be made to yield vastly more oil than has yet been found in pools or sands. The value of this oil shale will depend upon the cheapness of its reduction, and this must be greatly lessened by the value of by-products before it can compete with coal or the oil from wells. There is every reason to believe, however, that some day the production of oil from shale will be a great and a permanent industry. And the country could make no better immediate investment than to give a large appropriation for the development of an economical shale-reducing plant.

So conservative an authority as the Geological Survey estimates that the oil shales of the Western States alone contain many times over the quantity of oil that will be recovered from our oil wells. The retorting of oil from oil shale has been a commercial industry for many years in Scotland and France; in fact, oil was obtained from oil shale here in the United States before the first oil well was drilled. The industry is in process of redevelopment to-day and if successful will assure us of a future supply, but at the best it will take years of time and a vast investment of capital to build up the industry to such a point that it can supply any considerable proportion of our needs. It is imperative, however, that the development of this latent resource be furthered and brought to a state of commercial development as soon as possible.

SAVE OIL.

Yet with all the optimism that can be justified I would urge a policy of saving as to petroleum that should be rigid in the extreme. If we are to long enjoy the benefits of a petroleum age, which we must frankly admit fits into the comfort-loving and the speed-loving side of the American nature, we must save this oil.

We must save it before it leaves the well; keep it from being lost; keep it from being flooded out, driven away by water. Through the cementing of wells in the Cushing field, Oklahoma, the daily volume of water lifted from the wells was decreased from 7,520 barrels to 628 barrels, while the daily volume of oil produced was increased from 412 barrels to 4,716. These instances show what can and should be done in our known oil fields.

We must save the oil after it leaves the well, save it from draining off and sinking into the soil, save it from leaking away at pipe joinings, save it from the wastes of imperfect storage.

Then we come to the refining of the oil. How welcome now would be the knowledge that we could recover what was thrown away when kerosene was petroleum's one great fraction.

The self-interest of the American refiner, notably the Standard Oil Co., has done a work that probably no mere scientific or noncommercial impulse could have equaled, in torturing out of petroleum the secrets of its inmost nature. And yet the thought will not altogether give place that in that residue which goes to the making of roads or to be burned in some crude way there may be things chemical that will work largely for man's betterment. This is the fact, too--that where the oil is produced by some small companies which have not the financial ability to make it yield its full riches there is a greater danger of loss of this kind. It would be well indeed if there could be such regulation as would require that all petroleum must be refined. That this is done generally is not denied. It should be universal. And all the skill and study and knowledge of the ablest of chemists and mechanicians should find themselves challenged by the problem of petroleum.

Coming to the use of petroleum in its various forms we find a field of promise. The engine that doubles the number of miles that can be made on a gallon of gasoline doubles our supply. There is where we can apply the principle of true conservation--find how little you need; use what you must, but treat your resource with respect. Has the last word been said as to the carburetor? Mechanical engineers do not think so. Have all possible mixtures which will save oil and substitute cheaper and less rare combustibles therefor been tried? Men by the hundred are making these experiments, and almost daily the quack or the stock promoter comes forward with the announcement of a discovery which proves to be a revelation--a revelation of human stupidity or criminal cupidity. On this line the men of science do not sing a song of the richest hope; they shrug their shoulders, exclaiming with uplifted hands: "Well, may be, may be."

There are possible substitutes for some petroleum products, but not for the whole barrel of oil; furthermore, petroleum is the cheapest material, speaking quantitatively, from which liquid fuels and lubricants can be made; therefore, any substitutes obtained in quantity must cost more. Alcohol can be substituted for gasoline, but only in limited quantity and at increased cost. Benzol from byproduct coking ovens also can be used, but quantitatively is totally inadequate. For kerosene no quantitative substitute is known. Lubricants can be obtained from animal and vegetable fats, but mostly are inferior in quality, and there seems no hope of obtaining them in quantity. Fuel oil can be largely supplanted by coal, but for the internal-combustion engine there is no quantitative substitute.

USE THE DIESEL ENGINE.

We have ventured on a great shipbuilding program. Our people are to once again respond to the call of the sea. On private ways and on Government ways ships are being built to go round the world--ships that are to burn oil under boilers and produce steam. I presume that there is a justification for this policy, perhaps one that is as good, if not better, than can be made for the railroads of the West pursuing the same policy. I submit, however, that there should be justification shown for the construction of any oil-burning ship which does not use an engine of the Diesel type. To burn oil under a boiler and convert it into steam releases but 10 per cent of the thermal units in the oil, whereas if this same fuel oil were used directly in a Diesel engine, 30 to 35 per cent of the power in the oil would be secured. Substitute the internal-combustion engine for the steam boiler and we multiply by three or three and one-half the supply of fuel oil in the United States. Instead of our fuel-oil supply being, let us say, 200,000,000 barrels, it would at once rise to 600,000,000 barrels or 700,000,000. I recognize that this is an impractical and unrealizable hope as applied to things as they are, but there is no reason why this should not be a very definite policy as to things that are to be.

This Government might itself well undertake to develop an engine of this type for use on its ships, tractors, and trucks. We simply can not afford to preach economy in oil when we do not promote by every means the use of the internal-combustion engine for its consumption. No other one thing that can be done by the Government, our industries, or the people will save as much oil from being wasted and thereby multiply the real production of the United States. If such engines are delicate of handling and need specially trained engineers, which appears to be the fact, there should be little difficulty experienced in training men for such work. A nation that could educate 10,000 automobile mechanics in 60 days might indeed develop 1,000 Diesel engineers in a year. The matter is of too great moment for delay. It touches the interest of everyone. We are in the petroleum age, and how long it will last depends upon our own foresight, inventiveness, and wisdom.

WANTED--A FOREIGN SUPPLY.

Already we are importers of petroleum. We are to be larger importers year by year if we continue--and we will--to invent and build machines which will rely upon oil or its derivatives as fuel. Our business methods have been and doubtless will continue to be developed along lines that make a continuing oil supply a necessity. Some of that oil must come from abroad, as nearly 40,000,000 barrels did last year, and for that we must compete with the world. For while we are the discoverers of oil and of the methods of securing it and refining it, piping it, and using it, our pioneering is but a service unto the world.

This situation calls for a policy prompt, determined, and looking many years ahead. For the American Navy and the American merchant marine and American trade abroad must depend to some extent upon our being able to secure, not merely for to-day but for to-morrow as well, an equal opportunity with other nations to gain a petroleum supply from the fields of the world. We are now in the world and of it in every possible sense, otherwise our Navy and our merchant fleet would have no excuse. No one needs to justify them--they are the expression of an ambition that carries no danger to any people. For their support we can ask no preference, but in their maintenance we can insist that they shall not be discriminated against.

Sometime since I presented to a board of geologists, engineers, and economists in this department this question:

If in the next five years there should develop a new demand for petroleum over and above that now existing, which would amount to 100,000,000 barrels a year, where could such a supply be found, and what policy should be adopted to secure it?

The conclusions of this board may be summarized as follows:

Such an oil need could not be met from domestic sources of supply.

It could not be assured unless equal opportunities were given our nationals for commercial development of foreign oils.

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