292 ELECTRIC PROPULSION OF MERCHANT SHIPS. 



trouble had been, encountered to indicate conclusively that the trouble was serious and not 

 to be overcome by slight modification in design. Unfortunately manufacture had reached 

 a stage where upwards of two or three hundred units had either been delivered or manu- 

 facture — had progressed to such a point as to render radical changes impossible without 

 great delay in completion of the ships for which the turbines were intended. 



Under ordinary circumstances no manufacturing company or purchaser would have 

 committed himself to a wholesale reproduction of an untried design, or even complete re- 

 placement of the troublesome machinery would not have been very serious or expensive. 

 However, under the conditions which actually existed, the trouble was so multiplied as to 

 become more serious and wellnigh disastrous both from the standpoint of continuous opera- 

 tion of the ships and financially. 



Psychologically, development proceeds curiously. Mr. Emmet read a paper several 

 years ago, to which he referred in this paper, regarding the geared turbine, and he was just 

 as optimistic in every way in that paper in regard to the geared turbine as he is in this 

 paper about the electric drive. The previous paper on geared turbines could, in modified 

 form, be read again today and just be just as optimistic in tone. With defects disclosed by 

 operating experience, corrected, the geared turbine will find its field, as the reciprocating 

 engine has had, and will continue to have, its field, and perhaps the Diesel engine and elec- 

 trical drive will all have their fields, but there are some things about the electric drive which 

 I wish to bring out. 



In the first place, the greatest advance in the use of electricity was its adoption as a 

 means of efficient transmission of power from a large economical generating station to a 

 lot of small units located at remote points from the generating station. The problem 

 aboard a ship does not involve the element of reduction of losses in transmission from the 

 prime mover to the point of application of the power. The electric drive will sink or swim 

 on the basis of a balance sheet for the operation of the ship, which will include the space, 

 the weight, the economy of the prime mover, and the economy of the entire equipment, in- 

 cluding capital charges, and, what is of greater importance, the reliability of the equipment 

 in operation. 



Mr. Emmet makes a great point of reliability and anticipates that people unfamiliar 

 with electricity will deny that it will be reliable and will see all kinds of objections. The 

 high-water mark in reliable operation of electric units, as such, and in systems, will be 

 found in the steel industry, including blast furnaces, where the conditions, if anything, are 

 more severe, and the necessity for continuous operation at least equals that aboard ship, if 

 not greater. Today electric motors are doing everything in the steel mill that steam engines 

 ever did, more reliably, at less cost, and with greater ease of operation. I mean they not 

 only operate continuously, without trouble and repairs, but the force required to operate 

 them is less, and it is easier to get men to do it, and they do not need to know a great deal. 

 All the points that Mr. Emmet has brought out, I know from experience are true, but the 

 electric motors and other appliances used in steel mills are not things drawn up overnight 

 and installed. They represent a long development with many bitter experiences, and the 

 electrical operating and engineering staffs of the steel companies were important factors 

 in the development of design. They have standardized rules. In order to enter the mar- 

 ket to sell any electrical machinery to steel mills, you must comply with these rules, which 

 are insisted on by the operators of the steel mills. 



I would also point out that many of these reliable electric motors drive rolling mills 



