Show thrift in coal now Is A national necessity BY GEORGE gergi OTIS SMITH even the optimist needs to keep books americas leadership in production and her unparalleled position in wealth of raw materials do not obviate the necessity that she should occasionally take account of stock on the contrary the very variety and abundance of our natural resources resource es make a careful inventory more essential to a busi ness like administration of our estate than inthe if the united states were a smaller country with only a few resources in moderate quantity with nations as with men wealth is no excuse for waste and thrift should be regarded as a national as well as a personal virtue coal is the shortest word we have to express industrial power and domestic comfort even the rumor of a coal shortage simply demonstrates that this fuel is in reality the staff of life to the industrial world and the temporary stoppage of any of the larger sources of supply threatens a nationwide nation wide crisis shut down donn our coal mines and the country becomes not only cold but idle and hungry the figures of our total coal resources millions of millions of tons or even the few hundred millions of tons of our annual output are too large to be grasped and it becomes necessary to express the facts in smaller quantities roughly speaking 1000 tons of coal is what a mine worker mines in a year the measure of what he contributes to the worlds work and well being this human measure of 1000 tons also has the advantage of being easily visualized as a short train load 20 cars of coal on its way to serve the varied needs of the consumer and in our brief review of the subject we may well first note what are these needs the principal uses of coal among which this unit of 1000 tons is divided how coals use is distributed broadly stated the largest use of coal is in furnishing motive power and heat for our industries and public utilities tons out of every 1000 tons mined going to the boiler house of factory mill shop or power plant but next to these seven carloads of coal distributed throughout the country are five cars or tons of coal which the railroads need for their own use the domestic demand for coal comes next tons butof out of each 1000 tons of anthracite and bituminous coal being used in the homes of the land for heating and cooking the coke ovens require nearly as much as the homes or tons and the balance of p director united states geological survey steel r read at session of american iron and eel institute october 22 1920 our miners contribution includes the coal for export and bunker use sixty tons the thirty five tons of coal used in operating the coal mines themselves which of course does not make up a part of our train load and the ten tons that goes to the gas works even in this simple analysis of the uses of coal it would be difficult to establish any rigid scheme of priorities we absolutely need coal tor for each of these uses and this nationwide nation wide dependence upon coal is so evident as to demand general generah attention to the subject of thrift in coal every citizen should do his part in making the best use of coal but the responsibility of leadership in economy may with justice be placed upon the larger users a priority of duty that I 1 believe will appeal to sense of fitness the steel industry required in 1918 about tons of coal slightly more than two thirds of it in the form of coke so in dependence upon coal your industry stands next to the railroads at the bottom of the list of uses of coal stated quantitatively is blacksmithing and the annual requirement of blacksmithing coal is less than a million tons contrast with the great steel plant which consumes its four million tons of coal each year the village smithy which uses fifty pounds a day and the question arises where is it of greater national concern that we begin to practice thrift in coal at the little shop or at the big steel works during the war the patriotic effort was made to save wheat and sugar in every home however humble and the aggregate results of such nationwide nation wide thrift were most gratifying yet with coal a different policy of initiating thrift seems warranted the great industrial establishment or the superpower plant rather than the home is the place where saving will accomplish most on threshold of fuel economy we are on the threshold of fuel economy unprecedented high prices for coal have summoned american genius to the task of getting the full value out of the half billion tons of bituminous coal we burn each year indeed we ibave have been too long content simply to burn coal rather than to use it with coal at a dollar a ton the consumer was the profiteer and profiteer like he thought it paid him to disregard any claims except those of his own immediate gain now the higher prices have opened our eyes to higher values in coal and we begin to see the possibilities of profit in avoiding waste both in the mine and in the boiler room we do not have to recognize the claims of posterity for coal conservation for we can see money in it for our own generation to mine the coal that we have been leaving underground to utilize every possible heat unit in what we burn and especially to recover everything of value that the coal contains As the largest user of coal next