672 



NATURE 



[November 18, 1922 



dei ision having mice been taken to charge for gas on 

 a thermal basis, the choice of such a unit was natural 

 if not inevitable. It is true that the justice of making 

 the potential heat units in the gas the sole measure 

 of its usefulness is not to be established completely 

 by a priori considerations, although most of us would 

 probably be inclined to look kindly upon the notion 

 from the beginning. There are factors other than 

 potential heat content which might help to determine 

 the value of gas in use, and should, therefore, be con- 

 sidered, such as the temperature attainable on com- 

 bustion. If these factors were of sufficient importance 

 the assumption that thermal units alone could be 

 rightly taken as determining price would be invalid 

 and a different basis for charging necessary. 



Such matters as these were, however, discussed at 

 length in conferences called by Sir George Beilby for 

 the purpose, before the Fuel Research Board made 

 the recommendations to the Board of Trade on which 

 the Act was based. At these conferences the experi- 

 ence and the judgment of gas users and makers were 

 freely drawn upon, and the results of experimental 

 work bearing directly upon the points at issue, made by 

 the Joint Research Committee of the University of 

 Leeds and the Institution of Gas Engineers, were 

 considered. The result was an acceptance by all 

 parties of the principle establishing a thermal basis 

 for the sale of gas. It was accepted that the legislative 

 control of the gas industry, necessary because it is a 

 public service with certain exclusive rights, must be 

 made more elastic in some fundamental respects if the 

 gas industry was to be able to take advantage of 

 technical developments presented to it, and to realise 

 fuel and monetary economies, so obviously desirable 

 at the present time for the public good and its own 

 interests. 



The magnitude of that industry and the national 

 importance of improvements effected in it may easily 

 escape notice. The gas industry does not dominate 

 any particular town or locality in the same way that 

 steel dominates Sheffield or Middlesborough, or cotton 

 some of the Lancashire towns, but in estimating the 

 importance of the industry it should be remembered 

 that every city and town and many a village throughout 

 the country has its gasworks, carbonising a total 

 of eighteen million tons of coal per annum, and 

 incidentally employing a capital of some 150 million 

 pounds. 



The greater elasticity of control to which reference 

 has been made above included a permission to each 

 company or authority to supply gas of the calorific 

 value which it could produce most economically, 

 although the calorific value being declared a close 

 adherence to the standard was to be secured by 

 systematic outside inspection and testing, in which the 

 recording gas calorimeter was to play a prominent 

 part. On this system one town may be supplying 

 gas of 550 British Thermal Units per cubic foot, and 

 another a 450 gas. Comparison of charges cannot 

 be made fairly on the price per 1000 cu. ft. alone, 

 but requires a correction for calorific value. Charging 

 by the therm, i.e. by the potential heat units carried 

 by the gas, simplified the matter by introducing a 

 common denominator. 



To Sir George Beilby and others, including the 



NO. 2768, VOL. I IO 



writer, there seemed to be no difficulty in such a 

 change or objection to it from the consumer's point 

 of view. In justice to the gas industry it may be said 

 that when the matter was under discussion its 

 representatives declared themselves as being appre- 

 hensive of the way in which this strange new mode of 

 making out a gas bill would be viewed by some con- 

 sumers, and, through the ministrations of a certain 

 section of the Press, this apprehension seems to have 1 

 been justified for the time being. 



An explanatory pamphlet bearing " The Therm " 1 

 as its title has just been issued by the Department 

 of Scientific and Industrial Research (to which the 

 Fuel Research Board is attached) in which the reports 

 of the Fuel Research Board on " Gas Standards " 

 have been reprinted. It is issued at a very low price, 

 presumably with the hope of securing many readers 

 and of placing the public in a less confused state of 

 mind on a question in which a large section has a very 

 direct interest. 



There is something to be said for this hope. The 

 only fear is that these reports, although well and clearly 

 written, are somewhat too technical in content and 

 language for the layman. Moreover, although this 

 does not affect the main issue, one disadvantage arises 

 from the fact that although the operative Act is based 

 upon the recommendations of the Fuel Research 

 Board as detailed in the pamphlet, there are some 

 points of difference between the two which might have 

 been indicated. 



But it is surelv plain enough, answering the question 

 usually asked, that no increase in a gas bill can be 

 rightly attributed to the use of the therm as the basis 

 of charge. If a consumer has burned 2000 cu. ft. of 

 gas with a calorific value of 500 British Thermal 

 Units per cu. ft. he has used 10 therms, and it is a 

 matter of indifference whether he is charged 4s. 2d. 

 per 1000 cu. ft. or lod. per therm ; the same volume and 

 calorific value determine the sum in each case and he 

 pays lood. 



It is true that according to the Act, when a gas- 

 supplying company or authority comes under the new 

 scheme an increase in price may be authorised by the 

 Board of Trade " in order to meet unavoidable in- 

 creases since the 30th day of June 1914 in the costs 

 and charges of, and incidental to, the production and 

 supply of gas by the undertakers," but that is another 

 matter, and has nothing to do with the use of the therm 

 as the unit of measurement. 



Moreover, although it is possible such increase of 

 price may be authorised as essential, in some cases 

 and for the time being, to the stability of a service 

 which must be maintained in the public interest, 

 it is widely recognised inside and outside the gas 

 industry that the full development of public gas 

 supply, with all the undoubted benefits it can confer 

 upon the community, can be attained only through the 

 medium of a cheaper gas. In the opinion of the writer 

 it is also true that, in spite of misleading indications 

 of the moment, the Gas Act of 1920 with its thermal 

 basis of charge is well calculated to stimulate a con- 

 tinuous and general movement in that direction which 

 will become more apparent in the future. 



1 The Thenn. Reports of the Fuel Research Board on Gas Standards. 

 (London : Stationery Office, 1922.) J,d. net. 



