116 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES, 
The consumption of coal in the best modern steam plant of large 
size, giving continuous output, would be about nine tons per horse- 
power year, and on this basis the world’s available water power if utilised 
would be equivalent to some 1,800,000,000 tons of coal per annum. 
The world’s output of coal in 1913 was approximately 1,200,000,000 
tons, of which about 500,000,000 tons were used for industrial power 
purposes, so that on this basis 55,000,000 continuous water horse- 
power would be equivalent to the world’s industrial energy at that date. 
Not only does the use of water power lead to a direct conservation of 
fuel resources, but it also serves to a notable degree to conserve man 
power. ‘To take an extreme example, each of the 40,000 horse-power 
units now being installed at Niagara Falls will require for operation 
two men per shift. It is estimated that to produce the same power 
from a series of small factory steam plants, over eight hundred men 
would be required to mine, hoist, screen, load, transport by rail, unload, 
and fire under boilers the coal required, while, if account be taken of the 
additional labour involved in horse transport, wear and tear of roads 
and of railroad tracks and rolling stock, the number would be consider- 
ably increased. 
Uses of Hydro-Hlectric Energy.—While a large proportion of the 
energy developed from water power is utilised for industrial purposes 
and for lighting, power, and traction, an increasing proportion is being 
used for electro-chemical and electro-metallurgical processes. It is 
probable indeed that we are only on the threshold of developments in 
electro-chemistry, and that the future demand for energy for such 
processes will be extremely large. 
In Norway the electro-chemical industry absorbed 770,000 horse- 
power in 1918, or approximately 75 per cent. of the total output, 
as compared with 1,500 horse-power in 1910. Of this some 400,000 
horse-power was utilised in nitrogen fixation alone. 
The production of electric steel in the U.S.A. increased from 
13,700 tons in 1909 to 24,000 tons in 1914, and to 511,000 tons in 1918, 
this latter quantity absorbing 300 million kw. hours, equivalent to 
almost 400,000 continuous horse-power. 
In Canada, in 1918, the pulp and paper industry absorbed 450,000 
horse-power, or 20 per cent. of the total, while the output of central 
electric stations amounted to 70 per cent. of the total. 
The electrification, on a large scale, of trunk line railways is also a 
probability in the not distant future. In the U.S.A. 650 miles of 
the main line of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway, com- 
prising 850 miles of track, have been electrified, the power for opera- 
tion being obtained from hydro-electric stations. In France much of 
the track of the Compagnie du Midi in the region of the Pyrenees has 
been electrified with the aid of water power; much of the Swiss rail- 
way system has been electrified; and the electrification of many other 
trunk lines on the European continent is at present under consideration. 
Quite apart from the probable huge demand in the distant future 
for energy for the manufacture of artificial fertilisers by some system 
of nitrogen fixation, agriculture would appear to offer a promising field 
for the use of hydro-electric power. 
Much energy is now being utilised in the U.S.A. for purely 