to the railroads your steel industry can most appropriately lead off in defining this issue and meeting it in a way worthy of american engineering the scale on which your industry operates makes your possible contribution trib ution in coal economy a large one and your experience in stopping leaks and in turning losses into profits simply justifies the nation in putting the question to you Is the american iron and steel institute with its splendid equipment of engineering and financial talent as well as its unparalleled command of capital doing all it can with the million tons of coal it receives each year when we indorse mr hoovers characterization teriza tion of the bituminous coal industry as worst functioning industry in the country it is with no spirit of unfriendly criticism the simple fact must be faced that the story of coal is a story of waste all the way from the face of the mine working to the smokestacks smoke stacks of the boiler plant waste of a natural resource waste of human endeavor waste of capital waste of transportation por tation capacity and waste of energy and of none of these have we enough much less any to spare it is customary to express our coal resources in terms of tons in the ground but how inflated such an inventory becomes when we realize that of the ton of coal in place where nature stored it for the use of man the amount converted into mechanical energy under the average practice of today is only seventy six pounds wasteful methods reproved the proportion of coal we leave underground is a sad commentary on our appreciation of the value of coal and the margin between high recovery which may be stated at 95 per cent and the average recovery of 70 per cent or less shows to what extent we are still wasting our coal at one place alone and where the world does not see the waste by increasing the average output of the mine worker we have made a gain of 50 per cent in the last three decades so that we are saving man power if not coal not only is coal wasted in the mining for no sooner does a ton reach the surface than forty four pounds 0 of f it is taken as toll for running the mine indeed in the anthracite mines where often more water is raised than coal the combined pumping hoisting and breaker operating cost expressed in coal has been stated as high as pounds to the ton but electrification of coal mines is gradually coming with gratifying results in efficiency of operation and economy of fuel in the mines of logan county west virginia the saving in coal effected by supplying power from a central station has been estimated at 50 to 75 per cent and the experience of the lehigh coal and navigation company at its rahn colliery is no less satisfactory A hoisting test by this company showed that in steam practice the standby stand by consumption of coal was nearly equal to that of the working hours it is wholly conservative to figure that 50 per cent of coal now used in mine operation can be saved by simply extending electra fi cation from central stations even though this carrying of power to the mine mouth might seem illogical the consumer cannot evade his share of responsibility because of the 1274 pounds of coal delivered at his boiler plant pounds was lost in firing he had been buying B T Us simply to throw away 40 per cent mr edwin ludlow relates his observations ions at a large plant where pride was taken in the fact that only the highest grade coal was used a standard of B T Us being insisted on but mr ludlow called the attention of the companas comp anys executive officer to his boiler room leaks his steam results showing that he was obtaining only B T Us from this high grade coal that coal user needed expert firemen more than chemists better practice rather than more theory another measure of coal waste in the generation of power even where the conditions promoting efficiency are much more favorable is afforded by the records of the public utility plants of massachusetts during the month of june last the average coal consumption in all these plants was pounds per kilo watt hour but at the largest plant of the largest company the average was 18 pounds a saving in coal of more than 20 per cent representing the difference between best practice and average practice how to save coal is the question how to save coal on a countrywide country wide scale is the question mr 0 0 P hood of the bureau of mines has made the point that in a boiler plant construction operation and fuel are to a certain extent interchangeable skillful planning and careful operation can take the place of part of the coal and on the other hand cheap coal has made possible careless firing of poorly constructed boilers without the wastefulness of the whole procedure being apparent on the books waste that can be seen only as a theoretical proposition does not appeal with the same force as waste that writes itself in red figures and now that coal is no longer as chea cheap p as dirt but has taken on the dignity that comes with higher prices we naturally be gin to think of careful use just as we learned with foodstuffs during the war we are learning now that the higher value must be both given to coal and won from it thus the opportunity has arrived for the fuel engineer to teach us thrift in coal with all the marvelous record of industrial