PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 31 



Sending the waste to sea at a cost of 10/- per ton will 

 entail an aggregate expenditure of about £5,000 annually 

 by the small factories. 



In the utilisation of this waste there is the possibility of 

 the utilisation of waste hydrochloric acid and waste zinc. 



The loss in the utilisation of our fuel is perhaps an 

 example of the greatest national waste. The matter is 

 claiming some attention in England, and our Australian 

 engineers know that there is an immense amount of fuel 

 lost as heat, but the profits in the industries appear to be 

 sufficiently great to cover the loss, and the waste heat 

 will not be utilised until the profits shrink as they probably 

 will after the war. 



Coke By-products. 



One of the greatest sources of loss is the use of the waste- 

 ful beehive coke-oven in the manufacture of coke. In 

 Durham, the home of the coke industry, the by-product 

 coke oven is superseding the bee-hive oven, but this has 

 only been brought about by the Germans threatening to 

 oust the Durham coke by coke made from Durham coal. 

 The profits accruing from the utilisation of the by-products 

 enabled this to occur. Curiously enough the Durham by- 

 product ovens are made of German or Belgian firebricks, 

 because the English brickmakers will not scientifically 

 blend their clays, but insist on using the clays as they are 

 found naturally. As an instance of the rapid replacement 

 of the beehive oven by the by-product oven, Prof. Bone 

 shows that the ammonium sulphate produced by the coke 

 works in England rose from 17,000 tons in 1903 to 64,000 

 in 1908, and to 133,000 in 1913, and although he calculates 

 that the beehive oven will disappear in a few years, he 

 suggests that in the public interest the Government should 

 fix a time limit beyond which no beehive oven should be 

 allowed to be in operation. 



