Checking the Waste

M >> Mary Huston Gregory >> Checking the Waste

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Another great use lies in the manufacture of coke, which is used in the
making of steel, and here, too, we see where great wastes have existed.
The old form of coke-oven was called the bee-hive on account of its
shape. These old style ovens consume all the coal with the exception of
the fixed carbon which is left behind as coke. At the prices which
prevailed in 1907, the value of the by-products wasted in bee-hive
coke-ovens was a little over $55,000,000--surely a loss worth
considering. A different form of coke-ovens is much used abroad and is
coming into use in this country. This is the retort or by-product oven,
sometimes called the recovery oven.

The bee-hive ovens are usually located near the mines where the cost of
coal is low, with small expense for transporting it. On the other hand,
the by-product ovens are established near the larger cities in order to
dispose of their gas and other by-products. Here the cost of
transportation must be added to that of the coal, but the products are
marketed near by instead of at a distance, as in the case of the
bee-hive ovens. The most improved by-product ovens produce not only coke
and gas, but coal-tar, pitch, ammonia, and creosoting oils, all
extremely valuable and adding greatly to the value of the output of the
ovens.

Electricity is another form of light and power which involves a large
waste of the energy of coal; only one-fifth of one per cent., that is,
one-five hundredth of the value of the coal is used in electricity, and
there is at present no known remedy for this.

There are methods, however, of lessening even this waste, and these are
constantly receiving more attention. One is for the electric plants
located in cities to sell their exhaust steam or water heated by the
coal as it is converted into electric power, as a by-product. The
electric power-house thus becomes a central heating plant to supply
stores, offices, and residences. Another system being tried abroad,
though scarcely past the experimental stage in this country, establishes
great electric power-houses at the coal mines to use the culm,
low-grade slack, and lignites, the lowest form of coal, in short, all
the waste of the mines. Still another plan is the manufacturing of
electricity by water-power, as we have seen in a previous chapter.

The manufacturing industries of the country waste a large amount of fuel
annually, but here the waste is mostly due to expensive methods of
producing power, and to careless stoking, and is largely preventable. As
we have shown, gas-engines are a far more economical form of producing
power than are steam-engines. Steam uses from five to ten per cent. of
the heat-units of coal, gas-producer engines use fifty per cent. and
burn a lower grade of coal.

One of the great problems of cities is the heavy volume of bituminous or
soft coal smoke that hangs over the entire surrounding region, levying a
heavy tax in cleaning and laundry work, making the air difficult to
breathe, and shutting out the daylight itself. Every residence adds its
mite, but the factories and public buildings are the worst offenders.
There are several good smoke-consuming devices on the market that have
been thoroughly tested by the government, which will furnish their names
on application.

If factory owners who use steam power could realize that the gases, the
highest heat-producing part of the coal, escape with the smoke, and
that by using smoke consumers they not only prevent all the evils of
the smoke nuisance but save fully half of the value of their coal, they
would gladly put in this equipment. What manufacturer would not eagerly
welcome any device that would cut his fuel bills in half?

The other cause of waste of coal in the manufacturing industries is
recklessness in the use of fuel, filling the furnaces with the drafts so
disposed that much of the heat is wasted. Every factory owner should
learn (from the government reports if he has no other means of learning)
the best methods of firing furnaces, and should employ them in his
factory.

The last great waste of coal is in households. In stoves and furnaces,
and to a certain extent in kitchen ranges, this waste is through
carelessness in firing, as it is in factories. There still remains a
large amount of wasted energy in cooking that is unavoidable. The amount
of coal consumed before certain articles can be cooked, the heat
remaining after the meal is prepared, are wastes that it seems
impossible to prevent, though wise management will prevent undue waste
even here. Fireless cookers, an invention of recent years, go far toward
solving the problem of waste by long hours of cooking single articles,
and each year we see more prepared food bought in order to save the
cost of heat. Housekeepers find that it does not pay to bake their bread
themselves, since a dozen loaves can be baked in a large oven with the
fuel used in baking one at home.

