NATURAL GAS. 
61 
the leases themselves, so that the ordinary gathering lines are the 
only transmission equipment necessary, and these are so short as to 
not even require the use of gas compressors. This, of course, makes 
a marked difference in leakage loss, due to short lines, as well as 
installation cost. 
4. Uniform load . — A natural gas plant operating as a public 
utility, as shown in graphical form on page 37, can use its total 
equipment only about one-third of the time. That is, it has a load 
factor of only about 34 per cent. The carbon plant load is uniform 
every hour in the day and for every day in the year. With the 
same wells and gathering line equipment it can, therefore, handle 
approximately three times as much gas as it could if it were selling 
its gas to the public as a public utility service. 
5. The proximity of the carbon plants to the wells, with the result- 
ing short lines, makes it possible to carry lo wer well pressures than can 
ordinarily even be reached by contiguous public utility companies 
having their wells discharge into intake lines to compressor stations. 
This, in most cases, gives the carbon plant the advantage in pressure 
over the adjacent competing public utility plant. 
6. In a number of instances carbon plants have been located where 
it would not be feasible, with present prices for natural gas, to lay 
lines in order to transmit the gas into the public utility transmission 
systems. 
7. The carbon black plants do not carry reserve acreage, as a gen- 
eral rule, and this lowers the capital necessary for the enterprise. 
8. The plant hazards are much less than those in a public utility 
plant. 
9. The investment necessary for each 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas 
handled will be about 10 times larger in a public utility plant than 
in a carbon black plant, as explained in further detail in the next 
section. 
SMALL CAPITAL IN CARBON BLACK PLANT AS COMPARED TO PUBLIC UTILITY PLANT. 
It is not ordinarily appreciated that the investment necessary to 
render natural gas service is very much greater to each consumer than 
for any other utility service. That is, the investment to each con- 
sumer in natural gas properties, from gas leases to domestic meters, 
is — 
1. Three hundred per cent more than in electric plants, thus requir- 
ing $4 investment in natural gas plants to $1 in electric plants for 
each consumer. 
2. One hundred and fifty per cent more than in waterworks plants, 
thus requiring $2.50 investment in natural gas plants to $1 in water- 
works plants for each consumer. 
3. One hundred per cent more than all of the Bell Telephone toll 
lines and Bell exchanges in the United States, thus requiring $2 in- 
