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Show SAWDUST MAY TAKE PLACE OF GASOLINE AS MOTOR FUEL Development of Wood Into Alcohol Through Scientific Sci-entific Methods Now Being Worked Out. THE development ef sawdust through the newest scientific methods Into a true grain alcohol alco-hol which can be used as a fuel : for automobiles is now being worked out on the Canadian side of the international inter-national boundary, according to officials of the forest products laboratory of the federal forest service in Washington, which was a pioneer in this line of experimenting. ex-perimenting. "I am inclined to think, however," said Howard F. Weiss director of the American laboratory, ''that the Canadian Cana-dian forester who prophesies that Canadian Cana-dian made alcohol will eventually be distributed dis-tributed through underground pipes like . city gas is a little too enthusiastic in his views. He is, however, on the right track in the development of alcohol as a motor fuel." Big Supply Available. An enormous supply of wood waste is available in the great valleys of the Willow, Nechako, Bulkley and Skeena rivers in central British Columbia, where the forests have been giving way 'to agriculture in part, but where there is still a limitless supply of big timber. J? This territory has recently been opened up by the new transcontinental Grand Trunk Pacific, and it is on woods taken L from this region that the experiments for the production of alcohol have been w;arried on. The wood waste is broken down by distillation and the wood alco hol produced, converted by simple processes proc-esses into a true grain alcohol. With approximately 3,000,000 motor vehicles doing dutv in the United States, from 1,000,000,000' to 1,200,000,-000 1,200,000,-000 gallons of gasoline have to be provided pro-vided annually to keep them running. There are unmistakable signs that the production of ' this enormous volume of gasoline will -become increasingly difficult, diffi-cult, and as a consequence there is in the minds of .many automobile engine students the vague thought that gasoline, gaso-line, while the fuel of today, may have to give way to some other product tomorrow. to-morrow. Although the calorific power of alcohol alco-hol is little more than one-half that of gasoline, its efficiency alcohol, 28 per cent, gasoline, 16 per cent compensates for this. This higher efficiency of alcohol alco-hol is due to various causes, chief among which are the following: The volume of air required for complete combustion of alcohol is only about one-third that required by gasoline, and thus much less energy en-ergy goes away in the exhaust. Moreover, this small dilution with air enables a more perfect mixture to be formed with consequent more perfect combustion. The alcohol-air mixture can be safely subjected to pressures of 200 pounds a square inch without spontaneous spon-taneous ignition, whereas the safety safe-ty limit for gasoline is eighty. All mixtures of alcohol and air containing from 4 to 13.6 per cent of alcohol are explosive, whereas the explosive range for gasoline is from 2 to 5 per cent, necessitating much more careful carbureter adjustment. ad-justment. The combustion products of alcohol alco-hol are smokeless, almost odorless and do not clog up the cylinders and valves. The only serious difficulty en- ALBERT TRACY f - : f 5 s l tl a? -tit (president Jeffery Distributing Co. Jef-fery, Jef-fery, Jeffery trucks. countered would be the starting of the engine in cold weather, and this would be provided for by carrying a small auxiliary gasoline tank to be used in starting. Of all the possible sources, the most interesting, owing: to the low cost of raw material, is the waste from the lumber industry,, particularly particu-larly that in the form ct' sawdust or small chips. This material in toe vicinity-of sawmills or woodworking plants is often en item of less owing ow-ing to its production hi excess of their own power requirements, its value neve?- ris.iu above 50 cents a ton, even when used as a source of rower. This disposal cf this superfluous super-fluous waste cost; from HO to 66 cents a cord of ISO pounds, the to-.tal to-.tal annual loss from this cause amounting to about $6.0.00,000 annually, an-nually, tn addition to the value of the wood so burned. What Ton Will Yield. . From exnoriments which have been carefully conducted by various va-rious experimenters, a. ton of dry sawdust has been found to yield, with proper treatment, around twenty twen-ty to twenty-five gallons of 95 per cent alcohol (ethvl or grain alcohol, not wood nlcohol, for this Intter is useless for fuel purposes owing to the formation of products of combustion com-bustion which would wreck the cylinders), cyl-inders), and we could have therefore there-fore an estimated production from this source alone of around 500,-Onn.noo 500,-Onn.noo gallons annually. More careful saving of the waste in the forests can easily double the amount of wood which can be converted con-verted into alcohol and thus eventually event-ually meet this question of motor car fuel. |