Briquettes are a new form of fuel made from coal, principally for
household use. They are made from the low-grade coals, culm, slack and
lignites, blended with coal-tar pitch. They are commonly used not only
in households, but for locomotives and ships, in several European
countries, especially Germany; but in this country the cost of making
them--about a dollar per ton--makes the retail price higher than the
cheaper grades of coal, and their general introduction at the price of
the higher grades is rather slow.

Let it always be kept in mind that we must not check the careful use,
only the waste, and the best way to avoid an unnecessary drain on the
coal and at the same time increase our manufactures is to substitute
other power. Coal is only a form of energy that came originally from the
sun. The same causes that produced coal still exist. Scientists tell us
that coal is still being made, but it will take thousands of years to
perfect it. If we could only learn to take the sun's heat directly and
use it for our heat, light, and power, it would be one of the greatest
discoveries in the history of the world, greater even than the discovery
of electricity.

Many attempts have been made to produce power directly from the sun
through solar engines, or by concentrating it in furnaces. At the St.
Louis Exposition a few years ago, a Portuguese priest exhibited a solar
engine called a heliophore, in which, by means of the sun's rays, the
temperature was raised to 6000 degrees F., and a cube of iron placed in
it melted like a snowball. The sun helps to raise the tides and some day
they may be used to produce power. Many experiments are being made with
both solar and tidal energy, some of them successful in a small way, but
nothing that is ready to stand the test of every-day use has been
devised.

Doctor Pritchell says that on a clear day when the sun is high, it
delivers upon each acre of the earth's surface exposed to its rays, the
equal of 7,500 horse-power working continually. If the extra energy not
needed for the growth of plants and animals could be used, all the work
of the world could be done and the problem of fuel supply would be
solved for ever.

But the greatest conservation of coal possible at present lies in the
use of the water-power which now goes to waste, and which, if employed,
would, as we have seen, give us 30,000,000 horse-power, or more than all
that is now produced from fuel by all our engines combined.

Alabama offers a striking illustration of this failure to take advantage
of our opportunities, for Alabama has both coal and water-power.
Engineers estimate that the three principal rivers have power equal to
436,000 horse-power. At Muscle Shoals, on the Tennessee River, there is
now developed 188,000 horse-power, second only to Niagara--and if the
waters were conserved, the figures would reach 1,084,000 horse-power on
the three rivers. This means that, according to the amount of coal
required to produce each horse-power of energy, it would require
11,201,000 tons of coal each year to produce by steam as much power as
these streams might easily be made to produce.

Alabama, as we have said, is also a great coal state. It is now mining
about 14,000,000 tons per year and only four states produce a larger
amount. It will be seen that four tons out of five mined in this state
will be needed to produce by steam the power that is going to waste in
its rivers. The Honorable W. P. Lay, of the Alabama Conservation
Commission, in calling attention to this fact, says:

"Suppose for a moment that the coal fields of Alabama were sliding down
an incline and pouring off over a precipice at the rate of 11,201,000
tons per year, how long would it take the people of the United States
to do something to try to stop such a waste? Yet what else are we doing
when we sit idly by and let the water of these streams go to waste over
a precipice while we ourselves burn up the coal?"

And what is true in Alabama is true to a lesser extent in most of the
states. Wherever water-power is going to waste, coal is being used to
take its place, and that coal is needed in some place where there is no
water-power.

On a certain stream in one of the central states was a fine waterfall.
The early settlers built a mill there. The water turned the mill-wheel
and then passed on to water the valley and turn other mill-wheels. But
one night the old mill was destroyed by fire. It was not rebuilt, but
some distance from the stream a new steam mill was built, the motive
power of which was natural gas. When, after a few years, the natural gas
was all gone, the miller began to use coal, and he still uses
coal--hundreds of tons of it--while the water which once turned the
wheels, runs idly over the falls. This is an example of wholly useless
waste of coal, and just such waste is to be found in hundreds of places
in our country.

If wise mining methods be put into operation, if proper care be taken in
its use, particularly in manufacturing, if the low-grade coals be
utilized, and if other power be substituted wherever practicable, there
need be no question of shortage. There is enough coal in the ground, if
used rightly, to last for ages to come. But because we have wasted vast
quantities of it in the past, and are still wasting it, so that if the
same conditions continue we can distinctly see the end in sight, it is
important that every one understands what these conditions of use and
waste are, and how the abuse may be corrected, so that mine owners and
consumers may all work together to preserve this most necessary
resource.

