ON FUEL ECONOMY. 11)1 



Prom these figures it may be inferred that up to the outbreak of 

 the war the coal output of the United States was increasing annually 

 at a compound interest rate of about 6 per cent., that of Germany at a 

 compound rate of about 4 per cent., whilst the British output was 

 increasing at a compound rate of 2 per cent. only. During the period 

 1910-14 the United States produced nearly twice as much coal as 

 Great Britain, and, assuming that these relative rates of increase are 

 maintained after the war, it may be predicted that Germany's output 

 of coal will overtake that of Great Britain about twenty years hence, 

 when each country will be producing some 420,000,000 tons per annum. 



The public cannot be too often reminded that not only is coal of 

 piime importance as a fuel, but also that, when suitably handled by 

 the chemist, it yields very valuable by-products, which are the raw 

 materials of important industries. Thus from coal-tar, and other by- 

 products of its distillation, are obtained the raw materials for the 

 nranufacture of both synthetic dyes and drugs and certain high explo- 

 sives. Another important by-product obtainable is ammonia in the 

 form of sulphate, which is chiefly used as a fertiliser in the production 

 of foodstuffs. The use of artificial fertilisers, including ammonium 

 sulphate, by agriculturists in Great Britain is still in its infancy, and 

 the near future ought to see a large expansion in the home demands 

 for nitrogenous fertilisers. 



Among other products obtainable by the low-temperature distillation 

 of coal are liquid hydrocarbons of the paraffin and naphfchene series, 

 and it is probable that large quantities of ' motor spirit ' could be 

 manufactured in this country from coal. There is no doubt that we in 

 this country have not been sufficiently alive to the importance of 

 recovering such by-products from the raw coal raised in our mines, 

 and that we have been very much behind Germany in this respect. 

 Thus, for example, whilst in the coking industry modern by-produco 

 recovery plants had been universally installed years ago throughout 

 Germany, we were, in 1913, still carbonising about six and a half 

 million tons of coal annually for metallurgical coke in old-fashioned 

 bee-hive ovens. Also, whereas our total production of ammonium 

 sulphate from coal was in 1913 about 318,000 tons, Germany produced 

 nearly half a million tons from a very much smaller output of coal. 



The community needs to be reminded that, at least so far as this 

 country is concerned, progress in fuel economy involves something 

 more than increased thermal efficiency in respect of power production 

 and of heating operations generally, important as these undoubtedly 

 are. It also involves the whole question of the better utilisation of 

 our coal, including the recovery of by-products and the consequent 

 abolition of the smoke nuisance, which at present, directly and in- 

 directly, costs the country many millions of pounds per annum. 



There are two outstanding features in the history of the British coal 

 trade to which the Committee desires to draw attention. One is the 

 i-emarkably steady increase in the total output of our mines, which, 

 since 1870, has been maintained at an almost uniform compound 

 interest rate of 2 per cent, per annum, as the following table of quin- 

 quennial averages over a period of forty-five years — 1870-1914 — shows : 