progress in the united states we have good reason to ask ourselves it if our knowl edge far ahead of our practice As a matter of plain fact to make great advances in coal saving it is not necessary to adopt untried theories in winning larger values from the coal we use the first step is simply to lift average practice up to the level of the best practice even if the law of the survival of the fittest under the present somewhat more humane rules of public regulation does not today have full force in economic evolution it remains of utmost importance to the world that industry should feel the pull of its most progressive units take for example the possible coal saving by the massachusetts public utilities if their average efficiency should be raised not to a theoretical standard of fuel economy but only to the standard achieved in actual practice by the largest company which I 1 have just cited the result would be nearly a third of a million tons less coal needed each year by these plants an appreciable relief in a single state especially in a state where as you know it is so difficult to keep the stocks of steam fuel up to a safe level still more striking is the evidence that can be brought forward to show the coal saving possible through the larger use of electricity as the agency in applying the energy in coal to the aid of human labor again it is proper to note in advance that the steel industry is already motor driven as probably no other industry is indeed the motors used by your industry aggregate nearly one third of the power of all the motors installed in the united states without allowing for the great possible saving of coal by the full develop development ment of our water power combined and coordinated with steam power in large systems of electrical generation and distribution the contrast between present average practice and best practice in power generation is so great as to strain our confidence in the simple figures of coal waste contrast between average and best practice the statistics of fuel consumption show that the average steam plant which is a small one about h p uses eight times as much coal as is necessary in the largest central stations where the profit payable to thrift is recognized that is assuming the same consumption as the average central station of the same size our average sized industrial steam plant would use ten pounds per horsepower hour if to this initial saving of seven pounds of coal out of eight at the large electric power station are added the possible savings on the railroad and at the mine the ratio between present average practice and present best practice becomes nearly 12 to 1 even if this indictment of waste is discounted one half the power users of this country stand convicted of almost criminal negligence for cheap power and plenty of it provide the only way to retain americas industrial leadership for this reason both labor and capital are vitally interested in the power supply in the contrast between wasteful and the economical use of our coal we find that the big electric station with its modern modem steam turbine equipment uses along with pounds of coal another pounds from which it derives no return this seems wasteful enough but the little steam plant with its poor load factor as well as much less efficient equipment losing heat units up the stack in the ash pit through the steam pipes and in the engine wastes pounds of coal for every pounds it really utilizes nearly a 16 to I 1 ratio in favor of the big plant so too if railroads and mines were electrified and only 5 per cent of the coal instead of 30 per cent were left underground pounds of coal would mine and bring to the big plant the coal burned in generating 1000 horsepower hours instead of the pounds now actually required in serving the average steam plant with the five tons of coal it burns to get the same product of useful energy the total cost of 1000 horsepower hours in terms of coal resources is therefore about two thirds of a ton with efficient use and nearly eight tons under average conditions of waste at the little plant it is cause for general satisfaction then that in the first half of 1920 we find the power output of the central stations of the country increased more than 16 per cent over that of the corresponding period last year while the fuel used seems to have increased in I 1 not over half that percentage these public utility plants the trend is decidedly toward fuel economy new coking practice is great saver the use of coal in america for making 11 coke dates back some eighty years but the operation of product byproduct by ovens covers only one third of that period and indeed only last year did the output of byproduct by product coke first equal that of beehive coke the field I 1 is thus divided between the old and the new practice but two advantages of the by pro duct ovens over the beehive ovens alone show how much the full substitution wi mean to our country first the yield of coke in the product byproduct by ovens compared wit that in the beehive ovens is 23 to 25 per P coals alid an cent greater with the low volatile 7 to 8 per cent greater even with the high hig the vold volatile tile pittsburgh coal and second recovery of 7 to 15 gallons of tar benz of s and other oils 16 to 20 90 pounds con c phate of |