REFERENCES

Coal is King. Hewette.

Economical Burning of Coal Without Smoke. Bement.

Coal and Coal Mines. H. Green.

International Library of Technology. Vols. 37 and 38.

Reports of Geological Survey.

Report National Conservation Commission.

Conservation of Mineral Resources. (U. S. Report.)

Production of Coals in the U. S. in 1908. Advance chapters available.

CHAPTER VI

OTHER FUELS

WOOD

Wood, which was formerly the only fuel used in this country, has now
largely given place to other fuels. In rural districts and in lumber
regions it is still used extensively; but in the cities, larger towns,
and manufacturing regions, it is not used in commercial quantities. Its
use for power production is limited to the wood-working factories which
have a large amount of waste lumber and which employ this by-product to
furnish heat for steam boilers.

The wood used for fuel or for power usually represents what would
otherwise be lost, the dead trees and the unmarketable timber of the
farmer's wood-lot, the refuse of lumber regions or the waste of
wood-working factories. So that the use of wood as fuel now generally
means the conservation of our coal supply, and a use for the low-grade
parts of the forest.

In some cases, however, farmers cut for fuel fine young trees that
would grow into excellent timber. Liberal planting of trees so that wood
shall become plentiful in all parts of the country will tend to bring
about again a larger use of wood as fuel, which will thus once more
become a factor in the saving of our coal. Every farmer should learn to
save all valuable trees for lumber, and to use only undesirable ones for
fuel.

PEAT

Peat is said by geologists to be only "coal in the making," carbon that
is in the state of changing from vegetable matter to coal. It is
probable that in the course of centuries this would become coal, and in
its present state it has many of the properties of coal, though it has
not nearly so high a heating value.

In this country we have had such a wealth of fuel resources--coal, wood,
oil, and gas--that up to the present time we have done little to develop
our peat beds, although in European countries ten million tons are used
annually for fuel, as well as large quantities for other purposes. From
the earliest times peat has been the principal fuel of the common people
of Ireland and some of the countries of northern Europe.

Now, however, people are trying to make the best of many resources not
heretofore developed, coal prices are steadily advancing and the two
causes combine to turn people's attention to the peat beds of America.
One point that is worthy of notice is that peat is found mostly in
regions where there is no coal, oil, or natural gas. The development of
peat beds in those regions, it will be seen, would give them a great
advantage in the matter of cheap fuel.

Large peat beds are found in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York,
New England, New Jersey, Florida, the Dakotas, northern Iowa, Illinois,
Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, eastern Virginia, the Carolinas and
Georgia; and near the coast in the gulf states, and a narrow strip along
the Pacific coast, from southern California to the Canadian border. They
cover an area of about 11,000 square miles and are supposed to contain
not less than 14,000,000,000 tons of air-dried peat. At the rate of
three dollars per ton, which is a reasonable price in the states having
no coal, this peat would have a value of more than $40,000,000,000.

Peat is prepared for use as common fuel in two ways: (1) By cutting it
into blocks or bricks, which are air-dried by exposure to sun and wind
for a few weeks. This is called "cut peat," is bulky and easily
breakable, and can be used only for local consumption. (2) By digging
either by hand or machine, and grinding it in a mill. It is put in wet,
ground, cut with rapidly turning knives, and passed out of the machine
as a thick pulp that is cut into bricks as it comes out. It is then
stored several weeks until thoroughly dried. This is called "machine
peat," "pressed peat," or "condensed peat."

Peat is being used in many ways. (1) Air-dried peat is used for fuel
only. (2) Dry peat without a binder, or mixed with coal dust and tar or
pitch is used for the same purpose. (3) Machine peat is used for many
purposes, among them making into briquettes, peat charcoal, and peat
coke.

It has been found practical to make illuminating gas of peat, but a far
more general use is for running gas-engines and producer-gas furnaces.
This is a practical use for it, since it will conserve the coal now used
for that purpose, furnish satisfactory power without smoke or dirt,
provide cheap power in regions that have no coal mines, and lastly may
be made to yield valuable by-products: ammonia, acetic acid, paraffin,
tar, creosote, and wood-alcohol. If all the peat in the United States
could be used in producer-gas engines the ammonia yielded would alone
have a value of $36,000,000,000.

Peat is also used for packing material, as a fertilizer, for
manufacturing paper, for coarse cloth and mattress filling. By mixing
wet machine peat with cement it may be made into blocks for paving and
other construction work. The most promising uses are for fuel, as
bedding for stock, as a disinfectant, in briquettes for burning lime,
brick, and pottery, in which it is finding a large use, and for which it
is said to be particularly well fitted; and most satisfactory of all,
its use in gas-producer engines. In Florida an immense plant is being
built to manufacture electric power, using air-dried peat as fuel, the
power to be transmitted to Jacksonville.

Machine peat is supposed to have sixty-five per cent. the value of the
same weight of Pocahontas coal, but on account of the lack of waste in
peat its real value is higher than would appear from the comparison.
From two to two and a half pounds will produce one horse-power per hour
in gas-producer engines. By this estimate, we can see that the peat beds
of this country, if properly used, may be largely employed, either now
or in the future, as a substitute for the vanishing coal.

NATURAL GAS

Of all the fuels, natural gas may be said to be the ideal one. Coming
from the ground, it is piped a greater or less distance and distributed
to the home or factory for light, heat, or power; for all of which it is
equally desirable. It is ready for our use at the turn of a key, is
absolutely clean, having neither dust, ash, nor unconsumed portions. It
requires no kindling other than a lighted match.

Natural gas is found over an area which, if combined, would cover almost
10,000 square miles. It exists in twenty-two states--Alabama,
California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana,
New York, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon,
Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, West Virginia,
Wyoming. In some of them the area has been large and the production very
heavy, in others the field is small and unproductive. Until the last two
or three years there have been no statistics as to the quantity of gas
piped, but an account of its value has been kept for many years. For the
twenty years beginning with 1888 the value is given at nearly
$500,000,000.

It must be remembered that much of this represents extremely low prices,
only the amount actually paid for its use. When gas is newly discovered
in a region it is not considered an opportunity for the residents of the
community to have cheap light, power and fuel for themselves, but
instead as an opportunity to develop the country, to increase the
population and attract new factories. In order to advertise and boom
their communities free gas is usually offered to factories. So in
dozens of instances large factories have been operated for years without
a cent having been paid for fuel. For this reason no proper estimate can
be made of the quantity of gas consumed, nor of its value even at a
nominal price. In 1907, (the last year for which complete returns have
been published in government reports) the amount of gas consumed was
given at 404,000,000 cubic feet, which at present prices is valued at
$63,000,000.

It is impossible to determine in any way the future production of
natural gas, or to guess at the quantity remaining in the earth. It may
be much less or much more than present conditions would indicate; but
the present known fields are limited, and the pressure is growing
steadily less in all of them.

The Conservation Commission reports, "It is safe to predict that the
known fields will be exhausted in twenty-five years." The decrease of
natural gas is strikingly illustrated in Indiana. This state, perhaps
more than any other, profited directly by the discovery of its natural
gas about twenty years ago. Here, the mineral maps show, is by far the
greatest natural gas region in the United States. With the discovery of
natural gas, established towns grew to ten times their former size and
new ones sprang up everywhere. Indiana, which had been chiefly an
agricultural state, bade fair to become one of the foremost
manufacturing states on account of its cheap and abundant fuel. In 1902
Indiana produced nearly $8,000,000 worth of natural gas, but for 1908
the State Geologist's report contained no figures for this product. It
had ceased to be a prominent factor in the wealth of the state! There is
no resource that has been so shamefully, so hopelessly wasted as our
natural gas.

With even more recklessness than characterizes the waste of our forests
and our coal, we have allowed this perfect fuel to escape. To the
dwellers in each region where natural gas is found, it seems that the
supply is inexhaustible. The roar of the wells, which makes the very
earth tremble; the flames springing high into the air; the undiminished
pressure after months of use, appearing to indicate a boundless
reservoir below; the opportunity for whole communities to grow rich by
its use; all these things tend to promote recklessness on the part of
all who handle it. In the beginning the wells are usually not tightly
cased, and there is a considerable quantity of gas escaping about every
well. New wells are frequently lighted to show the volume of gas. In
some cases the well has become uncapped on account of heavy pressure and
to prevent the escape of unconsumed gas into the air it is kept burning
night and day. The strongest wells are often kept burning for months in
order to advertise a new gas field. In this way immense quantities of
the most perfect fuel in the world have been wantonly wasted. From a
single well in eastern Kentucky there flowed a steady stream of gas for
twenty years which at present prices would be worth $3,000,000, and the
same story of waste from burning wells comes from every natural gas
field.

In a new region where gas is abundant there is also a great waste from
leaking pipe lines laid on the surface of the ground, from open
flambeaux, and from careless home and factory consumption. In many
communities the open flambeaux have been employed to light the streets,
and allowed to burn day and night to avoid the expense of a man to care
for them. Where natural gas is abundant, meters are not usually
installed; instead, gas is sold by the month. The consumer is under no
obligation to save the gas, in fact, he usually acts on the common
American principle of wanting to get all he can for the money and so
burns his open tip lights, and open burner stoves day and night. The
factories waste in the same way, using open furnaces which are never
banked during the season because it is easier and costs no more.

This, it seems, should be the whole history of natural gas waste, but
the greatest source of loss still remains to be spoken of. In every gas
region of any importance oil is found sooner or later, usually after the
heaviest gas pressure has been exhausted; and the oil driller is the
greatest of all foes to the life of a natural gas region. He finds that
the gas interferes with the flow of oil, spraying it into the air and
causing loss, and that the danger of fire is much increased by its
presence. This frequently causes explosions, tearing out the side of the
well or blowing out the casing, and making the oil-well useless. The
surplus gas is usually piped to one side out of the reach of danger, and
then burned to get rid of it. Drillers often try to force the gas out in
the hope that it will be followed by a rush of oil.

This is the heaviest drain on the gas. In the Caddo field in Louisiana
alone the loss is seventy million cubic feet per day, enough to light
ten cities the size of Washington, D. C., and equal to ten thousand
barrels of petroleum per day. In Indiana a few years ago fourteen wells,
all within a space of a few acres in extent, were burned by oil drillers
continuously for six months, the light being visible twenty miles away.

Greater care in the management of the wells and slight additional
expense for casing are all that is required to stop the waste of gas
from oil wells and heavy pressure gas wells.

All of these wastes taken together constitute a fearful loss. In 1907,
more than 400,000,000 cubic feet were used and an almost equal number
wasted. In other words, the daily waste is over a billion cubic feet, or
enough to supply every city in the United States of over one hundred
thousand population.

The heating value of a billion feet of gas is equal to a million bushels
of coal. If some great conflagration were sweeping away our coal fields
steadily every day in the year, and destroying our best coal at the rate
of a million bushels per day, how quickly we should all arise to aid in
checking it! And yet this imaginary case is actually true in regard to
the best fuel in this country, which is burning uselessly an equal value
in coal, and our coal must some day be used to supply the loss.

We are apt to ignore the greatness of this loss because the gas escapes
into the air and we can not see it, or it burns and we see only its
effect, not the loss of fuel, but if we could see it in the form of oil
we should find that a billion feet of gas is equal to more than a
hundred and sixty thousand barrels of petroleum. Think of it, the
equivalent of one hundred and sixty thousand barrels of oil, for which
no price is paid and of which no use is made, for ever destroyed every
day in every year! Would the oil companies permit it? Would we not all
assist them in saving their property from destruction, and shall we not
ask of them equal help in saving the fuel that in turn conserves our
coal supply? Little objection can be made to the present method of using
gas in the older regions. The waste in domestic use is comparatively
small. Much is used for lighting with incandescent burners, and asbestos
grates and gas ranges have replaced the open-burner stoves and grates.
These are all efficient methods of use, and but little could be done in
the way of further conservation. In factories the gas-engine is in many
instances replacing the open furnace, which requires many times as much
gas to produce an equal amount of power. They should be used in every
factory, and gas companies should also require the use of the best
devices for saving gas in places where meters are not used.

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